Establishment Candidate?

Chief of Staff to 40th District Assemblyman Lloyd "The Bachelor" Levine, Stuart Waldman has been gearing up for a campaign to succeed his boss in 2008. Waldman has been doing a yeoman's job of lining up cash and endorsements for the coming Democratic primary (which is the real battle here because due to the gerrymandering of the District its highly unlikely a Republican candidate will run let alone have any real chance of winning). More importantly, in this old, dead Republican Mayor's view, Stuart Waldman has spent more than a decade working in the trenches, making his bosses look good and taking care of what constituents ask for.

Anyway, I digress. Among those names mentioned as potential opponents to Waldman in the primary include City Controller Laura Chick and City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel. However, both those pols have their sights set on other positions.

Local political wags have however, been putting a buzz in the ear of this blogger about the plans of Bob Blumenfeld - an aide to longtime Congressman Howard Berman - to challenge Stuart for the nomination.

The view is that Blumenfeld wants to tackle the conventional wisdom that Stuart has "earned" the seat, that it's his "turn" or even that he is the front runner. Quite frankly that Stuart is the "establishment" candidate.

However all of this begs the fundamental question: Which candidate has their high profile boss making phone calls strong arming local electeds to endorse them? Nope, not Stuart. Reports are that - true to his machine ways - Berman is allegedly putting pressure on these pols to pony up support for his Bobby. In the meantime, Stuart has secured his own endorsements, working hard and demonstrating that he would make an excellent Assemblyman. I've seen no evidence that Stuart has asked anyone to carry his water.

Like Stuart or not, no one can say that the man hasn't worked hard, got results and has established himself as a significant political figure in the San Fernando Valley. Blumenfeld is welcome to take Stuart on, but he's going to have an uphill climb convincing voters he's their man.