Buying Elections or Not

Rick Caruso spent $104M and still lost the LA mayor’s race while McOsker outspends and wins

In a country where everything seems to be up for sale these days it’s actually quite astounding that former U.S.  representative, now mayor-elect, Karen Bass won the LA mayor’s race by nearly 10 points against billionaire Rick Caruso who spent an estimated $104 million. And she did it by garnering more votes than any other candidate in LA’s history (509,621 to 419,765).

 With 45% final voter turnout this year, it is similar to the 1993 election, the last year that presented such an ideologically striking choice to voters. In that election, the long shadow of the 1992 uprising fueled Republican businessman Richard Riordan’s victory over  Democratic City Councilman Michael Woo, who would have been LA’s first mayor of Asian American descent. How things have changed. Bass is the first woman and only the second Black person to hold this office.

Some attribute Caruso’s loss to his barrage of over spending on TV commercials and his late announcement of switching party affiliation to Democrat a few weeks before the race began. Did anyone get tired of being reminded that he was a “Democrat?” Yet, he did win in large swaths of the San Fernando Valley and curiously, much of the San Pedro and Harbor Area. I say curiously because of this council district’s  strong pro-union and majority Democratic registration. And yet, in the race for CD15, where Tim McOsker outspent Danielle Sandoval 10-to-one with the help of several dubious political action committees, the money candidate won.

Still, Sandoval earned 35.74% of the votes with 14,550 against McOsker’s 26,156. It’s a clear victory, but not one that will easily heal the divide created by this nasty campaign that opened many old wounds and exposed clear disparities between various communities. It may take years for the San Pedro area to recover from this political battle.  However, both Bass and McOsker must now figure out how to govern a divided city and district, as the city council itself is now divided between progressives and centrist Democrats. Bass is perhaps better equipped for the job of unifying the city as she comes from a background of community organizing, with a much more extensive legislative expertise and McOsker does not. He may find himself allied with most of the old guard. The question is, is Los Angeles too big to be governed at all or whether we are in for a structural change of the city charter?

Both Caruso and Bass made “solving the homeless crisis” their top campaign promise and as a voter, one was left wondering that if Caruso was so concerned about this problem, then why didn’t he just build more affordable housing before running for office as opposed to developing chic upper class shopping malls? The answer is that the majority just didn’t trust him, and much like another “billionaire,” the electorate in LA wasn’t going to gamble on a fake politician to make LA great again. Also, the background noise of the greater political conflict resonated here with the Roe v. Wade decision that doesn’t come under any municipal jurisdiction but it  inspired more women and young voters to the polls. And they voted in favor  of the Black woman over the rich white guy.

As much as Caruso came off as photogenic in his campaign ads, Bass appeared to be more authentic and approachable. And then there was his appearance at the Los Angeles/Long Beach Harbor Labor Day picnic in Wilmington, where he strolled around in 100-degree heat with his purebred golden retriever on a leash led by Councilman Joe Buscaino appearing like his lap dog. Just the optics of that trio was enough to make you cock your head in wonder.  This was the same Buscaino who later endorsed McOsker.  Certainly, Joe B. was and is still looking to butter both sides of his toast.

So, it remains kind of a curiosity how one candidate can blow a small fortune to win an election and still lose while another candidate who out spent his opponent 10-to-one and wins in the very same election cycle. It just goes to show that money doesn’t always win and that intrinsic values such as trust and integrity just can’t be bought.

It has long been said that, “money is the mother’s milk of politics”, but during this election cycle it appears LA voters have been weaned,  but perhaps less so here in CD 15.