How did they win?
How did Andy Weissman, Chris Armenta and Mehaul O’Leary — three disparate gentlemen whose previous lives rarely intersected — beat out six opponents for the prized seats on the City Council, starting Monday, April 28?
Councilman Steve Rose said the key in each case was name recognition. The winners were the best known personalities across Culver City.
Others said it was because the winners operated the three best organized campaigns.
A whiz at figures and more advanced calculations, George Laase, an occasional columnist for the newspaper, loves to dissect election results.
It probably is the scientist hiding out within him.
He loves statistical factoids, often but not always leaving extrapolation up to readers.
Mr. Weissman won 10 precincts, Mr. Armenta the other three.
Mr. Weissman finished second in two precincts and a close third (5 votes behind) in the other.
By contrast, Mr. O’Leary, in third place, was all over the landscape, leading some to wonder how he could have scored a victory. He had two second-place finishes, six third-place finishes, two fourths, two fifths and one sixth. Mr. Laase’s conclusion: “Mehaul may not have finished first or second, but voters thought he was better than the six candidates behind him.” The zig-zagging can partially be explained by the wildly varying sizes of the turnouts at each precinct. Mr. O’Leary’s vote totals spanned from 24 to 328.
Loni Anderson, who ran fifth among the nine challengers, was deemed the most consistent. She placed fourth or fifth in all 13 polling locations.
Mr. Weissman’s name was marked on 64 percent of ballots, which Mr. Laase deemed “excellent.”
Mr. Armenta was marked on 55 percent.
Mr. O’Leary on 45 percent.
Among other Election Day gems:
Karlo Silbiger, the campaign manager of Mr. Armenta, already is one of the shrewdest political minds in town, even at a tender age.
He also is prescient. He picked the exact order of finish: Mr.Weissman, Mr. Armenta, Mr. O’Leary, Jeff Cooper, Ms. Anderson, Dr. Luther Henderson, Cary Anderson, Randy Scott Leslie and Gary Russell.
“The smartest thing Chris and I did,” said Mr. Silbiger, “was to sit down in the beginning, ‘way back in November. I said to him, ‘When you get elected, what do you want to do?’
“We made a big list. Every single mailer we sent out, we included the list in it. Our thinking was, let the people know exactly what he intends to do. No empty promises. No beating around the bush.
“I think people appreciated knowing exactly what he stood for.”
After Losing
Mr. Cooper, who ran fourth, dashed across the street after his elimination, to congratulate Mr. Weissman, the top votegetter, at the Culver Hotel.
“I feel a lot of relief that the whole thing is over,” Mr. Cooper said.. “I feel like it was a good, hard race. We did everything we could to win office.
Will he be back in two years?
“I haven’t gone away,” Mr. Cooper said. “I am not going anywhere. I have been involved with the city for a long time, and that is not going to change.”
Question: What was smart about the Armenta campaign?
Said Mr. Silbiger: “The fact Chris addressed the broadest issues that everyone was concerned with — development, traffic, the environment — he addressed those subjects in a thoughtful manner.”
John J. McCarthy, an Armenta supporter, looked more content than anyone else at the victory celebration inside of the Grand Casino bakery.
“The voting turned out the way I thought it was going to,” Mr. McCarthy said. “It kind of combines the ‘standard old’ with the ‘coming-up new,’ sort of like dependable. I like diversification. It always is good to have a blend, a cross-section. You want change that means something. You don’t want change just for the sake of change.”