"Newsmax" is still fighting the "Clinton Wars," I see.
HOLLYWOOD HYPESTERS
Los Angeles Hogs the Ballot and the Spotlight
By DEAN E. MURPHY - NEW YORK TIMES
SAN FRANCISCO - Jay Leno has invited all 135 contenders in the California recall election to appear next month on his late-night show.
"We'll let everybody in," Mr. Leno announced. "And Gary Coleman, don't worry. We will have a booster seat."
As luck would have it, a trip to Burbank will involve little more than a congested drive on the freeway for Mr. Coleman, the 4-foot-8 actor. He, like a good number of California's other would-be governors, lives in the Los Angeles area.
Blame the sunshine or the smog or its enormousness, but Los Angeles County has once again lived up to its reputation for flamboyance, this time putting forth nearly a quarter of the official candidates trying to replace Gov. Gray Davis, should he lose the Oct. 7 recall vote.
None of the state's 57 other counties comes close, a point that has not been lost on those Californians who regularly gnash their teeth over long-simmering intrastate rivalries.
"It makes sense because Los Angeles is the largest county, but it also makes sense that the sun has baked their brains," said Will Durst, a political comedian and onetime mayoral candidate in San Francisco. "I think that's where the center of the recall vortex is located, and I think the drain is down there, too."
Northern Californians like Mr. Durst had a particularly tough time with the fact that Leo Gallagher, a Los Angeles comedian, made the ballot, but that the San Francisco Bay Area's own Don Novello, a k a Father Guido Sarducci, was disqualified by the secretary of state's office. It had something to do with his managing to collect just 48 of the 65 required signatures.
"Our comedians can't even cut it," Mr. Durst said.
Los Angeles's contributions to the 2003 recall derby include celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arianna Huffington. There is also an occasional seasoned politician with a lot of money, like Bill Simon Jr., a Republican businessman who unsuccessfully ran against Mr. Davis last year.
Then comes the vast array of publicity seekers and opportunists, from the self-described "smut peddler" Larry Flynt to a billboard model with a one-word name, Angelyne. And don't overlook Mary Cook, a porn actress known as Mary Carey, or Kurt E. Rightmyer, a middleweight sumo wrestler, or Logan Darrow Clements, an objectivist philosopher and admirer of Ayn Rand.
"The lower the bar the more people will jump over it," said Samuel Popkin, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego. "There is always a lot of this edgy stuff when there is an open primary, but people don't pay attention to it. This time it is great water cooler talk that you have clowns and porn stars."
Los Angeles County is an oversized swath of desert that the rest of California has made a habit of hating. It is home to more than nine million of the state's 34 million people. It gets drinking water from as far away as the Colorado River. Its inhabitants are unapologetic in their colonizing of the neighboring counties of San Bernardino, Ventura and Orange.
But this time it is Angelenos' recurring knack for weirdness, not their thorough dominance of everything Californian, that has the rest of the state ? and even some on the outside ? looking slightly askance.
"It is so fabulous, it's worthy of Texas," said Molly Ivins, an author and syndicated columnist. She refused further comment about Los Angeles, insisting it would be the equivalent of picking on people from Lubbock.
Jerry Brown, the former California governor who is now mayor of Oakland, got his political start in Los Angeles, and it turns out, in strangely familiar circumstances.
Mr. Brown said that in his first bid for elective office, a 1969 race for a community college board, there were 124 candidates on the ballot. Mr. Brown attributes his victory to a good campaign, a last name beginning with a letter near the top of the alphabet (in those days the ballot listings were not randomized) and, perhaps most important, a famous father, the former governor.
The lesson for Mr. Brown? Geography doesn't matter much when you are a nobody like most of those on the ballot from Los Angeles. "Whether they are from San Francisco or Tulelake doesn't mean anything," he said. "Nobody knows who they are. People are going to vote for the ones they know."
Mr. Brown, who has enjoyed his share of the ups and the downs of celebrity, said it should come as no surprise that Los Angeles is at the center of the recall's most entertaining spectacle.
"If you are going to have these kind of people who are mini-celebrities, it is not unnatural that they would be in Hollywood," he said. "That is Tinseltown. You wouldn't expect Eureka to produce too may of these strange characters."
Just one, actually, Darin Price, from nearby McKinleyville. He is a college chemistry instructor who told elections officials in Humboldt County that he was torn between collecting enough signatures to qualify for the election and going fishing.
"Apparently, he didn't go fishing," said Lindsey McWilliams, the county's elections manager.
nytimes.com |
