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ATTENTION! THE RACE IS OVER! PLEASE GO HOME!
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1992 Reads
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 I go away for a couple of days and return on election night to find - what - this nervous, blaring din emanating from the mayor's race.
It's the sound of too many people flapping their gums over too few voters making an extremely important decision on L.A.'s future with no choice beyond a couple of grasping, venal, short-sighted career political hacks.
It's the sound of anonymous posters burning up the comment boards on blogs like Mayor Sam's Sister City, still trading potshots and accusations over which of the two underachievers is the filthier demon, and whether anyone will actually bother to vote given the crappy options. One sample: "I can't say it's been fun OR educational; more like working a suicide hotline alone on a rainy Thanksgiving day. . ."
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It's the sound of eight dozen armchair pundits (new noise on old posts from LAVoice included) trying to handicap the near-foregone outcome: - Kevin Roderick turns pundit to give Villaraigosa a 7- to 9-point win.
- Martini Republic runs a little door-knocking poll that predicts a razor-thin win for Villaraigosa.
- BoifromTroy gives it to the challenger, noting iffily:
As I see it, Villaraigosa should win, unless he doesn't, which could happen if enough people are uninspired by the two candidates enough to stay home and not vote, or if enough closet racists were riled up by his rival's phone banking over the weekend and go to the polls, then Hahn may have a chance. - Marc Cooper pictures a 30-percent turnout, vowing to vote for Villaraigosa "because I really, really, really want to squeeze this sleazeball Hahn out of power."
- The Times launches a post-8-p.m. "blog" which apparently features only invited columnists and journalists who are under serious restrictions that limit the authors' length, stifle their speech ("we will edit for accuracy (if we can’t readily verify something we can’t publish it), fairness, and taste" is about as prim as you can get), forbid them to comment on television and threaten them with being edited.
I'm sorry, how exactly is this a blog? Oh, right. They're filing to their editors more than once a day.
 In short, it sounds like a cross between warring tribes beating their shields and an out-of-control daycare center on a Coke binge, and I'm glad it's almost over.
In fact, the year-long dynamo hum of punditry, hand-wringing and horse-race-announcing has now reached such a deafening crescendo that I'm taking my weary self to bed while the Elections Office does its thing. I'm in Atlanta on my day job right now and after spending three solid days on my feet yakking, writing, and fixing, the last thing I want to do is stay up until 5 a.m. blogging this sad squeaker of a race.
There are plenty of other and better voices with clearer heads primed for the task (plus they have a 3-hour time advantage over me) to handle the reading of the last brittle tea leaves of this depressing runoff. Instead, I'll be up bright and early to greet the new mayor of Los Angeles (or the dueling recall demands from the candidates' attorneys) with thoughts for the future, benedictions for the traditional 100-day honeymoon and a nice nail-studded Louisville Slugger for any mayoral ambitions beyond helping Los Angeles thrive - when the bulk of the counting is done.
Like it or not, it'll be a new day for us all. See you then.
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| Posted by: Mack_Reed on Tuesday, May 17, 2005 - 08:46 PM
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