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It does a body good — especially a sensible Republican — to get out on the hustings, and I had a terrific time last evening at Mark Ridley Thomas’s Get Out the Vote Rally at his campaign headquarters at the intersection of Jefferson and Arlington.
A cross between an oldtime revival and a Sunday afternoon church picnic, the cheerleading would have revived a corpse.
Even at this late hour, it still is not clear whether Mr. Ridley-Thomas or his Republican-like rival Bernard Parks will win 50 percent-plus-1 on Tuesday and avert a November runoff for the 2nd District seat on
the County Board of Supervisors.
So last night’s rally was not merely a feel-good gesture. The enthusiastic Ridley-Thomas people meant it when they talked about the importance of filtering volunteers into the hundreds of neighborhoods that comprise the district that the retiring Yvonne Brathwaite (Why Do I Remind You of a 99-Cent Store?) Burke has “governed” for the past 16 years.
The People Were the Stars
But mostly, I was fascinated by the authentic crowd that came out to support state Sen. Ridley-Thomas (D-Culver City).
This was retail politics at its best, the kind of people I grew up with.
Politicians say they have the people with them as easily as they run a red light or tell a Nunez about their spending habits.
But here was evidence that after nearly 30 years in a political environment and nearly 20 years in elective office, the senator has the real people with him.
This was not the crowd on the corner looking for a handout, demanding to be paid to show up in a carnival-like atmosphere and shill for somebody whose name they can’t remember or spell.
Rewarded for His Service
No, sir. These were your neighbors, and they have been for years. These are the people Mr. Ridley-Thomas has communicated with, has visited, has responded to since he was first elected to the Los Angeles City Council.
He hasn’t been a remote voice. The people in this audience know his range of neckties, they know his speaking mannerisms, they are riveted, but not cowed, by his superior intelligence.
He could call many of them by name.
Every generation was richly represented, from teens to my people.
The only place I see that many men in suits — neat, tidy but not flashy — is in my synagogue. This is the cream of the middle class in what will be Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s 2 million-person district, if he succeeds, as he should, at the polls.
This was a salt-of-the-earth crowd, the best kind to have on your side.
Are the Stars Coming Out?
As one of the first arrivals, I kept peeking toward the doorway, searching for a recognizable personality other than the advertised Prof. Cornel West to crease the busy doorway.
Best I could tell, the only reasonably electric celebrity in the room – and he was pretty low-key — was former USC football player Keyshawn Johnson.
The rest were neighbors, and that is the kind of genuine testimony a politician can’t buy.
