MAILANDER’S LA - While today's published poll in the LA Mayor's race is largely more good news for Eric Garcetti, as he leads Wendy Greuel by 10 points, this poll is not much about Garcetti but it is almost all about Greuel--and the company she keeps.
The one ray of hope for her, it would seem, is being endorsed by Bill Clinton--who got heckled last night here at the GLAAD Awards because at least one person in the audience remembered that he actually signed the Defense of Marriage Act. But like so much else involving Greuel's campaign, the use of Clinton is a two-edged sword.
Clinton may have been a strong advocate for President Obama last year, but his history as an endorser is spotty. He is seen as vindictive when issuing endorsements. There is, of course, a side of his the public does not trust--and Angelenos have especially seen that side before, not only in gay rights battles but also as the defense industry fled Los Angeles for southern states in the 1990's. His effect on Los Angeles voters is likely entirely neutral.
And of course there is the difficulty of perception with such stand-by-me advertising--they make the actual candidate running for office look small, as though he or she can't stand on his or her own. They may work where ethnicity is important, such as in the occasional Voting Rights Act carved district where voters are conditioned by political consultants to consider ethnicity as important, but they don't work too well elsewhere, where voters look for more independence in a candidate.
But the fact that we are talking about high-profile, low-impact endorsements at all a scant month before the election indicates that the thing that is hurting Wendy Greuel most right now is the myth of low-information voters. It seems her campaign manager John Shallman and her top moneybags, DWP union chief Brian d'Arcy, have bought into this myth wholesale. As the two remain very disconnected from ordinary voters, their TV ads exhibiting an almost cynical naiveté about what voters might want, there doesn't seem to be much opportunity to bridge the gap.
In short, the Greuel team is banking on voters who are impressed by Greuel standing next to the likes of Magic Johnson, Dick Riordan, and Bill Clinton. That is a very old and cynical view of young Los Angeles.
Voters in LA, especially after eight years of Villaraigosa, instantly understand that these people are above all political opportunists who don't always saying things that are entirely accurate.
Conversely, Garcetti and Bill Carrick seem more aware that those who bother to vote in LA municipal elections are increasingly high information voters who expect much and demand even more, far more than Villaraigosa-like photo ops. When they do an event, a whole team of people focus on the community organizers, and the listening goes both ways.
With a month until the election, Garcetti also has a tech-savvy and highly motivated ground game in place, and Greuel will be at the mercy of unions and robocalls for hers.
And that too is bad news for her, because she is polling no better in union households--in fact, she is polling even worse with them.
Recycling the Wasteful "Leading LAForward."
There's no question that former Republican Wendy Greuel, who fashions herself quite the identifier of Waste & Fraud, killed a thousand trees, blew hundreds of thousands of dollars, and made the consultants piloting her rudderless, money-burning campaign a lot wealthier, by shipping out the enormous, saddle-stitched "Leading LA Forward" to LA's greenest voters this past week.
You're probably wondering what you should do with the extravagantly wasteful, typo-riddled, thirty-six page document with the callout colors of Developer Orange and DWP Green. If you don't have a blue trashcan, please consider any one of the city's top recycling centers. They'll be more than happy to receive so much paper, even if it's all glossy.
(Joseph Mailander is a writer, an LA observer and a contributor to CityWatch. He is also the author of Days Change at Night: LA's Decade of Decline, 2003-2013. Mailander blogs at www.josephmailander.com.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 33
Pub: Apr 23, 2013
