Less than 20 percent of LA County voters turned out for the historic election Tuesday — the first open primary, the first in decades with fair legislative districts — but there were a few positive signs.
The king of political musical chairs, indicted felon Richard Alarcon, finished far back in second place in the 39th District Assembly race and will have a hard time overcoming leaad of CSUN Professor Raul Bocanegra — who has the backing of the Democratic Party — even if the LA City Councilman is able to stay out of jail until November.
Then, there’s the flop in the 56th Assembly District of Tom Calderon whose brothers Charles and Ron have played musical chairs in the Assembly and Senate for a couple decades in the Gateway Cities and San Gabriel Valley. Tom finished third to Republican Patricia A. Kotze-Ramos and City of Bell political reformer Cristina Garcia who is heavily favored in the Democratic dominated district.
But nothing quite compares with the humiliating defeat of media-declared front-runner Carmen Trutanich in the race to succeed Steve Cooley as District Attorney.
Trutanich faced five challengers — all county prosecutors who had never run for office and had no name recognition — and had as much money as they had combined thanks to his support from lobbyists like John Ek, who kicked off his fund-raising drive last year; virtually every union and their boss of bosses, Maria Elena Durzao, and civic and political leaders like former Mayor Richard Riordan, Sheriff Lee Baca and Councilman and wannabe Controller Dennis Zine.
As KPCC’s Frank Stolze and LA Weekly’s Gene Maddaus recorded Trutanich’s reaction to defeat, he took it about as well as Richard Nixon in 1960, suggesting we won’t have him to kick around much longer since he no chance of winning a second term as City Attorney given the negativity he has generated over his performance in office.
The election Tuesday was an extraordinary repudiation of a politician who was expected to win the election outright with more than 50 percent of the vote and instead wound up with just 22 percent compared to Chief Deputy DA Jackie Lacey’s 32 percent and Deputy DA Alan Jackson’s 24 percent.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more vitriolic negative campaign launched against anyone. I don’t understand it,” Trutanich said at what was supposed to be a victory party, according to a tweet from Stolze.
It was a media conspiracy against him, a “major league onslaught,” Trutanich told supporters at 1 a.m. the Croatian American Club of San Pedro, according to Maddaus.
“Barack Obama is getting hammered right now,” Trutanich said. “I think the negative campaign against me is worse.”
“I don’t know what we did wrong in terms of running the city of L.A. There’s absolutely no corruption in the city of Los Angeles, as far as the city attorney’s office goes. They hit me on street artists. I still think of it as graffiti. Obviously the marijuana crowd came out… We’ve done everything properly. There’s no shame in what we’ve done. Negative campaigns work.”
Trutanich campaign consultant John Shallman also took no responsibility for the debacle, declaring the media ganged up on his candidate from the moment the campaign was formally launched in February.
“They had a pretty nice trap set, and it’s been negative ever since,” said Shallman. “We counted 42 negative articles … It was a constant barrage of negative press.”
Say what? A trap was set, a conspiracy by the media and community activists who got Trutanich elected City Attorney in 2009 because he promised to stand up for the people against City Hall’s corruption and see his mission through a second term?
Jackson’s political consultant John Thomas — who worked on Trutanich’s City Attorney campaign and felt betrayed like so many us who backed him — said in a statement:
“The Jackson campaign took on Carmen Trutanich and saved the people of Los Angeles County from a politician who was more concerned about winning the next office instead of winning the next case. We were outraised, outspent and outsized by the City Attorney, yet we prevailed because voters clearly want a modern prosecutor not a politician.”
Lacey — who would be the first woman and first African-American elected DA in Los Angeles — told Daily News county reporter Christina Villacorte how she was “very, very surprised but overjoyed.”
“I think that when you read stories about how someone is a front-runner because of name recognition, you maybe take it as gospel,” Lacey said in a phone interview. ”We’re back to the Meg Whitman story, which shows you that money doesn’t buy elections.”
At least in this and a few other cases, that was true on Tuesday.
Hopefully, whoever wins the DA race and all the other elections will take the Trutanich lesson to heart and stay true to what they promised voters, true to who they are and what they say they stand for.
Let this be a trend. No more incumbents playing musical chairs. Get rid of Garcetti, Wendy Gruel & Zine. None of them have done anything positive for the constituents. Don’t vote for anyone who has Durazo or other self-serving unions’ blessing.
I work in an office where Harvard educated people didn’t even know it was election day. How do you get people to care?
I run into that all of the time. It’s shameful.
My obersevation, maybe crude but here it is: Voting is not any urgent activity for some until the a threshold of “pain” for that group or person is generated by issues or politicians.
More of the basic items for poorer people, like bus service to get to work, will trigger a response sooner than the automobile driving person with a higher income.
Gas prices that are high are an annoyance but tolerable for some, but become major financial concerns for others.
DWP can hike rates and until that reaches something to hurt the checkbook of more affluent people, it will continue.
People are too busy and have put politicians into a category where a vote will not matter anyway- a sort of destiny- so they don’t vote.
The numbers of voters may change depending on peer pressure, too, for support or opposition to ballot measures- it all depends on how much of an impact there is for a person. If organizers are compelled to act, they can produce some heightened participation by pestering until election day, even though the voters might not have felt a personal need, absent the provocation to get out and vote.
Until there’s some sort of connection or idea that a vote really matters (and it does, especially significant in turnouts like Tuesday’s election) they will not bother to interrupt dinner, shopping or picking up the kids from school to go vote.
The other matter to note is that when you take time to consider issues and the real story for candidates qualifications or goals, another voter, guided solely by slate mailers or the glossy brochures and using a literal reading on the ballot measures for his or her information, can instantly neutralize your vote.
If you see the “get out the vote” push accomplishing moving more uninformed or misinformed voters to act, you can have a lot of bad results- and I think Villaraigosa is in office now due to a lot of that element of the voting public, as well as critics who did not bother to show up and vote. That’s only one of many examples.
Maybe a smaller turnout is better as it might avoid making an election a pure crap shoot.
THE NEWSPAPER HEADLINE YOU WON’T SEE: BLOGGERS DEFEAT CARMEN
I AGREE WITH CARMEN “Milhouse” Trutanich, He IS just like Nixon in 1974.
SO WHY IS HE WAITING TO TENDER HIS IMMEDIATE RESIGNATION?
If he would RESIGN and APOLOGIZE NOW—he’d be able to salvage some type of good will. Of course the silver lining—KEVIN JAMES STILL HAS TIME TO GET THE HELL OUT OF THE MAYOR’S RACE AND RUN FOR CITY ATTORNEY—LIKE I’VE TOLD HIM SINCE EARLY 2010!!!!
Remember Mayor Newsom–he got out of Jerry Brown’s way and switched to Lt. Governor and won it (and saved us all from Chicken-Head Hahn being one small step from the Governor’s seat.)
Then we have the worst of all—ZINE RUNNING FOR ANOTHER 8 YEARS OF FREE CARS, WOMEN, AND SONG!
It’s still the most corrupt city in America—but a much better than expected set of results! Is this the beginning of a push for some reform?
I can’t believe Trutanich has come out so arrogant and state he’s going to run again for City Attorney? Really? I guess he doesn’t care that the people sent him a strong and clear message they don’t want him. Whoever runs against him can always use the fact that he lost with name recognition and money against unknowns. Let’s hope Perry, Garcetti, Greuel and the rest of the incompetent politicians running for Mayor get the message to. They are responsible for dire straights our City is in. How in the hell could they possibly think they should be promoted to higher office for their FAILURES?
I have three word for psycho Trutanich.
1) Ha,
2) Ha-ha,
3) Ha-ha-ha!!!
Hubris knows no shame.
Off topic—your title prompted the thought—Rest in Peace Ray Bradbury.
I had the pleasure of talking to him on a number of occasions and he was just such a kind man.
A few isolated instances like Trutanich, alarcon etc do not amount to much. You still have Villar as mayor, you will continue be represented by a worthless congress critter berman/sherman, your governor is stil pushing for higher taxes. So who cares about nuch. You had rocky before — remember him?
It’s like in 2009 when Ron got all excited about measure b when he and everybody should have been zeroing on kicking Villar out.
Trutanich still doesn’t get it. The election was a referendum on his City Attorney performance. In his narrowly defined role he believes the job is about winning cases. Unless he is prepared to be the people’s attorney, his relection next year will be a debacle.
Oh, how did this happening? Didn’t the psycho have 750,000 hits on his website?
======
What I want to know, who’s dumb to give him even one vote? OK, Jane Usher. Who else? OK, Mario (so sad, no character). Two votes and then Psycho Nuch’s 25 personalities — all nasty. That’s not 22%
Carmen Trutanich made a promise in 2008 and 2009 when running for City Attorney that he would not seek another office till after fulfilling two terms. He made the promise live on the Kevin James Show on 870 KRLA and even signed a pledge at a press conference that said if he broke the promise that he would take ads out in LA newspapers with a picture of him with a sign that says, “I lied”. When confronted about this, he said he ran because he thought that Steve Cooley would remain in the DA office and even mocked those who believed him by saying the pledge was a gimmick. We were fooled the first time, thankfully enough of us weren’t the second.
Finally, bravo for for the voters in both the liberal leaning of San Jose and the conservative leaning city of San Diego for passing sweeping pension and benefit reforms for city workers. San Jose’s Measure B (approved by 70% of voters) gives current city workers “the option of switching to a lower pension or staying in the current plan and paying off pension debt with annual contribution increases of 4 percent of pay, capped at 16 percent or half the debt cost.”
San Diego’s Proposition B (approved by 66% of voters) gives new city workers a 401(k) with a city match instead of a guaranteed pension.
The guaranteed pension for newly-hired public-safety workers will max out at 80% of the individual’s salary. Currently, the cap is at 90%.
San Diego’s overall payroll will be capped for five years at its 2011 level of less than $600 million annually.
Is the highest paid, highest income taxing, highest sales taxing and most business unfriendly state legislature in the nation listening yet?
I don’t see my recent posts since the “Verdict” on Tues nite!
Ron’s practicing his censorship thing. So, I’ll post some nonsense:
BLAH BLAH BLAH, OBAMA GOOOOD, REPUBLICANS BAAAADD,
BLAH BLAH BLAH!!
If Ron wants to be censor, then I might as well endorse Trutanich for City Attorney and be the same kind of duplicitous fool!
Here Ron: CARMEN TRUTANICH FOR CITY ATTORNEY 2013!!!!!
Either BE for the Little Guys and Gals, OR BE A BIG MACHINE ADVOCATE.
You DECIDE RON—I’ll follow your lead.
I predict that Trutanich will come up with an excuse as to why he stepped out of the City Attorney’s race.
A case of Hubris— often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one’s own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power.
Ah yes, Hubris….
el Villaraigosa, Antonio Cardenas, Ricardo Alarcon…etc etc etc
power-crazed-con-artists, everyone of them…..
Congratulations to Ron, Doug McIntyre, two newspapers, everyone who worked so hard to truth-tell on Trutanich, who should change his name to Lietanich, and the 17% of L.A. County voters who actually pay attention to these things and bothered to schlep their carcasses out to vote.
Bocanegra holds the title of instructor not professor. Look at the education code.
Bocanegra is willfully falsifying his title.
Bocanegra does not know right from wrong and you promote this willful puffery found the LAWeakly. Anything and everything to get elected. Now wait for his Legislative catastrophe like his Kelo-eminent domain ‘urban studies’. He will destroy whole cloth communities. Raul is a sociopath.
Adrin Nazarian: another self-serving-hubris-impaired-career-politician….
masochists, have you suffered enough already…. ?
or will you again vote for more abuse…..?
Tueday a Special Election for Congress in Arizona comming up! If you know anyone who can vote on this in Arizona, Vote for the non-Democrat! Let’s send another Liberal Ass-Clown his walking papers! (Ron is back deleting my posts, so I’ll end some liberal bullshit to see if it stays up:)
Obama tried really really really hard to fix things but the GRIDLOCK in Congress is killing reform. We should tax the Rich to balance the budget.
Whether it was Trutanich reneging on his pledge to serve, or his lies about YouTube hits, non-existent police endorsements, bogus ballot title, being shot at by gangmembers or any number of other lies which defines who he really is, the fact is that he will be reelected unless you keep on reminding voters of the disgusting and deceitful character of Carmen the ConMan Trutanich. Whoever said the election was a referendum on the City Attorney was 100% right.