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Can anyone doubt that Sebastian and Mark Ridley-Thomas, celebrating the former’s victory, are father and son? Photo, Fred MacFarlane.
Displaying the poise and composure of a veteran of 26 campaigns rather than resembling the 26-year-old that he is, surging Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, scion of, arguably, the First Family of political Los Angeles, romped to a widely predicted lopsided victory last night in a special election for the state Assembly’s vacant 54th District seat.
Star power was ubiquitous – in the audience and elsewhere – on this night of nights for the Ridley-Thomas family when the patriarch, County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, did not exactly pass the traditional torch of power to his twin son.
In the prime of his own career at the age of 59, rounding out a term as Chairman of the Board of Supes, Mr. Ridley-Thomas the Elder merely gave his son one end of the torch to jointly hold. They will, uh, share. It ain’t exclusively Sebastian’s yet, and it won’t be for quite awhile, if pop has his way.
During the late campaign, Mr. Ridley-Thomas the Younger, in unquestioned, impressively asserted command of the heavily tilted race from Opening Day to Closing Day, demonstrated his maturity and iron discipline by the way he responded to a potentially poisonous charge that threatened to dominate, if not damage, his campaign.
Family Ties
His chief opponent, Christopher Armenta, former City Councilman in Culver City, sensing fast that he was running a steep No. 2 behind the well-armed Mr. Ridley-Thomas, unloaded and constantly repeated a charge that Mr. Ridley-Thomas was sailing the Good Ship Nepotism, via his powerful father’s “unfair,” “unethical” influence.
Instead of swinging back and making it a campaign centerpiece, as Mr. Armenta had hoped, Mr. Ridley-Thomas treated it as a horsefly on his shoulder. He scarcely acknowledged it, and then only inspecifically, which voters could not help but notice. He flicked it off without allowing the potential drone shot to affect his speedy pace and his unperturbed campaign message of “jobs, healthcare and education.”
In Culver City, he impressed leaders such as United Parents of Culver City president Jeannine Wisnosky Stehlin, and Chamber of Commerce officers Steve Rose and Goran Eriksson with his almost encyclopaedic grasp of the community’s deep-inside issues and his intentions regarding them. These persons influenced their friends and followers. Such outbursts of enthusiasm helped to swell the tide of Culver City support – for the first time in years – for a candidate for the Legislature.
Jubilant Environment
Amidst a musically and emotionally throbbing atmosphere that was simultaneously electric and allergic at the hugely overcrowded Post & Beam restaurant in the Crenshaw District, Mr. Ridley-Thomas stepped on stage at 10:10 p.m., 130 minutes after the polls closed, to declare victory.
He needed 50 percent plus one to avoid a February runoff. He topped 60 percent, holding his nearest rival to about one-third.
“This wasn’t simply my campaign,” Mr. Ridley-Thomas called out over the cheers. “This was our campaign. We were all in this effort together. Our campaign was about having a new vision. Our campaign was about electing a new generation of leadership. Our campaign was about making a new commitment to the people of the 54th Assembly District,” he said.
Hundreds of well-dressed supporters – the most smartly attired crowd in town – elevated the Post & Beam’s ceiling toward the gentle evening sky as one Ridley-Thomas family member after another stepped to the microphone to savor and to vocally engrave this once-in-a-lifetime moment of a maiden victory.
Only Ridley-Thomases were allowed at the mic.
First there was Avis Ridley-Thomas, the candidate’s mother, followed by Sinclair, Sebastian’s easily mistaken lookalike twin, who proved he is as capable in a jubilant setting as any relative, the candidate himself, and then came his father to announce that Sebastian was running safely far ahead.
Speaker of the Assembly John Perez , Los Angeles City Councilmen Paul Koretz and Curren Price, the winner’s old boss, headed the list of political celebrities.
Despite his investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars in a vibrant campaign enlivened by the one-way name-calling controversy, barely 6 percent of voters turned out, and here is what they said:
Mr. Ridley Thomas, 11, 182 – 60.02 percent
Christopher Armenta, 6,706 -35.99 percent
John Jake, 744 – 3.99 percent
Mr. Ridley-Thomas is going back to Sacramento – where he most recently worked as a senior member on the staff of former state Sen. Price, having convinced voters of Culver City and southwest Los Angeles that he was far better qualified to trod effective legislative paths in the capital than his inexperienced opponents.
