In Elections, Race Card Trumps

There were three lessons learned from the city’s primary election: Better times mean a pitiful voter turnout; the end is far from in sight for “identity politics,” and big money can make a difference for a candidate.

Politicians had their cake and ate it, too, with the happy-days-are-here-again theme. They wrung their hands and wailed about voter apathy, yet they endlessly chattered on about how L.A. is afloat in a sea of cash, development, jobs and tranquillity from which everybody has benefited. It doesn’t take much to figure out that when politicians must choose between having a mass of dissatisfied, angry voters storm the polls demanding their scalps and happy times, they’ll take the dismal voting numbers any day.

Still, with no compelling issue to charge the crowds, the wave of candidates in the heavily Latino 7th and 14th Districts spent much time jousting with one another, trying to get enough name recognition to separate themselves from the pack. Alex Padilla (who will face Corinne Sanchez in a runoff in June in the 7th District) and Nick Pacheco (who will face Victor Griego in a runoff in the 14th District) emerged as the leaders, and Riordan’s money helped make the difference for them.

It wasn’t Riordan’s money, however, but race that reared up in the 10th District. The three challengers had a field day reminding African American voters, who still make up the majority of the district’s voters, that their wily, scandal-ridden Councilman Nate Holden was a museum piece who would not hesitate to play the race card if it suited him.

Holden happily obliged. He lined up the usual cast of black politicians and community and church leaders, tossing in an alleged endorsement from the late Mayor Tom Bradley, in a not-so-subtle appeal to black voters that he was still the best person to deliver the goods and protect their interests. It worked. Even though Holden probably will face Madison Shockley in a runoff, he got almost as many votes as his three challengers combined.

Meanwhile, District 1 school board member Barbara Boudreaux, who was locked in a tough battle with Genethia Hayes, proudly, and at times defiantly, flaunted her credential as the black incumbent. When Riordan blundered by prematurely boasting that he would endorse and help bankroll Hayes, Boudreaux loudly and effectively accused him of playing “plantation politics”--that is, trying to tell blacks how to vote. While Hayes is the last person anyone could call a “white man’s stooge,” the label stuck with many black leaders and politicians who feared that black political strength is crumbling in Los Angeles and that Riordan’s endorsement of Hayes is an attempt to crumble it even more. They are convinced that even though Hayes is an African American, she isn’t “black enough” and won’t fight hard enough for the education needs of black children. While Boudreaux rode the anti-Riordan sentiment into a run-off with Hayes, school board members Jeff Horton and George Kiriyama had no race card to play against their Riordan-backed opponents. They paid the full price for the dismal performance of the L.A. city schools and were handily defeated.

But neither Riordan’s misstep on timing nor the legitimate concern over the decline of black political power can mask the fact that L.A. public schools are in terrible shape, and the schools in Boudreaux’s district are in the worst shape of all. Riordan would have been guilty of negligence if he hadn’t stepped in and tried to do something about the pathetic condition of the schools.

Prosperity and Riordan’s money and influence played well this election, but so did race and class rancor. But then again it always has in L.A., and it didn’t take a badly ignored election to prove it.