California Blues

The dust is not yet settled, but it appears all of Spencer Pratt’s wonderful guerrilla ads accomplished nothing more than to give false hope to those who desperately hope for a Los Angeles turnaround.

As a mayor, Karen Bass is a failure. As a political candidate, Karen Bass is dull and uninspiring. In normal times and in normal places, a preventable catastrophe as large as the Palisades/AltaDena fires would doom any responsible officer holder seeking reelection.

Bass was so vulnerable that she drew a challenger from her left. The DSA, Democratic Socialists of America, persuaded city council member Nithya Raman to run. The Republicans, however, didn’t bother to field a candidate. In steps Spencer Pratt, a D-list celebrity whose house burned down.

Then, lightning struck. Pratt had a good debate, and clever creative types sat down at their keyboards and developed ads so good that there was no need to pay to have them broadcast. Just post them to Instagram (for free) and let a million voters choose to watch them … and share with their friends.

As the weeks progressed, Pratt became a national story and a local phenomenon. He ran a perfect campaign. He did not overpromise. Basically, he only promised not to do stupid stuff. Throughout Los Angeles, the same conversation repeated itself day after day. Yes, Spencer Pratt has no experience for the job. But, Bass has conclusively proved she can not do the job. It is Pratt or the socialist who wastes hundreds of millions on NGOs doing God-knows-what about the homeless.

Those ads, and those conversations, raised hope.

Election night killed those hopes. Making the run-off was meaningless. The Bass vote plus the DSA candidate’s vote exceeded 50%. Pratt would gain zero DSA votes in a runoff. But the California machine was not finished. The next day, they began to count the “harvested” ballots. On the “harvested” ballots, the DSA candidate got more votes than Bass, and Pratt got bupkis.

There will be a runoff between Left and Lefter.

Meanwhile, statewide, there was a Governor election. Again, the establishment Republicans took a pass. A second-string Fox guy decided to run. Smart guy. Very articulate with lots of good ideas. California does not care. On the Democrat side, there were many candidates with decent name recognition. The problem is that no one likes any of them. These Democrats were so weak, Eric Swalwell was leading the pack with under 15%. For sound reasons, the Democrat establishment partnered up with the media to take out Swalwell.

On election night, first place goes to Xavier Becerra. A bland, dull man who has held several important jobs in which he, himself, never did anything important. The Fox guy gets 25%. Maybe he makes the run off, maybe not. It doesn’t matter. The next California governor will be a Democrat. The next California governor will be part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Bottom line: Today, the most common California conversation is this: Yeah, we’re probably leaving too, but we haven’t yet decided when and where.

G-Pub