[img]1610|left|Mike Feuer||no_popup[/img]How much is this morning’s Los Angeles Times endorsement of challenger Mike Feuer worth in the tense two-man race with the incumbent City Attorney?
Enough to decisively swing the pendulum out of Carmen Trutanich’s corner and solidly into Mr. Feuer’s for the March 5 primary election?
Maybe.
In an era of segmented, if not piecemeal, media, the lasting effect of the Times’s endorsement is different from a few years ago – and beyond that, it is best to wait 25 days for voters to decide.
Crucially, the Times endorsed Mr. Trutanich four years ago to succeed Rocky Delgadillo, and the newspaper dismounted from the incumbent this morning as if the horse’s tail were afire.
They ransacked Mr. Trutanich for so-called showboating. Such conduct ill becomes “a sober, seasoned counselor,” the newspaper charged.
Mr. Feuer, by comparison, said the Times, is an “experienced, thoughtful, well-rounded public official and lawyer.”
Most recently in the state Assembly, the former Los Angeles City Councilman isolated the value of the Times’s endorsement.
Gauging Worth of the Endorsement
“The high-propensity voters, those who go to the polls all the time, pay close attention to the L.A. Times,” Mr. Feuer told the newspaper this afternoon. “It isn’t just the endorsement. The content of what they said was extremely positive.”
In an email fired off at the noon hour today, Mr. Feuer highlighted the Times’s glowing message by providing the following link:
The L.A. Times just endorsed me to be the next L.A. City Attorney.
In response, John Schwada of the Trutanich campaign told the newspaper:
“The political battlefield is littered with failed candidates who got tons of endorsements, including ones from the L.A. Times. The Trutanich campaign can proudly point to the fact that four out of four polls taken in this race (two by SurveyUSA, one by Loyola Marymount University's Center for the Study of Los Angeles and one internal poll) show Trutanich is the frontrunner with the folks who count – the voters. We'll accept their judgment about who's the top candidate any day over what editorial boards and political insiders may think.”
Unquestionably Mr. Trutanich suffered a loss of favor with the newspaper a year ago when he rewrote an earlier promise and ran for County District Attorney, only to decisively lose in last June’s primary.
It is almost not possible for the two warriors to be more different, including in the following way:
Elected to office for the first time at the age of 57, buoyed by four heady years in one of City Hall’s most visible, interactive offices, Mr. Trutanich appears convinced of his perceived wide edges, and is confident of cruising to victory.
By contrast, Mr. Feuer has passed through a number of high-profile offices. He knows what it is like to lose. He is fighting (in pain from a December accident) to win this time as if he were a scrappy, driven, unrelenting spring training rookie chasing a veteran for the town’s one remaining prestigious position.
The Times rewarded Mr. Feuer with a bell-clanging sendoff into the last month before the primary. This was their literal bottom line:
“Some races pit candidates of comparable merits in competition and force voters to make tough choices. This is not one of them. Feuer is by far the strongest and most worthy candidate for city attorney.”
