Tired Ethnic Tunes: Pols Play On

The picture of Los Angeles that’s emerging from the 2000 census data is a city more ethnically mixed than ever. But you wouldn’t know that from the parochial campaign messages filling our mailboxes and airwaves.

The parts of the nation’s decennial national head count released last week find that no one ethnic group can claim a majority in Los Angeles now. Latinos make up about 46% of the city, with whites at 32%, blacks 12% and Asians 11%. Moreover, about 5% of city residents refused to pin themselves down, identifying themselves as multiracial.

The timing of this latest multicolor snapshot is ironic, if not dispiriting. City voters go to the polls Tuesday to choose a new mayor, other city officials and a new member of Congress to replace the late Julian Dixon. Yet notwithstanding the demographic mosaic of Los Angeles revealed in the 2000 census, some of the candidates on Tuesday’s ballot seem to be running on the same old ethnic politics of divide and conquer.

To be sure, the television ads show candidates surrounded by a rainbow of reverential residents talking about bringing the city together, reforming the Police Department, improving city services and expanding jobs and housing. That message surely resonates with voters from the San Fernando Valley to San Pedro.

But the mailers and radio spots, consciously targeted on voters by race and ethnicity, reveal a dark confidence that in the end our skin color or religion, not the issues, will determine how we punch our chads this Tuesday. The result is demeaning to candidates and voters alike--and often downright silly.

A mailer from African American congressional candidate Diane Watson, for example, tells Jewish voters that “a tree grows in Israel” in memory of her late sister. Mayoral hopeful Steve Soboroff in a mailer directed to Jewish voters wishes them “a happy and Kosher Pesach” while asking for their vote.

City Council candidate Woody Fleming, an African American, shamelessly urged a largely black audience in February not to support his opponent, Jan Perry, also black, while happening to mention that she is married to a white man. Then he tried, clumsily, to backtrack.

Scott Wildman, also seeking a City Council seat, in one mailer tells white voters about his support for gun control and in another, to Latino voters, showcases two of his children who are “accomplished Mexican folkloric dancers.”

It has become a staple of politics for white candidates advertising on black radio to exhort voters with gospel music swelling in the background. In a similar vein, a targeted mailer from James K. Hahn’s campaign features the mayoral candidate’s late father, county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, shaking hands with Martin Luther King Jr.

This sort of pandering is hardly new. Generations of big-city pols, here and elsewhere, have built election day victories--not to mention long careers--by faithfully marching in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, visiting black churches or donning a yarmulke. But in a city where our common interest in safe streets, more park space and good schools surely overrides our differences, isn’t it time to change the tune?