Re “James, the Outsider Who Is Knocking on the Door to Go Inside”
[img]1574|left|Kevin James||no_popup[/img]Kevin James hates being portrayed as a long distance contender for next March 5’s primary election for Mayor of Los Angeles when he is convinced he is as eminently armed for office as his more glamourous rivals, three elected City Hall types.
City Council members Eric Garcetti and Jan Perry, and City Controller Wendy Greuel, who used to be on the Council, tout their City Hall bona fides so loudly at every forum that a deaf old lady in Denver could ask, “Eh, what?”
A lawyer for 25 years, a federal prosecutor in the early ‘90s, a conservative radio talk show host in Los Angeles for a decade and a very prominent executive for years with Aids Project L.A., may tell you he stands as accomplished as any opponent.
The James Edge?
To his advantage over all of them, Mr. James said one recent afternoon high above the Century City Mall, is that “I know how City Hall works, I know how to fix what is wrong, and, importantly, I am not beholden to anyone.
“I have heard people say I don’t have experience in government. That is not true. I worked for the government in the Justice Dept., as a federal prosecutor, here in Los Angeles. Some people think I worked in Washington. And it was kind of Washington because of some of the cases we worked on.”
Significantly, he has approached the present marathon campaign from the ground up, from the perspiration-soaked perspective of residents rather than the glitz gallery because of his worklife experience.
Mr. James said his days in radio helped prepare him for his present challenge in ways that may have eluded the casual follower.
“I want people to know more about my talk radio career,” said the 49-year-old attorney, born in Oklahoma and still the owner of a speech pattern that does not mask his roots.
How I Was Trained
“So much of what was valuable about my talk radio career was my ability to talk to people in every corner of this city. Talk radio covers local matters, which means you have to be a listener as much as you are a talker.
“I learned early on that, if you want the richness of what is going on in our community, it’s not coming from the L.A. Times and the Daily News, with respect to them.
“It is coming from inside of our communities,” Mr. James said. “The easiest way for me to infiltrate those communities as a radio host to find out what was going on was through the neighborhood council system.
“In the process, I developed years’ long relationships with neighborhood council leadership throughout the city. That has been very valuable to me in this campaign.
“One of the things I think may surprise people about me – and even Jim Newton of the L.A. Times mentioned this – was as an outsider, my command and understanding of the issues, my command and understanding of how City Hall works.”
(To be continued)
