Well, the candidate I supported in the City Council race in District 2 did not win.
A small tragedy for me, but a much larger tragedy for the City of Los Angeles.
We now have two budget-destroying Socialists named "Paul K" on the City Council. They will be sitting right next to each other for all of 2010 and monopolizing speech time with their ultra-liberal, holier-than-thou nonsense.
The mere thought of it is almost too much to bear.
There were many lessons to be learned in this election, and I am as fully aware of them now as I was before the election went off.
1. Paul Krekorian is still a Socialist.
He may now also be a Los Angeles City Council Member , but it doesn't change who he is.
A man who believes in the ultimate power of the State over the individual.
You can call him a Democrat, SEIU member , AFSCME member, whatever. It's all the same.
All people who get their results by threat and by force.
If you think he's some type of improvement or victory for L.A. , you're wrong. Dead wrong.
2. Krekorians results in this election are highly suspicious.
Essel campaign forces need to ask for a list of 2009 newly registered voters in CD 2 and compare it to previously registered voters in the Burbank/Glendale area. I might be wrong about this, but this is just what the far left does. It is how Barack Obama became President. He bussed thousands of people from Chicago to go vote in the Iowa Caucuses. Think about it... how could the Registrar-Recorder prevent a few thousand people from re-registering in CD 2 just for this election? The answer? They probably couldn't.
3. Christine Essel should have started her political career with a different race.
One thing that always worried me about Christine was that she appeared to have no base. Most candidates can tell voters that they were a Veteran or a political party activist or something relevant to the contest. Christine said she was a business woman and a former movie company exec, but that didn't seem to be a political groundwork to me. She had no deep connections to the community. Tamar Galatzan smacked her hard during a forum when she shouted "I have never seen you at any community events!" .
The accusation stung because it was true.
But attending a lot of local events sure didn't help long-time political scenesters like Tamar and Mary Benson and Pete Sanchez from getting clocked by Chris in the primary. It appears that money can buy you publicity, but it can't buy you love.
I think Christine Essel is a nice lady and I supported her based more out of my dislike of Paul Krekorian than based on any of her core philosophies. She seems like a nice enough and likable lady, but she didn't seem to have any people who hated her or any people who were fanatical supporters. She didn't seem to arouse strong feelings from anyone. That worried me. In politics, you need passion.
4. The fanatical supporters of Paul Krekorian turned out to vote and made a difference.
Yes, as much as I mocked the Kool-Aid drinking crowd up in Sunland-Tujunga, led by the awful cheerleading team of Michael Higby and Joe B.... they did, indeed, turn up and volunteer and walk precincts and call people and got out the vote. Congrats to them. They wanted the win and they got it. They had a superior game plan and they achieved superior results. And I have probably signed up for a verbal ass-whipping every time I set foot in Sunland-Tujunga for the rest of my life.
5. John Shallman is over-rated as a campaign consultant and takes much of the blame for this loss.
Shallman did something that I consider to be idiotic. He lazily tried to use the US Mail as a weapon. He bombarded voters with mailer after mailer...most of them hit pieces going after Krekorian, but eventually voters reached a "saturation point". They didn't want to hear or see any more of it. His continual onslaught turned many voters against her. Christine Essel should have spent all her time - 100% of it - going door-to-door and calling voters personally. A personal visit is an extremely powerful weapon. Most voters didn't know either candidate personally. In an election like this where you only needed a few thousand votes, the personal touch is what is needed. Shallman ran this disaster like it was a national campaign. Christine Essel has a charming personality that I feel was an unused weapon in this battle.
The emails I got from voters saying that someone had talked with them personally or touched them in some way that moved them? Yeah... they were all going for the Big Socialist.
6. The IBEW and PPL compounded the error by repeating Shallmans mistake.
Yeah, thanks guys! Just what Christine needed ...for IBEW and PPL to bombard the voters with even more mailers at a time when voters were getting fed up about it. Lack of coordination of efforts caused this.
Here's a rhetorical question for Shallman and the IBEW/PPL :
How do you spend over a million dollars on a City Council race...and lose!!??
7. Endorsements really don't matter very much.
Voters are smart enough to choose a candidate that they like. They liked Krekorian a little more than they liked Essel. Wendy Gruel's endorsement meant nothing. Ditto Richard Riordan and half the current City Council.
8. My political instincts are good. I can continue to trust them.
I wasn't happy about the way the Essel campaign was going. I talked about this with my new friend Tamar Galatzan. Here is a line from an email I sent her on December 3rd.
"I am supporting Christine Essel, but if I had to make a prediction, I would say Tuesday goes off at 54-46 for Krekorian.
Christine has to hope her money can drive non-traditional voters to the polls, but that usually doesn't happen."
Go ahead and ask Tamar if I said that. I did.
9. Paul Krekorian supporters are not humble!
Man, I had to turn my phone off last night, it got so bad.
If Christine Essel had won, I would not have said a word about it.
Her victory would not have stopped the creeping advance of Socialism, but it wouldn't have accelerated it like Paul Krekorian, either.
10. Krekorian is probably in for 14 years. I have to deal with that.
None of his former challengers is going to want to take him on again if Christine Essel spent a million bucks and still lost. For CD 2's sake, here's hoping some appealing Congressional or State Senate seat opens up for Paul.
