[img]1048|left|Jim Clarke||no_popup[/img]Third in a series
Re “Why Clarke Came Home to L.A.”
Before returning to Los Angeles to join the top tier of Mayor Villaraigosa’s staff, politically savvy was best known for his years of association with now-retired U.S. Rep. Diane Watson (D-Culver City).
“I had known her for years, worked on her campaign and had lived in her district for years,” Mr. Clarke said. “But that is not really where the story starts. In a past life, I was the Southern Secretary for the California Democratic Party. She was a state senator, and she was one of my nominators when I got elected.”
That also gets slightly ahead of the story.
“I did not grow up in a political family,” Mr. Clarke said.
However, he remembers exactly what sparked his interest.
“One time a local politician came to our front door. My father slammed the door in his face and told him to go to tell.
“And at the moment I figured, ‘Ah, this is a way to irritate my father — get into politics. My father was conservative, and not really interested in politics. It turned out, though, that through a quirk, my father ended up getting elected to our local City Council in a place in the East Bay Area called Pleasant Hill, about 30,000 people.
“The Council used the same rotation system Culver City does, and one year he became Mayor. At the same time, my sister was Chairwoman of the Contra Costa Republican Party Central Committee and I was the Chair of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party Central Committee.
“Yes, we did have family reunions,” he said with a huge smile. “But everybody had to be pretty careful.
Record Service?
“Back to my story. I was also Chair of the County party here for three years, moved up to Northern California, and when I came back, I was the secretary of the state Democratic Party for eight years.
“Turns out that during the 20th century, I served longer as a party officer than any other person, as far as I know.”
Before wading any deeper into the affable Mr. Clarke’s intriguing political career, an identity question was posed:
What is your principal talent?
“The first time I ran for the County Central Committee, my campaign slogan was, ‘Put the Organization into the Organization’ because I believe I have an ability to both see through, and to develop structure.
“This came about through training I did at the Coro Foundation, a public affairs training program. It is located in four or five cities, and they take 12 fellows a year through a series of internships with business, labor, community service, government, political campaigns. You are exposed to how public policy is made, and you get a parallax view of things. People such as Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla are Coro fellow graduates. Phil Angelides was the first person I met in Coro. He was in the class ahead of me. Robin Kramer (former Villaraigosa Chief of Staff)) was a classmate of mine at Coro.
“I had a master’s in public administration, and that along with Coro taught me how to get to the essence of who makes decisions and how policies come about and the ramification of those policies.”
(To be continued)
