(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Finally Got Polled for the First Time in 50 Years [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-28
Having spent more hours than I would want to think about digesting and dissecting political polls over 50 years as a voter – but never once getting polled– I was slightly excited to get a call the other day from a pollster. After confirming I was a citizen and a registered voter, he asked if I had heard of the recall effort to oust Los Angeles’ mayor, previously the long-serving U.S.congresswoman Karen Bass. I had not, although I knew she had caught plenty of heat from the devastating fires that ravaged Pacific Palisades just a couple of months ago. I did hear, as mostly everyone did at the time, that she was on a trip abroad and had it not been for that, she would have been here to douse the flames, hug people, grab a hose or something.
Karen Bass was elected Los Angeles’ mayor only two years ago last November, narrowly defeating millionaire developer Rick Caruso. Local politics in California (or maybe it’s just certain cities, Los Angeles included) are supposed to be non-partisan. That means our mayor is most often a Democrat without the label but we do elect a Republican every so often (usually with the label) – that occurrence being most recently a millionaire named Dick Riordan who served at City Hall from ’93 to ‘01. I didn’t vote for Riordan since I tend to be turned off by politicians who pander for votes by saying they won’t take a paycheck. When someone brags a net worth 100 times the mayor’s annual salary, seems a bit patronizing, but that’s me.
Back to the ‘22 election, I felt I knew a good bit about Rick Caruso and it really wasn’t all that bad. Building luxury apartments I could never imagine renting and “lifestyle centers” containing stores I can’t afford to browse wasn’t that bad a knock against him for me nor for quite a large share of L.A.’s voters. And it was actually rather refreshing to vote, perhaps for the first time ever, for a seat in which I was okay with whichever candidate prevailed. While Bass had a full-throated endorsement from President Obama, Caruso seemed to have no qualms about stating in his many TV ads that he was a “ Proud Democrat.” While I imagine a lot of Bass’ supporters had their doubts about that, I thought he deserved credit for declaring it and not just inferring it knowing it could alienate the city’s ample Republican voters.
As I mentioned, the election was close and it was a week or more before the vote was counted and the outcome certain. While the voters and media waited, I felt compelled to email Rick Caruso a personal letter. I had thought about making it an open letter and posting it here but, in light of this recall effort, maybe now it’s worth sharing a bit of it:
If Ms. Bass does prevail, it’s not what I would have predicted after seeing your early and very effective TV ads many months ago. Then when you started to proclaim yourself as not just a Democrat but a “ proud Democrat” I believed you meant it and I found myself leaning toward you ... Just to be clear, I’ve never felt the need as a voter to belong to any party. I vote for the person and for the past 40 years, that person has always been a Democrat and that’s not likely to change any time soon if ever. I hope you’re a Democrat for good, regardless of the final vote.
I have a strong sense as to why a majority of the city’s voters (so far) have opted for your opponent. Many presume that no one should be able to buy their way into elected office. Some thought you only became a Democrat since you would have no way of winning otherwise. I think plenty of others were ultimately moved by President Obama’s endorsement of Bass as she had done for him when he first ran. While I imagine news of his backing her was a jolt for your campaign, I hope you realize that Obama owed it to her and not to take it personally. I’m a great admirer of President Obama and I still voted for you. Now I’d like to explain why.
Los Angeles should be one of the finest, most beautiful cities in the country. After a good rain, it often is. But the fact is, there has never been an intelligent master plan at work between the City and its moneyed interests, specifically developers. There are way too many valuable parcels of land laying fallow for numerous lame reasons. I believe you made the point clearly and correctly that this city’s largest problem is family incomes being unable to keep up with the cost of housing. I was compelled to believe that you had more and better ideas than Ms. Bass as well as the clout to get meaningful and impactful housing projects underway.
As for that plan, the other reason why some voters may have been unmoved by your message is the fact that affordable housing has simply not been an area it seems you’ve cared about up to now … Your service on the Police Commission during a time when crime was down in most cities aside, you’re known for having built really only two things: a high-end shopping center adjacent to a long-popular faux marketplace, and a luxury apartment complex with the same posh retail outlets which isn’t even situated in Los Angeles (it’s in Glendale). I know you’ve built other things but those who voted for your opponent are not aware of them and probably wouldn’t be impressed if they were. If you had just developed one major multi-use “lifestyle center” that wasn’t built to command the highest rents possible, a lot of us who don’t shop at Gucci or Prada and who can’t often afford $8 for an ice cream cone might have given you the benefit of the doubt.
So please take to heart what I would like to suggest in the event you have come up short this time in your quest to be our mayor or even if you do prevail. Build something similar to Americana except with apartments and condos for people with average or even below-average incomes (for whom a portion of rent paid can go toward a down-payment!) with balconies looking down upon their own businesses as well as those owned by working families along with some chain stores that regular people rely on. Maybe look at Guadalajara or Medellin for architectural inspiration, instead of Milan and Paris. Maybe you can scale down somewhat by making smaller fountains, stringing lights and inviting street musicians instead of an outdoor sound system playing the Sinatra catalog.
My apologies for the extensive excerpts that may not seem very relevant to the issue of the day but please read on.
That was undoubtedly a climactic week to send a letter to the would-be mayor of a city of over 4 million so, not surprisingly, I didn’t get a reply. But what did surprise me were some of the points of fact that were read to me by the pollster yesterday with respect to the effort to oust Mayor Bass.
After asking if I was aware of the recall effort, which I was not, and then learning I did not yet have a strong opinion on the question, he stated some of the reasons that recall proponents are offering and how moved or unmoved I was by each. He offered the claim that the Mayor had cut the budget by however-many-millions for the City Fire Department and how much that weighed on my assessment of her performance and/or blame for the fire devastation. Here it might be worth mentioning that the Pacific Palisades fires raged at the same time as the equally and perhaps more destructive fires in Altadena, which is an unincorporated neighborhood many miles outside LA city limits and well beyond the mayor’s overview. As to his poll question, I said I would need to take in a rebuttal.
He went on to quote how little had been undertaken by Mayor Bass in the last two years on behalf of the unhoused population and I could only offer that it seemed as much or more had been done in two years as had been managed over the previous 25.
Then he cited names of people supporting the mayor and those behind the recall and that’s when this polling call really got interesting. Among those NOT calling for her ouster was millionaire developer and former opponent Rick Caruso. The primary backer of the effort? One Nicole Shanahan, the lawyer, anti-vaccinator (or not, depending on who’s asking), ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, short-term love interest to one Elon Musk, and who, most importantly and perhaps to her credit, had hired a very good divorce attorney. Yes, RFK Jr’s running mate has moved onto funding an effort to oust the mayor of Los Angeles.
If a recall of L.A.’s Mayor Bass does makes its way onto the ballot, it probably ought to be noted that Shanahan will not be able to cast a vote as she’s a resident of Malibu which, while it also suffered in the Palisades fires, is a separate city from Los Angeles. From what I’ve read and for what it’s worth, she converted to Judaism to please her first husband (or mother-in-law) before recently converting back to Christianity. That was a first in my many biographical dives but whatever. All I can say is very wealthy people and political scions sorely lacking in critical thinking skills sure seem to be rampant in our dear kleptocracy.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/28/2313213/-Finally-Got-Polled-for-the-First-Time-in-50-Years?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
