Most – not all – of the Democratic candidates for Mayor of Los Angeles have clumsily solved the headache of how to craft their I Truly Care About You messages when they are confronted each week by a windstorm of face-to-face debates.
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Longshot Democrat candidate Emanuel Pleitez and Wendy Greuel at last debate
Political audiences are not stage-door johnnies who shadow the contenders where ‘ere they go. Therefore, why not xerox your responses?
For example, a week ago yesterday, City Controller Wendy Greuel, and City Council members Jan Perry and Eric Garcetti rhapsodized about how thrilled they were to be at Leo Baeck Temple, where they figured out passable Jewish connections the liberal crowd would swallow without a pause. The fourth person on the dais, conservative Kevin James, did not try to fool the audience into thinking Judaism was on his mind 25 hours a day.
Four nights later, at San Fernando Valley Democratic headquarters in Van Nuys, Mr. James, the non-Democrat, was out, and the all-Democrat lineup of Garcetti-Greuel-Perry now expanded to include newcomer Emanuel Pleitez, last seen in Boyle Heights two months ago.
Home Sweet…Whatever
By random count, the Home Is Where the Heart Is candidates were in their 19th hometown.
Mr. Garcetti, the coolest, smoothest, most self-convincing contender, who recycles two dozen times at each debate, “I am proud to have stood up for –,” rekindled another shopworn line that varies minimally at each stop:
“It’s great to be here in San Fernando (sic). The San Fernando Valley is home to me. This is where I grew up. It’s where I went on my first date, in Tarzana. I played Little League in Encino. It’s where my family lives. It’s a place that shaped who I am and shaped my values.”
This, after romancing Hollywood so heavily several weeks ago, some thought maybe he and the Hollywood community eventually would marry.
Ms. Greuel celebrated her real-life connection. “It kind of feels like coming home,” she said. None of the hundred partisans in the ground-floor storefront room on Victory Boulevard faded away in shock. “I have been in all of the headquarters in the last 10 years, walking precincts with you, making phone calls or teaching Thomas how to wrap those door-hangers and be able to move forward and knock on every door.”
Minimum-Age Mayor?
Thomas is Ms. Greuel’s 9-year-old son. His credentials are better known in some communities than hers because she talks about him incessantly.
With that informal acknowledgement of Thomas, she tied her record for restraint in uttering the name of one certain family member.
Not until her third sentence did Ms. Greuel even mentioning she has a son named Thomas. That, however, flung open the floodgates to more Tales of Thomas. Pollsters say Thomas is making a Romney-like surge in some parts of Los Angeles. He may yet overtake his mom and become the city’s first 9-year-old mayor.
Refreshingly, Ms. Perry, out of geographic luck since her Council district is South Los Angeles, didn’t even try to make a gauzy link with the Valley. It is foreign territory. An Ohio native who moved here as a college girl after making a Rose Bowl excursion in the 1970s, she aimed her lens to the political reason the candidates were on Van Nuys Boulevard. Raised in the Midwest, she said her Democrat parents fought racial segregation in the worst of times by showing her that hard work and a focused mind would help her rise in the wider, whiter world. “The manifestation of what it means to be a Democrat,” Ms. Perry said, “is a strong work ethic, a sense of fairness, leveling the playing field for everyone. It doesn’t matter where you came from, where you live, in the San Fernando Valley or South Los Angeles. Everybody wants the same thing.”
The Answer to Mayoral Puzzle?
Mr. Pleitez, an eloquent East Sider, revived a theme that he and Mr. James both have covered, that all of his rivals holding elected office have fallen short. He said that Los Angeles is “at a crossroads. We need to decide where we want to be and how we want to get there. Current elected officials on the stage here say that we are making progress. When I am out there talking to Angelenos, I know progress is not coming fast enough.
“It is hard to go up to men and women in Arleta, Sylmar, talk to them about how to find a job and tell them we are making progress. It’s hard to the victims in Van Nuys of last week’s crime and tell them the city never has been safer. It’s hard to talk to people in Pacoima, without any sidewalks or street lights, and tell them we are making progress.
“The solution to these problems,” Mr. Pleitez said, “is not necessarily electing someone with experience. This city needs change. It needs a mayor who will solve problems. It needs a mayor who will address the necessary issues, regardless of who is behind them, regardless of how popular they are. We have a runaway pension bill in this cite that is not being addressed. Unemployment, lack of industry, infrastructure crumbling and crime are found in many of our neighborhoods. These problems will not be solved by politicians who think we already are making real progress. We need a mayor who will take bold steps,” and Mr. Pleitez insisted he is that person.
