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| "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Obama." |
Cathleen, darling, have you been in a coma the past seven years, or are you just playing dumb? Villaraigosa is going exactly the same place he's always gone: wherever cameras are pointed.
Villaraigosa -- as yours truly has documented in an essay in the Daily News -- spends our hard-earned tax dollars on no less than five press secretaries, a "Deputy Mayor of Communications," an "Associate Director of Communications," two press aides, and a "media aide." If I weren't trying to cut down on my blogging, I would write a parody of the "Twelve Days of Christmas" to describe that massive media entourage.
Whatever story the press is covering, Villraigosa and his Group of Eleven try to manufacture some pretext to insinuate him into the story.
For example, when the national news story was those naked scanners, Villaraigosa, who, as mayor, has nothing at all to do with the issue, scheduled a photo-op at the airport to announce his support for same.
Taking another example, when the media reported that parents in Compton had submitted a petition to take over a local school, Villaraigosa rushed to the scene -- but only after alerting the media to show up to cover him. Compton, however, is a separate city, with its own school district, separate from the one that runs the schools in the city of which Villaraigosa is the Mayor.
Examples abound, going back for at least the seven years since I made the horrible mistake of starting to pay attention to local politics.
Fire? Villaraigosa puts on one of his "Village People" costumes, and stands with the real fire-fighters, pretending he has some idea of what he's talking about.
Bicycle accident? Rather than simply admitting he was a klutz, he instead gathers bicyclists together to announce a brilliant idea that came to him after his head smacked the pavement: a mandatory helmet law for grown-up bicyclists. Oops -- that one backfired. He got booed. Someone in the Group of Eleven made a boo boo.
And so, Cathleen, of course Villaraigosa chimed in to support Obama's "compromise" on refraining from increasing taxes. Of course he announced his support for education reform, in line with Obama's education plans.
Villaraigosa's advisors have seen the future, and understand there is only one path that can keep him in front of the cameras he so desperately craves: a Presidential appointment. You can expect him to echo support loud, clear and consistently from now until the time he cons Obama's administration into appointing him to some position, ideally involving energy or education position -- notwithstanding his complete lack of accomplishment in either field, or in any field aside from media exposure itself.
After all, it's not as though Villaraigosa has achieved anything -- anything at all -- as Mayor. On the contrary, he brought the City to the brink of bankruptcy despite near-record revenues. As yours truly pointed out in another essay in the Daily News, Villaraigosa's budgets super-sized spending by 32%, which is why a trivial 2.6% drop in revenues had City Hall chatting with bankruptcy counsel.
The good news for Villaraigos is that voters simply ignore local politics anyway. Over 1.3 million of L.A.'s registered voters simply skipped the March 2009 municipal election. Plus, of the 285,658 people who did bother to show up, 11,425 did not bother to vote for anyone for Mayor.
Villaraigosa was re-elected by a trivial margin of just 1.9% of the City's registered voters. There were 1,596,165 registered voters; Villaraigosa received 152,613 votes; yours truly and the other candidates received 121,620 votes; meaning Villaraigosa had a margin of just 30,993 votes. Mandate? Hardly. And that is why he could not and did not run for governor.
L.A.'s voters therefore do not realize that Villaraigosa's disastrous policies have pushed unemployment in our city sky-high, well above the national, state and even county averages. The unemployment rate in the City of Los Angeles is at 13.7%, versus 9.6% for the U.S. and Orange County. Over 264,000 L.A. residents are unemployed. That's no accident. That's bad public policy. Merry Christmas.
L.A.'s voters therefore do not realize that Villaraigosa's disastrous policies have pushed unemployment in our city sky-high, well above the national, state and even county averages. The unemployment rate in the City of Los Angeles is at 13.7%, versus 9.6% for the U.S. and Orange County. Over 264,000 L.A. residents are unemployed. That's no accident. That's bad public policy. Merry Christmas.
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| Latest figures show 264,655 unemployed in the City of L.A. |
Bottom line: Villaraigosa has accomplished nothing; has no significant support among the voters in his city; desperately craves the lime-light; and will therefore continue, with the help of his many media aides, to try to insinuate himself into every news story to make himself relevant and appealing to President Obama, by echoing, again and again, his support for anything and everything the president does.
Children's birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese will be next.
ReplyDeleteThis guy (the current L.A. Mayor) is a joke and an embarrassment.
The joke isn't the Mexican Mayor of L.A: Its YOU GUYS WHO VOTE HIM IN! Most of you vote for Boxer, Brown, and all the Democrat lunatics in L.A, yet you bitch about what exactly?
ReplyDeleteWalter spent alot of time and money to not just run for mayor, but to SAVE YOU ALOT OF MONEY AND HARDSHIP in getting this bafoon out of there. But, like CD5, CD2, etc. you guys just can't listen for reason, and on election day sneak your little butts in that booth and punch the ballot for the garbage we have "representing" us all. Villar (that's his real name) is an agent for the Mexican Gov't and for anyone else who will give him free-bees and gifts. He doesn't know or care about anything about L.A. Why should he? He'll run for Senate in 2012 and you clowns will elect him like Camel-A (W)Horris. You'd elect Hitler if he was reencarnated and got the endorsement of Gerry Brown, wouldn't ya?
You'd see the campaign slogan:
Hiter, Democrat for State Senate, yes, he did a few bad things, but he's the right man for California. You'd vote him in, as long as he has a (D) next to his name.
Walter tried. I try. But you guys...geez, you'll just keep voting stupid like usual. Hopefully, in CD14, Rudy can find a PLURALITY of non-braindead to get in a run-off with the incumbant waste of time, Weezy-Huizar. In CD7, we'll see what the Court says about not ever living in your district and "representing" it. As for CD6, the "Red" Barron is in the race. But does he write the big check to his campaign or run one of these useless "campaigns?" $50,000 is needed for seed $$$, with matching funds that's $100,000 grand, and that would really give Cardumbdumb a real bad BELLY-ACHE!
As for Ms. Shaw, she's in on CD10 vs. Wesson-Oil, who is so slippery, he failed to show for a friday vote on DWP reform! Slippery like a bottle of cooking oil, thus the nickname!
How about a measure to change the Mayor from salaried to hourly, since he's an old union man, he can understand "hourly" - and have him punch in to his office every day - no punch in, no pay check. He certainly is not doing his job of running the city while cruising around the country.
ReplyDeleteAnd to the Auditor, demand justification for his expense report - what was accomplished to the benefit of the City by his trips out of town. All other City employees have to submit a request for travel authorization - why shouldn't he?
If he wants to travel around the country puffing up his personal profile, then let him pay for the trip - plane fare, hotel, meals, etc. - once he leaves the City limits, he's on his own. His trip to Chicagp for example brought no benefit to the citizens of Los Angeles, therefore, the citizens should not have to pay for the trip.