First of two parts
What an inquiring reporter learned walking through Downtown and venturing out into the neighborhoods on Election Night when two incumbents and two newcomers were elected to the City Council by Culver City voters:
Slightly iconoclastic Stephen Murray, who finished sixth, was the first candidate encountered, mainly because he spent most of his evening in Council Chambers where the votes were being tallied.
Finishing almost 1200 votes behind fifth place Scott Malsin (841 to 2013), Mr. Murray, typically, did not display emotion. Neither disconsolate nor surprised, “I am exhausted,” he said.
Was he ready for the 2014 election when just-minted Jim Clarke and veteran Jeff Cooper are expected to run? “I am not going to run against Clarke,” Mr. Murray said. “I probably will work on his re-election campaign, actually, unless something funny happens between here and there.”
Of the present campaign, he said:
“At many of the candidate forums, I was like a lone voice out there.”
Mr. Murray was a surprise entrant in the race last winter when he introduced himself as a left-leaning environmentalist. But that slot in the six-way race already was occupied with the much higher profile Meghan Sahli-Wells. She would finish as the second highest votegetter after a heartbreaking defeat two years ago.
“Meghan has cornered the sutainability market,” he said. “That is what caused me to go searching for other causes to differentiate myself from her.”
Another unexpected turn:
“I revere Andy Weissman,” he said, “but I think I felt the greatest kinship in this campaign with Malsin himself, with Malsin the man. I don’t know – I like him.”
That marked a strong reversal because at the first candidate forum at the Culver City Democratic Club, Mr. Murray shocked the hardly partisan Malsin crowd by pointedly criticizing him.”
In reflecting on his first run for office, he said, wistfully, that he either found himself “dodging bullets or (the community) lost out on one of its greatest opportunities for change.
“Running a campaign Takes a lot out of you. I just don’t know if I can do it again.
“But I definitely will be doing other things in the city because I have been awakened.”
And now it was time to dash two blocks east on Culver Boulevard to Rush Street, upstairs, where Mr. Weissman was in the first minutes of a huge victory and return to the City Council.
(To be continued)
