In the first — and perhaps lone — true campaign test of the 6 challengers for the School Board, most, but not all, helped themselves last night in the League of Women Voters Candidates Forum at City Hall.
At least three candidates learned that some blemishes cannot be masked while the mile-wide favorite for one of the three open seats, Karlo Silbiger, enjoyed what has become typical, a banner performance.
He is a powerhouse who could train the other contenders.
No one has come close to laying a hand on young Mr. Silbiger. His only imperfection is that he lacks Alan Elmont’s thick thatch of hair.
He knows the material as thoroughly as the uniquely qualified Mr. Elmont, communicates it better than his 5 rivals cumulatively. He is so clear in his declarations that meteorologists should study him.
Since there never has been a question about the validity and dominance of Mr. Silbiger’s qualities, the only issue from Opening Day has been:
What about the Fab Five? Who will join Mr. Silbiger on the refurnished Board at the start of December?
Two months into a three-month campaign they remain closely bunched with more good surprises than negative ones.
This being a School Board race in a pocket-sized community, the primary fiscal, academic and social issues are largely agreed upon.
With one and a fraction exceptions, all of the candidates can wake up at 3 any more and recite, by rote, the main questions and where they stand — bunched together.
As the Fab Five stands in Mr. Silbiger’s lengthy shadow, they are vibrant proof not all Americans are created equal.
In alphabetical, not qualification, order here is how they appeared to fare last night:
Gary Abrams — Although he is the least knowledgeable and least articulate of the candidates, he made a valiant, honest attempt to close the gulf with the rest of the field, and he succeeded. One of his problems is that in a group setting, he is destined to be overmatched.
When his pleasant personality is clicking — and it does suffer periodic outages — it seems like a shame to exclude him from the final three.
He knows just enough about the issues to edge close enough to the Three Winners to make it a contest. Another of his several problems is that he is the most uneven performing of the candidates. Never know if he is going to be mad or the most pleasant next-door neighbor you ever had, a handicap that is soluble, but maybe not in this cycle.
Alan Elmont — He was one who helped himself as he usually but not always does. His encyclopaedic knowledge of the School District probably would embarrass everybody on the first floor of the District office.
His drawback was and still may be:
How do you let people know you are shlepping in your vast mind more knowledge/information than any Board candidate in the history of the world after you r your wife attended every Board meeting for 17 years?
Dispensing the information, in swallowable doses, is more important than throwing the whole bank at everybody.
He has effective solutions for all that ails the District as well as Mr. Silbiger. But you can’t turn a box upside down on a lawn and spill all that you know to the community at one time. He may need to parcel out his answers more narrowly, more specifically instead of overwhelming a questioner/voter.
Kathy Paspalis —If these forums were held in a back room, she might be the star every night. Public speaking is a large puzzle for the crack attorney — she is better than she was, but she is a long way from the summit with 3 1/2 weeks to go.
She is one of those candidates you want to pull for, but she still has not demonstrated that she can deliver on gravitas.
She appears to be mesmerized by platitudes, which throw up a wall between here and voters because they don’t have a strong enough sense of what she will do for them.
Declaring at the outset of your 2-minute introduction that “I want to be your voice on the School Board” plays in the movies but not very often in real life.
Cerebrally she is in the first rank of candidates, but you have to be able to convey to voters how and why you are a fabulous candidate instead of hoping they will innately comprehend that.
Prof. Patricia Siever — She, too, is in the “you want to pull for” category, which means, by definition, you are an underdog running to catch up. Outcome: Uncertain.
Typical was her 2-minute introduction. Sitting on the elevated dais in Council Chambers, where the City Council sits each Monday, she was pretty nervous. She is smart enough to have been a successful professor in community colleges for more than 30 years, and this shows the nervousness bug bites the best at the most inopportune times.
The timing was unhelpful because, even though a longtime resident and moderately public figure, she rarely has addressed such a specialty crowd, pitching her wares. She half read, half ad-libbed her introduction, and you know what you get with a half-hamburger, half-hot dog — you are not sure what it tastes like.
Flatly, she is an extraordinary candidate. But she has to unscramble a message that became mixed when she tried to compensate for the fact that even though she is a hometowner, because her DNA says West Los Angeles College, where she teaches, some parochial people (incorrectly) see her as an outsider.
On paper, it is a tiny point. In real life, it could be a glitch.
Robert Zirgulis — He has grown, matured, more than any other candidate — sprinting from far back to respectable status,. He shows that a serious person can make an efficient recovery from a botched start and profit from mistakes.
Just last month, a live audience laughed derisively at him. Offstage, others were talking, embarrassingly, about him. He reacted the way many would. He swung back, hard.
And then he did the mature thing. He hitched up his pants, had a private talk with himself, reviewed, acknowledged why he was bombing — loony-sounding solutions to vexing problems.
He scaled down his solutions, toned down and sharply revamped his oratory. Realizing that the outer package his important, he stands out nicely because almost always he turns up in white shirt, necktie and coat, hardly the average on the Westside.
Now that he is looking, acting and talking the part, he may be position to make a surprising finish.
You Have More Chances
Modern technology offers a solution for the 39,950 Culver City residents who missed the showcase of the season that Frances Talbott-White led with faultless aplomb.
Televised to the community on Channel 35, and available by dialing smartvoter.org, voters may closely and repeatedly evaluate each office-seeker between now and Election Day, Nov. 3.
