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Health & Fitness

The (Political) Butterfly Effect & Northeast L.A.

Looking at the political landscape past the May 17 municipal general election.

If you bump into the runoff candidates for the LAUSD Board, Bennett Kayser and Luis Sanchez, can you pass along a message from me? Stop calling! I voted by absentee ballot weeks ago. I’ve even gone to the extent of adding their call centers’ phone number to my visual voice mail contacts so that they get a special message from me telling them not to call me anymore. Apparently, neither candidate has gotten my message.

If the dismal turnout for the March 8 L.A. Primary Nomination Election and sure-to-be abysmal turnout for the May 17 L.A. General Municipal Election is a barometer, the overwhelming number of voters in Eagle Rock have probably put zero thought into next year’s election cycle. Sure there will be a race for the presidency where the drama won’t unfold until late in the summer of 2012. But the butterfly effect of the national campaign could impact the eye-level politics in Eagle Rock.

See if you can follow this convoluted logic.

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Los Angeles City Attorney Carmen Trutanich filed paperwork in mid-April, declaring intent to run for Los Angeles County District Attorney in 2012. Since President Obama will not face a serious primary challenger from within the Democratic Party and California has moved its presidential primary election back to June 2012, City Attorney Trutanich may be the beneficiary of a higher than average Republican and Decline-to-State voter turnout in the primary. Predicting a Trutanich win in a runoff election to be held 18 months from now is far fetched, but what if? What if 'Nuch is the next D.A.? And what does this mean to Eagle Rock?

I’ll cut through the suspense and get right to the “Couddie,” as a buddy of mine likes to contract the French phrase coup de gras. Can you say “José Huizar for City Attorney?”

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Okay, give me a bit of credit for my imagination, but you can see as well as I can Councilmember Huizar humming his version of  “Hail to the Chief”—Jay-Z’s, “On to the Next One”—in the corridors of City Hall on March 9. NASA is finding a way to man a mission to Mars because it’s what’s next and, undoubtedly, Huizar is looking for his next political post for the same reason. Is it possible that we could see another race for CD 14 before 2015?

Before you can use the opening lines of James Weldon Johnson’s poem, “The Prodigal Son,”— “… your arm’s too short to box with God”—I ask that you cast your eyes south to the ripples of the South Bay. In an instant, like visualizing the falling of dominoes, Congresswoman Jane Harman announced her abrupt resignation from the U.S. House of Representatives, CD 15 Councilwoman Janice Hahn announced her run for the congressional seat, and a network of folks begin maneuvering to ready themselves to run for City Council. All the moves of a chessboard before a vote has been cast.

For now, I’ll enjoy the quiet before the storm(s). All I have left to do for this election cycle is to keep filling up my recycling bin with mailers from Sanchez and Kayser.

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