Los Angeles Politics Hotsheet for Monday
If you're a City department manager who overspends your budget, Controller Wendy Greuel will no longer give you a payday loan to get you out of hock. Greuel will not authorize payments for overages including salary expense. Why this has not been the policy in the past, no one seems to be able to explain. Maybe because Greuel is running for Mayor?
Betty Pleasant's rants about Bernard Parks have become about as relevant as Phil Jennerjahn's posts on Paul Krekorian.
Labels: bernard parks, betty pleasant, budget shortfall, jan perry, kevin james, rick caruso, wendy greuel
Posted by Michael Higby @ 4/04/2011 12:01:00 AM
19 Comments:
Wendy Greuel needs to give up the Justin Bieber haircut, and the gay-style blouses.
This Hotsheet has all the reliability of a Red Spot post.
"I think Wendy's marriage to Dean is a marriage of convenience only."
-Tony CardenASS
The Times deliberately omitted any mention of Kevin James, once again reminding us how irrelevant the Times is these days.
It's not like the Times can claim they "didn't know" because on March 15, the Times published a report on James's upcoming announcement of his candidacy.
Just another reminder why the LA Times is losing readers, becoming irrelevant, and why we need Mayor Sam!
How did the Times do with the candidates they endorsed in the last election? Enough said.
How do you spell irrelevant?
This tiny little blog hasn't touched the biggest thing going in LA politics the last few days: AV's record-setting ethics fines.
Is there more?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jessica-levinson/why-la-mayor-villaraigosa_b_843998.html
How many nightly listeners does Rick Caruso have? hmmm...this is typical LA Times. They are part of the problem.
So now we're running late night talk show hosts? What has happened to our Republicans?
The omission is especially disrespectful since James has a good shot at making a runoff. The rest of the field will carve up voters who routinely support incumbents.
James could earn at least 20% - 25% of the vote with just a modest campaign. That could be just enough to make it to the finals.
Just taking out papers to raise money for a possible campaign for mayor does not make anyone a legitimate candidate. That designation is still one that legitimatly belongs to the media or anyone else.
Kevin has a long way to go to become a legitimate candidate. Newspapers know what it takes, and he hasn't got it or explained to anybody where he's going to get it.
To capture 20% of the vote in a primary requires a massive effort of time, money, and supporters.
9:10 The Times wasn't making predictions in the last election. It was choosing the candidates it preferred. I do that myself. I pick the people I like, and they lose a lot.
Paul:
Getting 20-25% of the vote in a mayoral primary is no mean feat.
In 2001, Jim Hahn got into the runoff with 25%. Even Xavier Becerra could only muster 6%, and Joel Wachs 11%.
In 2005, again Hahn made it into the finals with 23%. Bob Hertzberg had 22%. Bernie Parks 13%.
These were all people with great name ID and tremendous fundraising abilities.
Kevin James isn't in that class. If he were, people would have been taking about him as a candidate before he made his announcement.
Kevin's just not Mayoral material. He's more like Walter Moore the Sequel but with a squeakier voice and a tendency to throw hissy fits. Did you ever see that video of Kevin on the Chris Matthews show? That clip alone will cost him any chance in this election.
910 and others:
There are statistics and there are old statistics. Sure, Hahn struggled to get the share he did, but he was up against heavyweights and plagued by pay for play accusations. Furthermore, there wasn't even nominal opposition from alternatives. Walter Moore was barely a blip on the radar screen when he announced back then. Therefore, the voters had no remotely recognizable alternative to the big three in the race (for the record, I supported Hertzburg, I only wish he would re-emerge in local politics).
Moore earned 26% in 2009 while running a shoestring campaign - quite a pickup from 2005.
James has a decent chance of winning significant votes in the Valley, as Moore did. How he performs in other regions will require work, but to ignore him when he could affect the result - even without making the runoff - does not make any sense.
As far as the MSNBC video - Chris Matthew fans are not going to vote for James in any event.
You don't have to be a Chris Matthews fan to see how royally flustered and angry Kevin James got in that clip. He lost his cool, and that is not what one wants to see in a Mayoral candidate, no matter which cable news show you watch.
Paul:
The votes that Walter Moore got were simply anti-Villaraigosa votes. It had nothing to do with votes that he earned. No one knew who he was then, and nobody still knows. If he was a credible candidate he would have been able to attract donors and volunteers, and he would be mentioned by the media as a viable candidate this time.
In order for James to get 20-25% of the vote in the primary he would need to raise much more money than politicians like Hahn, Hertzberg, Wachs, Becerra, etc. were able to raise.
Just having good ideas isn't enough if you don't have the cash to tell people about them. Candidate forums count for very little because so few people attend them, and the media devotes such little time and space to cover them, and the candidates can't control the message.
707, there certainly were anti Tony V votes in Moore's column, but there will be anti City Hall votes in 2013 to take there place.
I also believe James will do a much better job of fundraising.
He also has a decent chance of picking up the same voters that cast their ballots for Martinez, OGrady, Box, Brad Smith etc. Whether you agree or not with those candidates, collectively they picked up much more than 20% - probably at least 25%. Granted, that's just the Valley.
He needs to win some key endorsements in adjacnets districts. Someone like David Vahedi in CD5, who last by a hair to Koretz.
In any event, the runoff is an entirely different challenge and he will have to look for new sources of votes. Easier said than done.
At least Kevin James is the one gay candidate who is actually out of the closet.
Ok to the person posting about Kevin James melt down I'm sure you are a perfect human being who has never ever made a mistake or gotten flustered? Pleaseeeee. Kevin at least is trying to make a go of it and not being a crybaby whiner complainer like most who post negative crap on this blog. THe LA Slimes posted the story of Antonio being fined for ethics violations on SATURDAY's paper the least read. Why didn't they post on Sunday's. That should tell everyone the SLIMES is a piece of toliet paper.
In order for there to be anti-incumbent votes to be had, there has to be an incumbent. In the mayor's race there won't be one.
It takes a lot of name ID, money, and organizing to get into a runoff in a wide-open primary.
Kevin will have a harder time than Riordan had in 1993, and far less resources and organization.
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