First in a series
[img]1979|right|Supervisor Ridley-Thomas||no_popup[/img]Five years after walloping Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks for a County Supervisor’s seat, an aroused Mark Ridley-Thomas today hammered away at the “classless” former LAPD chief for seeking revenge against Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s son, Sebastian.
“It is tasteless and classless of Bernard to show his animosity for Sebastian’s father this way,” the County Supervisor said, launching into a wall of blistering charges. “Bernard is showing he has no boundaries.”
One week from tomorrow, his son Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, is heavily favored over Christopher Armenta – whom Mr. Parks actively is aiding – for the vacated state Assembly 54th seat that spans all of Culver City and southwest Los Angeles communities.
[img]2289|left|Bernard Parks||no_popup[/img]The elder Mr. Ridley-Thomas believes that Mr. Parks never has recovered from the 62 to 38 percent lacing he absorbed in the Supervisor’s race. That, he believes, is why Mr. Parks is prominently participating in robocalls to aid the trailing campaign of Mr. Armenta, who has switched horses in this campaign. He backed Mr. Ridley-Thomas over the chief in 2008.
“Armenta has made the calculated mistake of attacking me,” said Mark Ridley-Thomas.
As the decided underdog, Mr. Armenta started the fight by muting his own credentials and crying foul. He produced a racially selective mailer this month that vilified 26-year-old Sebastian Ridley-Thomas for having been born into a political family and then having the temerity to run for elective office while his father his father still held a powerful County position.
Mr. Armenta devoted the entire cover of his mailer to a definition of nepotism, presumably for the benefit of his less educated backers who are more susceptible to hype. Inside, Mr. Armenta accuses the Supervisor, whom he implies hates Thanksgiving and Chanukah (which starts the same day), of “push(ing) to have a very expensive special election two days after the Thanksgiving weekend and in the middle of Chanukah.”
[img]2290|right|Candidate Ridley-Thomas||no_popup[/img]The mailer even got Sebastian Ridley-Thomas’s age wrong while also unearthing an unflattering picture of the candidate that usually is found in family albums.
As for Mr. Armenta’s motive, Mark Ridley-Thomas said:
“He feels outclassed, outdone, outmaneuvered and essentially is striking out.
“Frankly I am very surprised by the ethnic implications he would choose to insert. This seems to be beneath the standards of core Democratic values.”
(To be contiunued)
