By now, the three men could be feeling a trace of fatigue, like actors in a long-running Broadway show
On Tuesday night, the classy League of Women Voters, under the longtime leadership of Frances Talbott-White, sponsored a forum at City Hall that was a little more Rocky in the beginning than Sylvester Stallone.
The gang packed up and drove their jalopies into Blair Hills last night.
In every setting, the questions vary by a thread or so. Still, most answers can probably be lipsynced.
Roadies in Culver City
Some hardy people travel from forum to forum. They know the candidates’ bios and their beliefs better than they know the date this year for the Fourth of July celebrations.
Only minimal changes in the rhythms along the campaign trail have been noted since mid-January, a pattern that might be of interests to sociologists as well as Culver City voters.
On paper, where some Americans used to vote, Mr. Silbiger was the pre-season favorite to protect his seat on the five-person Council, especially after Mayor Albert Vera dropped out — climbed back in, dropped you. Well, you get the idea.
Mr. Vera’s withdrawal was the warm news also for Mr. Malsin. Some of his many supporters were saying, cheerfully, that Mr. Vera’s absence cleared the highway for him to run a wire-to-wire race.
Mr. O’Leary has become a larger factor than either of the other two camps had counted on.
What he lacks in hardwired endorsements, name recognition and community affiliations he has made up for with his crowd-appealing boyish sincerity and his unmistakable Irish ancestry. He offers the only hint of ethnicity in the race.
By this stage of an election season, a frontrunner usually has emerged. Smelling blood, convinced that victory almost is inevitable, he starts to make claims. Like pumping up a flat tire, he inflates himself with supreme, unbeatable confidence that morphs into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Not in this campaign.
No predictions are even being whispered in any of the three camps. Not a leak has been detected.
And that leads to a second dynamic in the race — universal tightness.
You can be serious about running for election and still put your sense of humor on display when you walk into community arenas.
Not this field.
Loose, Loose, Has Anyone Seen It?
Mr. Silbiger and Mr. Malsin, who were being talked about as co-favorites in January, have not shown any signs of breaking away from Mr. O’Leary.
The closest anyone has come to appearing loose is Mr. O’Leary, not because he is rhetorically aerobic but because his opponents have been making monotone presentations. They know their stuff. But it does not look as if anyone is having fun.
No one is glancing right or left. In a studied way, they are reciting their beliefs.
Humor is the main casualty of this fairly grim campaign. If a joke has been cracked, it floated away too fast to catch and defeather it.
If some brilliant promoter opened one of these late-hour forums with clips from an old “Saturday Night Live” show from the 1970s when the show still was funny, it is no cinch any of the candidates would laugh back.
For that reason, the presence of former City Councilman Steve Gourley was fresh air — a relief, actually — on Tuesday night in Council Chambers. He had more fun than anyone in the room.
Hopefully, the candidate camps were scribbling notes, which they even could have applied last night in Blair Hills.
The wife of each candidate should tuck the following cryptic but pragmatic note into her hubby’s favorite pants pocket before he leaves home for a forum:
“Look as if you are having fun even if you aren’t. Unravel, unwind when you come home. If you at least appear to be of good cheer, voters will be more inclined to identify with you, the first step in gaining their confidence.”
Mr. Gourley, technically an elder statesman in these times, was a walking crash course in How a Successful Candidate Behaves When Voters Are Looking.
Lively, spirited, brimming with quips. Joking with anyone who brought a set of ears into Council Chambers.
He and Councilwoman Carol Gross were the For and Against sides in Tuesday night’s opening act — Measure V, the proposition to replace the elderly City Charter with an updated but fairly controversial rewrite.
Some Opening Act
Ms. Gross and Mr. Gourley formed a terrific warmup act for the main event. They sailed zingers back and forth at each other’s tender ears. The longer they talked, the pointier the barbs grew.
Mr. Gourley’s wisecracks were timely, needed and appreciated.
What was supposed to elevate this candidates’ program over the others was that it was going to be televised on Channel 35. But would it be? The camera operator was a no-show at 7 o’clock. The League’s Ms. Talbott -White was forced to vamp after consulting the audience, which voted to wait until the cameras were turned on.
City Councilman Alan Corlin, onetime ham operator and probably the most mechanically minded person in a position of authority, took charge.
Along with Council colleague Steve Rose, Mr. Corlin had come to City Hall to catch the showing of the candidate both of them are backing, Mr. Malsin.
Instead, he became the unofficial opening act. Heading for the control room, he executed the two necessary steps, turning on the cable television system and making certain that the signal was activated.
Meanwhile, out in Chambers, Ms. Talbott -White was telling the crowd, “I could get silly. But I won’t.”
Mr. Corlin, no latecomer to humor himself, tucked his tongue inside his cheek before telling thefrontpageonline.com later that “the easy part for me was turning on the system. The hard part was listening to the rest of the program.”
Out front, Mr. Gourley, already seated at a table with Ms. Gross, pretended to fret. Said he feared that if the forum did not show up on television his wife would wonder what had happened to him.
A Time for Seriousness?
Periodically, he was self-deprecating, and that is another quality that has not shown up in any of the candidates’ forums. Are they taking themselves too seriously?
Between them, Ms. Gross and Mr. Gourley made the (by now) tired, well-tread and fairly limited arguments surrounding Measure V sound as fresh as a loaf of bread just coming out of a steaming hot oven.
She warned that if V passes and the position of City Manager is created, it will be expensive, around $250,000. She has no idea where a strapped city is going to find the funding, she complained. Rubbish, answered Mr. Gourley. “I don’t believe any initial costs will be involved,” he said.
Ms. Gross explained that throughout California., city managers routinely earn salaries $30,000 higher than the roughly $175,000 City Hall is paying to Chief Administrative Officer Jerry Fulwood.
The paths of Mr. Gourley and Ms. Gross began to diverge a little, and a little more as the heat of their words began cooking. Friendship was pitched into the backseat.
If the current City Council would devote more of its precious time to locating new streams of revenue instead of getting bogged down by minutiae, it would be more productive, Mr. Gourley judged.
No pepper in sight, each tossed a shock of salt at the other person. At one chilly point, Ms. Gross said, “I am beginning to think Mr. Gourley has been away (from City Hall) too long.”
Mr. Gourley also authored the Gotcha line of the night. Suspecting that credit was being claimed by the wrong party, he said:
“I am happy so many things are happening here now that I planned eighteen years ago, but that the present City Council is taking credit for.”
Since she was the Councilperson who nominated him for the Charter Review Committee, which decided a new Charter was needed, Ms. Gross said it would have been kind of nice if he had telephoned her sometime during the process. Keeping in touch was important she said.
Mr. Gourley was primed. Even eager, maybe. To everyone within range, he announced his telephone number. He swore it was not a secret. Been the same for years, he said. It is in the telephone directory, not crouching underneath a bush— with a lower-case “b.”
He is not hiding from anyone, he said again before taking a whack at his punch line: “I called Carol at least twice.”
Mr. Gourley also may have thought up the most useful line of the ninety-minute evening.
Of the lengthy proposed new Charter that has complicated provisions, he said that instead of being influenced by nifty messages from him or Ms. Gross, voters should “read the new Charter yourself. Don’t let anyone sway you.”
Postscript
One of the earliest arriving audience members intercepted Ms. Talbott-White of the League of Women Voters. Which part of the program was up first, he asked, the Measure V debate or the candidates’ portion?
He who inquired was disappointed when Ms. Talbott -White said Measure V would lead off. Why? he asked. Because, she said, if the candidates go first, everyone will go home, and no one will stay behind for Measure V.
That might have been true on some occasions. But on this evening, Ms. Gross and Mr. Gourley earned large blue ribbons for easily being the more engaging and entertaining performers.