Political Gumbo: Dammit, I’ve Got Mail

I’ve seen more mail during this election than any other in the past 20 years. 

Some weeks I got upwards of seven to eight pieces of mail between the stuff that landed in my mailbox and the images of mailers readers were kind enough to send me.

Thank you for that.

Holden’s pieces were probably my favorites. Chris is so tall that he stands in every mailer. 

Good move, it makes him look commanding.  

Everybody else either did headshots, sit downs or posed with people.

Phlunté Riddle was rocking the bright jackets and the smile.  

That’s who she is, it came across genuine. 

Nice look. 

On an aside, if you’re white posing with Black people it’s not going to make me vote for you. 

Sheesh, do you really think I’m going to say, “Hey there is Candidate X with one of the brothas. Dammit where’s my ballot, he’s the man.”

When I see that, straight to the trash can. 

Some people did the three wise men thing posing with the LatinX, Black, White trifecta or some version thereof. 

You still ain’t Jesus. 

Lose that racial strategy and talk about policy.

There is more than enough to say about affordable housing, public safety, water, education and local hiring. 

Sasha Perez and Yvonne Yu must have spent a grip of money on mailers. 

Those bad boys never stopped coming to my mailbox. A few days I got mail twice.

Truth.  

The mailers are good for a read and in some cases a few laughs.

But it got to be too many?

Yes, candidates are within their First Amendment rights to send them. But it left me feeling like Kramer in that Seinfeld episode where he goes to the post office to opt out. 

Truth to tell, I didn’t even bother to look at most of the mailers over the past 10 days.

Most of them went right from the mailbox to the trash. Others are still on the kitchen table. 

Most, not all, are just slick, glossy paper that say the same thing with different words.

“Vote for me and I’ll set you free.”

Yes I stole that from the Temptations, “Ball of Confusion.”

If you don’t know, give it a listen. I still have the classic five Temptations as the greatest group of all time.

Back on point, with all that paper jammed into local mailboxes, it’s no wonder locals are showing signs of election fatigue.

Returns of mail in ballots are low, really low among young people and independents according to the LA Times. 

We’ll see who that favors in a few hours.

The reason for that fatigue?

Some current campaigns kicked off before the last campaigns ended two years ago. 

Perpetual election season, no break, no off season.

It’s like the WWE.

It’s always on.

Actually it’s a lot like pro wrestling – heroes and villains vying for your attention and the villains hope we don’t remember their vile acts post election, when they have to reinvent themselves as heroes.

Going to be a hard sell. 

All we need now is Roddy Piper in a kilt playing the bagpipes at City Hall.  

That mail actually leads me to campaign finance reform. 

Didn’t some people say that campaign finance limits would lead to more people running and fresher voices? 

It didn’t.

Out of the mayoral race and the races in D2 and D3 only one person has never run for office by election of the people before.

Here’s the skinny.

Campaign finance reform is worthless if independent expenditures are not reeled in as well.

You got IEs this election season in your mailbox and you probably didn’t even know it.

An independent expenditure supports the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate but is not made in coordination with any candidate or campaign.

The money can be used for ads, robocalls, mailers, yard signs, and other communications giving a candidate wide visibility.

And they are harder to track than campaign contributions. Independent expenditures are designed to be independent from the candidate’s campaign and can be made without the campaign’s knowledge

A $35,000 independent expenditure was filed by the California Apartment Association Housing Solutions Committee opposing Victor Gordo in his first campaign for Mayor and then-Mayor Terry Tornek was completely unaware of it.

District 4 Councilmember Gene Masuda said he was not aware of an independent expenditure filed by the Pasadena Police Officers Association in the 2020 race.

In the LA City Council races, more than $4 million in independent expenditures have been spent by special interest groups on the seven L.A. City Council races in Tuesday’s election according to LA Daily News. More than $2 million has gone toward just two races in the San Fernando Valley.

I’m all for campaign finance reform if it’s the will of the people. But what makes more sense, worrying about a candidate getting $5,500 bucks that can be tracked or a $2 million independent expenditure that’s hard to trace. 

If there is campaign finance reform and no reform on IEs, then special interests groups will rule local elections.

We’ll have election results as they come in on Tuesday nights and then do the updates until we can call some races. 

Outside of some craziness, I am pretty sure we’ll be calling the D1 and D6 race on Tuesday night, and one more if I had to hazard a guess. 

I’ll leave you with that.