First of two parts
(See Clarke campaign song lyrics below)
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Mr. Clarke is joined by two School Board members, Laura Chardiet and president Kathy Paspalis.
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Councilman Jim Clarke, flanked by Steve Gourley, one of Culver City’s most election officials, and Bob Knopf, former School Board member. Photos, Sandy Schwartz.
Promising the most melodious campaign of the political season, braced by songwriter Laura Chardiet and her collaborator Maren Neufeld, City Councilman Jim Clarke, Culver City’s Mr. Ubiquitous, yesterday received his reward for ubiquity.
At his kickoff for re-election at the mid-town home of Mike Cohen, Mr. Culver City, most of those people whom Mr. Clarke has been visiting since taking office, came out on Opening Day of his re-election campaign to wish him green lights and blue skies.
This was the kind of launching candidates dream about – smilingly surrounded by scores of the community’s most important, most active personalities, and enough food from Albert Vera’s Sorrento Market to feed everyone his late father met in the past 53 years, and their grandchildren, too.
Andy Weissman, Mr. Clarke’s Council colleague since a year ago last April, introduced him on the spacious back patio.
It was Mr. Weissman who first attached the Mr. Everything label to Mr. Clarke. After a lifetime of helping others get elected, Mr. Clarke hit his stride in his mid-60s, running for elective office for the first time, filling the last two years of Scott Malsin’s unexpired term.
Seen often around Culver City, but not really known intimately by residents, and a longtime resident of Raintree himself, Mr. Clarke promptly unlocked the door to a treasure chest of instant and enduring popularity.
As Mr. Weissman cracked yesterday, wherever three or more are gathered, Mr. Clarke is likely – if not a cinch – to appear.
And here is the quality that seems to have won over the community. He did not merely make a cameo and vanish. He absorbs the contents of the meeting, and such topics commonly arise during City Council meetings.
Mr. Clarke’s presence has become such a reliable event that people are surprised if he is not in the audience.
(To be continued)
Song for Jim Clarke’s Campaign Kickoff
(Sung to Santa Baby)
Mr. Clarke,
We hear you’re running for Councilman
Again
We’d like to give a little advice to you
And help you get elected tonight
No more fracking
And while you’re at it please continue
Attacking
Cuz we don’t want no more plastic bags and or empty lots that cause city blight
On April 8th, we’ll vote for Jim
Can’t celebrate the Centennial without him
So write some checks and give them to me-a
And then write another for CicLAvia
Jimmy, Jimmy
You sure do like a meeting or two, it’s true
You’re here and there and everywhere, aren’t you?
Re-elect Jim Clarke, he don’t bite
