Let me start with a question: what do Tamar Galatzan and Zuma Dogg have in common?
Answer: the grassroots candidates owe them their thanks for being in the race.
Think of CD2 as a pie to be divided among ten hungry candidates. The primary objective is to receive a slice larger than half the entire size. With ten hungry mouths to feed, that will be almost impossible.
The secondary objective is to receive one of the two largest slices. That will occur no matter what, but it will amount to a food fight among nine of the candidates.
Back to the answer to the question: Zuma Dogg’s presence bakes a bigger pie. His eccentricities and the electricity he brings to the table attract some voters who would otherwise stay home on election day. Whether you agree with him or not, he is viewed as a warrior who is unafraid of challenging the City Council day after day.
Whereas Zuma Dogg affects the size of the pie and the 50% threshold, Tamar will influence the portions.
She cuts into the portion coveted by Krekorian and Essel, and perhaps takes a tiny bit from the grassroots candidates’ pieces. The final servings will amount to Krekorian getting around a third of the pie and the rest receiving thin slices, about four or five of whom will be within striking distance of making the runoff.
You can’t rule out Sheftel, Benson, Sanchez, McCue or even Zuma Dogg from nosing out Galatzan and Essel.
Tamar and Chris are vulnerable.
Just as the voters need to press Krekorian about his complicity in allowing state spending to grow over the last few years in the face of an anticipated decline in tax revenues, Tamar needs to explain her role in how the LAUSD has been managed, or mismanaged. She has already been questioned about her support of Measure Q, a questionable $7 billion bond offering that could sink the LAUSD in even more red ink in a few years. However, she has not received adequate credit for opposing the Mayor on an expensive expansion of benefits to part-time workers in the school district.
Essel continues to deny the obvious: she was a cheerleader for SB1818 and is backed by many donors connected to developers and billboards. What’s more, she launched her campaign for the CD2 seat on the Westside and downtown, raking in the largest haul of cash of any candidate. By not engaging CD2 until after she amassed close to $200,000 should clearly demonstrate to the voters where her loyalties reside. An apartment in Studio City is not enough to hide her attachment to outside interests.
Krekorian has some explaining to do as well. He keeps bragging about his experience but does not disclose what benefits it produced and, as mentioned earlier, he has been a party to the run-up in state spending that has produced the financial crisis.
Krekorian and Essel will ultimately resort to campaign hit pieces against Galatzan. Some of the charges will have a ring of truth, but I expect the overall messages will be over the top, just as Krekorian’s claim that the $30 million loan to CMI could have been used for public safety instead.
In summary, we have a real race on our hands, so do not write off any of the candidates at this stage.
Stay tuned.
Paul Hatfield
Suzanne Lauer
What are you talking about? Why would they start hitting Tamar?? She is barely competitive here. Though she has a compelling narrative, she has not the money or support to be serious. As well, she just hasn’t demonstrated leadership qualities in her short tenure on the school board, Krekorian and Essel, hate them if you want, have shown leadership in thier respective areas.
Further, I live in CD 2 and have gotten mail, walked, and phoned by Krekorian’s campaign, but I have not heard a peep out of Tamar or Essel. The majority of CD 2 voters don’t go to forums or meet & greets, it’s up to the campaigns to reach out to that majority, yet Tamar does not have the campaign strength to reach out to that many voters. She’ll come in third, but that’s not good enough here.
My reply: You are correct in that it is up to the candidates to reach out. I have already received two flyers from Krekorian, but none from Tamar or Essel. However, I have received at least three e-mails from Tamar’s campaign. Electronic communication is far more efficient than flyers. It was an e-mail campaign that defeated Measure B. Measure B relied on flyers, mailers and telemarketing and outspent the No on B campaign by at least 10 to 1. Do not be so quick to dismiss Tamar or others who rely more on e-mail.
As for Essel, I have not received either physical or electronic distributions. I suspect she will blitz CD2 with media ads soon.- Paul Hatfield
I would be surprised if Krekorian’s campaign doesn’t have email. Problem with email is that you are either only sending to people that already support you or a tiny percentage of people that put their email of their voter reg.
As for measure B, a quote about lipstick on a pig comes to mind.
My reply: You need to learn more about e-mail.- Paul Hatfield
I was looking forward to this race. I am extremely disappointed with what it has become. Two people with no decent-term knowledge of the district and one who thinks she is ready to play in the big time. Tamar has been my second-choice candiate. But she is becoming a real disappointment. I submitted a question to her on the campaign website about a week ago and still no response. A basic question about her plans/ideas for the messed-up Valley Plaza “shopping center.” If her campaign cannot handle questions from the website, then what kind of constitutent service can I expect. And, why is she sending out a mailer about LAUSD issues (with what appears to be LAUSD money) when she is campaigning for another office?
My reply: I hear you. I happen to be more upset at the press for covering this as a contest among three people.
Tamar, in spite of her association with the LAUSD, is superior to PK and CE. However, she also needs to prove that she will embrace the grassroots movement. There are some fine, thoughtful candidates in that group who deserve strong consideration.
McCue’s misrepresentations abound and dominate his answers. Evidently he is challenged by lacking control over knowing the difference between fact, guesswork or fantasy.
His insistence on reciting a rhyming haiku (forum #2) insults the intelligence of his potential constituents – whether or not they know that haikus do not, ever rhyme.
McCue takes personal credit for the successful “No on Measure B” campaign – but fails to credit the various organizational endorsements from across the city and the political spectrum – defining an emerging political force that checked the reach of machine politics. McCue speaks mistakenly – as if he was single-handedly responsible for all of his causes’ successes – whether it’s “No on Measure B” – or the community fight to increase relocation funds for tenants evicted by developers.
This character flaw surfaced repeatedly at the Laurel Hall forum when McCue credited Wendy Gruel for stopping Home Depot’s plans for Sunland-Tujunga over giving the due credit to the successful effort led by the Neighborhood Council. As a chorus of “nos” arose from his audience, McCue changed his intent in mid-sentence – instead of standing corrected, he concocted an impossible rationalization of his misstatement.
Council District #2 deserves a truth-teller who has the scruples to say “I don’t know” or “I misspoke” or “I was wrong” instead of maintaining a pretense of knowing, at best, to “save political face”, or at worst, to willfully deceive or mislead.
We’ve had enough of that already. McCue and others who will say anything to get elected should be ruled out.
My reply: Those were two big blunders on his part, but no worse than Chris Essel’s denial about how her donors will not influence her and how she really wasn’t for SB1818. McCue will probably get decent support from the Green Party and he has a chance to redeem himself at the NC Valley Village forum on the 26th. By contrast, Essel is beyond redemption.- Paul Hatfield
Hey everybody, I’ve received flyers from the big three – and Tamar has sent three flyers alone this week.
Also, at 12:30 pm today, she rang my door and personally handed me another flyer. She’s out there going door-to-door in the valley heat, that’s more than Essel or Krekorian is doing. Folks who support K in our neighborhood say they have dealt with his staff in the past and they were far more responsive that Wendy Gruel’s team, but that’s like saying a broken leg is better than cancer.
I thought I saw Krekorian this morning at the Studio City Farmer’s market, but he didn’t talk to anyone. Either that or it was some B TV actor.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, of the ‘top three’, Tamar comes across as smarter than the other two.
The big three…and I agree, what a disappointment.
So Dale Thrush is seen escorting Essel around town–and the flyer just received with Wendy and Chris on the cover reeks of the feminist version of patriarchal politics. SB1818 anyone?
Krekorian–wait, wasn’t he the BURBANK Assembly representative? Indeed, the very appropriate use of carpetbagger in this case!
Leaving us with the Mayor’s hand-picked Galatzan–those who work in the city attorney’s office and have to listen to her yelling in the phone every morning are not so very impressed…and neither are the teachers she constantly offends while not doing the job she purports to do on the school board. As both are city jobs, how sweet it must be to take home 2 taxpayer checks! Why not buck for a third while the goose is golden? The very definition of “smart,” I guess, but not the actions I’d like to see in an elected representative.
How did we end up in this mess, and why do we keep voting and/or settling for people who do NOT have our best interests in mind?