He and others blamed the uneven, convulsing rhythms of all three candidates on the almost terminal uncertainty about the status of Mayor Albert Vera.
“It is Albert’s fault,” the pundit said.
“To say it differently, Albert got his way. You knew he would. Even though he didn’t run again, he certainly has influenced the chances of all three candidates.
‘The way you run your campaign has to do with the person or the field you are running against.
“Albert never really made it official that he was out. He never formally dropped out of the race, until it was almost over.
‘“As a result, the candidates kept looking over their shoulders. ‘Where’s Albert?’
‘“They were not sure he would run. And they were not sure he wouldn’t.
‘ “None of the candidates ever hit their stride. Until very late in the campaign, they didn’t exactly know who they were running against.”
One Way to ‘Run’ a Race
Mr. Vera, a three-term City Councilman who started announcing two years ago that he definitely would run this spring, shocked the Culver City corner of the world when he failed to file official documents by the mid-January deadline.
At the time, he was criticized for not withdrawing from the race earlier to give other prospective candidates a clearer shot.
No one within ten miles of City Hall had an inkling he would not run until he strategically blew the deadline. He even kept telling the Deputy City Clerk, on the day of the deadline, he would drive to City Hall and sign.
Everybody believed him,
Once the possibility was raised of being a write-in candidate, Mr. Vera followed that theme for a few weeks.
After it finally became apparent he wasn’t entering the race through any door, he made his first official contribution to the election season. He endorsed the rawest of the three candidates, the Irish-born Mr. O’Leary.
The O’Leary camp went into high gear. They tied the hugely popular Mr. Vera to their campaign in every way they could.
Whether it worked will not be known until the polls close.
Mr. Vera let it be known that maybe, just maybe, he would issue a second endorsement. Time, however, ran out.
‘For the last three months, the City Council candidates have been so worried about committing a mis-step that no one caught fire, making a prediction about the results as much of a guess as it would have been back in January.
Not a trend is in sight.
If a single candidate woke up this morning with even a smidgen of momentum on his side, it is the most closely held secret in town.
No one seems to hold a substantive lead, and no one appears to need to play catch-up.
The wait begins.
