Moore vs The Chief

Walter Moore, the crazy animal rights/Hal Netkin candidate has felt it necessary to give his commentary on the first 30 days of the new Mayor. I am perfectly fine with him giving his two cents, but once you place it on the web, then folks like me get to critique and comment on it.

So below is Walter Moore’s analysis with my comments in red. If you want a clean version you can click on the link I provide to his website.

Villaraigosa's First Month
What has he accomplished?

During his first month as the mayor of Los Angeles, Villaraigosa has done the exactly same thing he does every time he's elected to an office: start campaigning for another (really? Do you have evidence he did this after he got elected to the state assembly? Because I think his first 365 days in the assembly there was no campaign committee opened up to serve as his official reelection committee. Mr. Moore what in fact was it during his first term in the Assembly that has you thinking he was running for another higher office? higher office. Publicity, publicity, publicity -- that has been his focus for 30 days. (Another lie or misread by you Mr. Moore. Mr Villaraigosa’s schedule of events has not increased any one bit, in fact if you look at his schedule when he got elected to the City Council you will notice that the number of public events he attends has actually decreased. What you think is publicity is in fact a genuine media interest in the new mayor. I can completely understand why you wouldn’t get this, since the best press you got was some whacko reporter from the Washington Times writing a puff piece about you. So your understanding of how the press works is very limited, I understand. As for focus, I think we’ve seen where his focus has been and that’s in providing the City with a Fresh Start. With the bombings in London, the LAPD shooting and his resolve to end the Hotel Workers strike this Mayor has improved tourism, calmed public fears about our transportation system and relieved a stressful/tense situation with the neighborhood and the LAPD. Yup all in 30 days, pretty damn amazing. And he's done great. (At providing the City with the Fresh Start it needs) He's managed to get his face on the cover of national magazines, and he's gotten coverage on national TV. He's also become a regular on the local TV news by staging a seemingly endless series of "photo ops." One day he's wearing a hardhat and standing on top of a giant yellow Caterpillar tractor, supposedly to illustrate that he's fixing potholes in our streets. The next day, he's singing "happy birthday" to a little girl while riding the subway, supposedly to show his deep commitment to subterranean transportation. (You could just call them what us normals use “Subways”) We see him at a funeral, we see him at a school -- we see him everywhere but in the mayor's office doing his job. (Again, you will note that the number of public events has decreased and he in fact is in the office doing his job. With a list of 5,000 applicants for various job and commission posts he takes the role of filling his staff seriously, sorry you can’t appreciate this task in his job. Oh, and here’s another media lesson for you, most news producers and photo journalists would prefer to get shots of the Mayor, Governor, President – you name the office – outside doing something to help tell the story of whatever the news is of the day. In fact, you will note that our own Republican Governor is rarely pictured in the horseshoe doing his job, why you ask, because journalists don’t like those shots. So guess what Mr. Moore, they wait, and they wait while the Mayor is doing his job for the next opportunity to take a picture of the Mayor doing his job outside).

Does Villaraigosa realize the election is over? (yes) That's actually a trick question: the election is never over for career politicians like him, (please define career politicians? Would you consider your President a career politician, I mean I do recall a congressional race he ran for 25 years ago and he lost, and then he ran for Governor of Texas and got reelected, to the run for President and gets reelected again. Do you hate our President Mr. Moore? Are you anti-America? Please answer, because I’ve seen you espouse how great Bush is, yet you can’t seem to say one thing nice about the new mayor even when they both have this in common, just figured I’d point out your hypocrisy). Because they're always running for the next office. Villaraigosa, you may recall, promised, when he ran for City Council, that he would serve out his term and not run for mayor. He broke that promise (sour grapes, the voters in the district preferred that he be their Mayor, by over a 70% margin. I suppose you can’t comprehend what a 70% margin is; I mean you couldn’t even get your own party to endorse you. What kind of republican are you if the party won’t endorse you, maybe they know the same thing I do and that you are crazy). And started running for mayor about a year after being elected to City Council. As a result, we taxpayers (Do you really think voters didn’t know that by removing a councilman that it would cause a special election, of course we knew. We knew NOT to vote for you for Mayor and we knew NOT to reelect Jim Hahn, leave your sour grapes at home) get to pay for a special election to replace him on the Council. Meanwhile, judging from his first 30 days, he's not waiting a year this time to run for the next office. He's already running.(Really for which office, I’ll gladly wager a good steak dinner to prove that he’s not running for some governor’s race in 2006 – if this is what you are referring to).

Villaraigosa should spend less time standing in front of cameras (He does, dummy), and more time doing his job (Moore in 30 days than Hahn in 1 year, not bad). Even though he had two-and-a-half months between the run-off election and his swearing in, and even though he's had another month since taking office, he has yet to make all of his appointments to the City's commissions. (So this is your analysis, nevermind that he is on path to appoint all of his commissioners faster than Hahn did or Riordan, let’s not let the facts get in the way. Like the fact that Antonio’s administration has had to deal with a record number of applicants (5000 +), wanna know how many Angelenos signed up to serve under Hahn after he got elected, 1,100, Riordan – we don’t know the answer since he never made his transition as transparent as this new Mayor.) Nor has he taken action to hire more police; to take control of the LAUSD; to stop the $11.5 billion LAX boondoggle; or to make the animal shelters "no-kill." (Everything you just wrote down is lame) Indeed, when a state legislator took the initiative to introduce a bill to let L.A.'s mayor appoint members to the school board, Villaraigosa refused to support it, claiming he needed more time to study the issue. (Do you know Gloria Romero? Have you ever met with her before? Have you read the entire legislation, you do understand that this piece of legislation doesn’t actually give the Mayor any powers, I mean of course this legislation doesn’t answer all the little tricky questions like the CONSTITUTIONAL ONES THAT ARE KILLING THIS LEGISLATION. Yes, lets have our new Mayor take a position on a bill that was written so hastily (press purposes I bet, how does that make you feel Moore, are you more inclined to support it knowing that Romero only did this for free press?) that its unconstitutional. Which is interesting since you are a lawyer and campaigned as a strict constitutionalist/conservative yet here you want your new Mayor to take an affirmative position on a bill that doesn’t pass constitutional muster. Now I know why people called you Whacko Walter.

Why hasn't he accomplished anything during his first 30 days?(lie) The same reason he hasn't accomplished anything in his entire career(biggest lie so far) his only interest is running for the next office.(you offer no proof) So don't expect results from this man.(this actually helps since the bar is so high, they need to lower it some, so thanks) Don't expect Villaraigosa to do anything about public policy problems other than call for "more study," while telling everyone what they want to hear. Why? Because solving problems often means one group (e.g., parents and their children) wins, and another (e.g., teachers' unions) lose. And when a group loses, that group withdraws its financial support for career politicians bent on higher office.(thanks for the poli sci lesson, but you really shouldn’t be speaking like an authority on this subject since the only real supporter you could muster up likes to run over college students on weekends).

What you can expect is a "surprise" announcement, long before the end of Villaraigosa's four-year term, that he's running for another office: governor, senator, or, with the right media support, Hillary's vice-presidential candidate. Until then, don't expect results. Expect excuses, blue-ribbon panels, and calls for "more study" of the problems this man promised to solve.

Thanks for playing Walter, please go home, squeeze all your sour grapes into a bowl and drink it.

Chief William Parker – August 1, 2005

Walter Moore - August 1, 2005