Comments@THE GUSS REPORT-On Tuesday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti woke up, put on his Captain Obvious hat and announced that he is not going to run for the Democratic nomination to seek the White House in 2020.
(Both Garcetti and his adoring fans in the local-to-Los Angeles news media like to skip over the part about his first having to get the Democratic nomination, which was even less likely than Garcetti winning the White House if he became the nominee.)
On Wednesday, Garcetti woke up, looked in the mirror and saw his predecessor, Antonio Villaraigosa; another LA Mayor who blew the job of a lifetime so badly that they are both now relegated to serving on corporate boards, lecturing at the university level and, in the case of Villaraigosa’s predecessor James Hahn, mark days off the calendar as a surly traffic court judge.
Until a few days ago, a grinning Garcetti kept posturing like a probable presidential candidate. But in his cowardly orchestrated end-of-day press conference, he disingenuously claimed that his decision not to run had “zero” to do with California Senator Kamala Harris announcing her decision to run, and her getting the immediate endorsement of newly minted California Governor Gavin Newsom and the flood of money that immediately rolled into her campaign coffers.
Uh-huh. Garcetti’s decision had nothing to do with Harris’s meteoric rise right out of the gate.
Garcetti stood awkwardly at his press conference podium as the adult embodiment of the kid who got a trophy regardless of how poorly he and his team performed on the baseball diamond. He has been in elected office at LA City Hall since prior to 9/11. How many of us wish that, among other things, Los Angeles could go back to its pre-9/11 levels of homelessness and traffic?
I see most of your hands raised…
Every elected official who served with Garcetti in all the years since his swearing in on July 1, 2001, eventually flew the coop. The only elected constant for the degrading quality of life in Los Angeles is Garcetti himself. He carries the blame more than anyone else for the poor state of the City of Los Angeles and even beyond its boundaries, given the enormous influence LA Mayors have on regional political policy and quality of life matters.
Yet the local news media adoringly separates Garcetti the person from Garcetti the Mayor’s poor job performance.
But like all bubbles eventually, Garcetti’s delusional dream about the presidency finally burst. He can’t keep going as Mayor due to term limits, and there are no other appropriate government jobs for him until Senator Kamala Harris wins the presidency, or Senator Dianne Feinstein retires.
The LA news media at his press conference also didn’t challenge Garcetti on his claim that he now – finally – realizes that he loves his job as mayor, and LA is where he needs to be. And for good measure, Garcetti threw in the biggest lie that all politicians tell; he wants to spend more time with his wife and adopted daughter. But just as Garcetti said that, out of the other side of his mouth he says he is ready to hit the campaign trail for other candidates over the next two years.
Hello? Does anyone in the LA news media want to reconcile that?
And so, focus now shifts toward Garcetti finishing out his term, and whether Newsom will appoint him to replace either Senator at some point in the future. Some speculate that that is the reason why Garcetti made his decision to not run; he may have been bought off with a job for which he may not have to campaign.
Hey! That sounds like the same deal Garcetti made a few years back to get Kevin James to drop out of the LA Mayor’s race and endorse him (over “Viva La Wendy” Greuel) in exchange for a sleepy and decently paid appointment as president of the board of the LA Department of Public Works.
So maybe Newsom will do that, but it is no sure thing. There are other politicians with greater ties to Sacramento than Garcetti, and with less stink-of-failure on their resume, such as California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who was Garcetti’s predecessor as LA City Council president, or California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who has deep ties to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
And if that happens, what is Garcetti going to say; that the fix was in, but he didn’t get the gig he was allegedly promised?
It would be poetic justice if that turns out to be the case.
(Daniel Guss, MBA, is a member of the Los Angeles Press Club, and has contributed to CityWatch, KFI AM-640, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @TheGussReport. Join his mailing list or offer verifiable tips and story ideas at [email protected]. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
