Parke speakes again............, on the City Attorney Race

This muttering rant from the "private street enclave" above the masses in CD 1/14.

Political consultant Parke Skelton says Cooley’s endorsement isn’t influencing voters “by any stretch of the imagination.” And in fact, endorsements generally have little effect on what most voters do. But key endorsements can dramatically raise an unknown candidate’s profile and ability to raise funds.

That utterance from Parke in Tibby Rothman and Jill Stewart's story on District Attorney Steve Cooley's role in initiating the Trutanich for City Attorney campaign, may be an attempt by Parke to spin the role and and the credit that Cooley should be given in taking on the Villar Machine as highlighted in this excerpt.

Cooley has survived in that hot seat partly by avoiding embarrassing controversies. Yet here he was, deciding to take on a deep-pocketed downtown political apparatus run by the hyperpolitical Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has spent much of his time not addressing city problems, but instead building a political machine that includes much of the Los Angeles Unified School board and even the chief of police, William J. Bratton.

With less than two weeks until the May 19 election, Cooley’s decision at Langer’s has not backfired. Instead, it has set City Hall on tenterhooks and spurred an old-fashioned, mud-slinging race between two very different candidates that is either man’s to lose.

“It’s a hot election, I’ll tell you, with a lot of heat and a lot of rancor,” says Cooley today. “But you know what? This is healthy. It’s healthy. It’s really, really, really good for L.A.”

.....and a Trutanich victory would do much to improve the ethical health at City Hall, despite of Parke's mutterings.