[img]1792|right|Jim Clarke||no_popup[/img]First dustup of the election season.
There is a 100 percent predictability that the next time you encounter Jim Clarke, the most ubiquitous City Councilman in community history, he will be wearing an authentic smile – just not, emphatically not, today.
At last night’s Culver City Democratic Club meeting, Mr. Clarke, a member for exactly half of his years, won one of the two endorsements for the April 8 City Council election.
He finished second, not to his fellow incumbent, Mayor Jeff Cooper, but to first-time contender Christopher Patrick King.
It wasn’t so much that he was second to Mr. King, but how it occurred that severely vexed Mr. Clarke.
Bullet voting for his nearest rival was the object of his criticism.
He opened with a soft shoe. “I am very thankful to the club for the endorsement,” Mr. Clarke said this morning. “I appreciate it very much. They were very helpful to me. Let me start with that.
“But there were 58 ballots cast (on a small turnout evening), and there was something like 97 votes, 36 for Chris, 35 for me, 23 for Jeff Cooper and three for Gary Abrams.
“That means there were 16 ballots in which only one candidate was voted on. It so happens that I think a lot of those were people who came in to support Chris King. I don’t know this for sure.
The Mail Was No Pal
“Here’s another matter. I got home after the club meeting, and the club newsletter was in my mailbox. So the newsletter announcing the meeting hadn’t even arrived for people.
“Somebody else told me this morning they still haven’t seen their club newsletter.
“It was a very small crowd, 58 people, and I think 16 or so were people Chris King recruited to join the club in the past month. They came in and, again, I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think any of my people bullet-voted. I didn’t ask them to bullet vote. I don’t think any of Jeff’s people bullet voted.
“There might have been some people who didn’t support the two of us. That’s fine. They could have supported me and Chris or Jeff and Chris or Gary Abrams.
“So where,” asked Mr. Clarke, “are those missing 16 votes? It makes a big difference.”
Here is a separate Mr. Clarke take on the outcome.
Why, if All Know Him?
“For somebody who has been active in this club for 37 years, to get the bare minimum to be endorsed…” He left the finish of the sentence open to a shooting-fish-in-a-barrel conclusion.
“The bullet voting is upsetting,” Mr. Clarke said.
The Councilman was asked if there was a way to prevent or discourage it.
“I mentioned it while the debate was beginning,” he said. “I looked down and said, ‘This is a very small crowd.’ We had a packed room for the (candidates forum for the) School Board election.
“Fifty-eight ballots,” Mr. Clarke repeated. “Not a big crowd. The fact people didn’t get their newsletters, and they may not even have known about this thing. Yeah, that bothered me.
“I guess it’s up to me as a candidate to start calling club members to make sure they know an endorsement meeting is coming.
“But generally, I have been so involved with the club. Club members know me. I am there. I go to almost every club meeting.
“And so, it’s like something was up,” Mr. Clarke said.
“What’s that all about?”
The Councilman’s conclusion:
“It is perfectly legal if people want to bullet vote. If you had a hundred people, then the bullet voting would not have mattered as much.
“But in this case, it accounts for 30 percent of the votes.
“When one candidate starts with 30 percent of the votes to the exclusion of everybody else…”
