They Couldn’t Hit the Side of a Barn : Roberti Shot Down the Gun Lobby, and the Rest Is Little More Than Conversation

In the aftermath of the recent election, far too much has been made of the so-called stinging defeat of Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) in the race for state treasurer. Devastating, some pundits said. Evidence, others said, of how badly the gun lobby had wounded the senator in its failed attempt to oust him from office a few months early because of his avid support of gun control. The recall attempt against Roberti in April “killed his ability to raise money,” claimed one of its leaders.

Even Roberti seemed to succumb to the mood of the moment when he said, “When the gun lobby goes after you, it does have an adverse impact.”

Begging the senator’s pardon, but let’s get real here, folks.

Some small measure of this might have been true had there been any evidence that Roberti had long harbored an avid interest in the treasurer post. He did not. In fact, because term limits were going to bring his long Senate career to an end in December, Roberti had decided to retire from political life, period. That account came from the senator and his wife in a story by Times reporter Cynthia Craft in April. That story needs to be recalled now, pun intended.

In fact, the gun lobby that had long hated Roberti for his successful ban on certain military-style assault weapons had only to wait quietly until December to be rid of him. Instead, they so angered him with that costly, silly and untimely recall effort that he perhaps overreacted by seeking a statewide office he would not otherwise have coveted so suddenly.

The gun lobby did not grievously wound Roberti. In fact, the senator kicked it firmly in the seat of its pants, turning the recall back by a hefty 59% to 41% margin. The campaign against him was peopled by weak candidates who were either part of the gun lobby or kowtowed to it. The biggest vote-getter among them did not even take part in the first real race for Roberti’s 20th Senate District seat, the June 7 primary.

The unimpressive support garnered by the other Roberti opponents in the recall election was equaled in the Republican primary race for the Senate seat. And the winner among them, Dolores White with 9,975 votes, figures to be thrashed come November by the venerable Herschel Rosenthal, who pulled in 26,378 votes in the Democratic primary. We might add here that Rosenthal is a supporter of gun control and was a supporter of Roberti’s ban against assault weapons.

If there was a race that was more important for Roberti to win, it was certainly the recall election and not the race for treasurer. It exposed an important weakness in the saber-rattling gun lobby. Let’s remember David Roberti for that.