Last night, I went to the Election Night event for Nick Melvoin, who I've been writing about here for his candidacy to the L.A. school board. First things first -- it was an uphill battle when he announced his candidacy for his first-ever general campaign, and against the sitting school board president.  But Nick won.  and by a lot, more on that later.
 
It was a very weird night.  I drove over with his dad Jeff, and on the way there Nick's mom Martha called from the headquarters to say that early vote-by mail numbers were in, and that Nick had 60% of that, up by 6,500.  But it was clearly very early, around 8:30 PM with polls having closed only a half-hour before, and you can't extrapolate that absentee votes will be the same for those who vote at the polls.  Besides which, mail-in-votes tend to only account for 10-15% of the final total at most.  Still, it was good to have those votes in your hip pocket.

I have to admit that my favorite part of the evening is that they had food from the nearby Baby Blue's Barbecue.  And though I'm not as big a fan of them as their reputation, they're still very good, and BBQ ribs are probably my favorite food.  So, whatever happened with the election I knew it was a good night for me.  Hey, I have my priorities.

The oddest thing of the night is Steve Zimmer conceded (bitterly, almost Nixonian) at around 9:50, when it looked like only absentee ballots were in.  It didn’t make sense.  Nick didn’t think he’d likely won until around 1 AM, and even then wasn't sure. 

And when I say that the concession was bitter, I mean it was almost at the Nixonian level, and his comments all night (that L.A. Times kept tweeting) were bizarre and continued throughout the evening.  almost Nixonian.  Things like -- and I'm paraphrasing, but close -- “This is my last race, I’m not running again.”  And “I won’t be calling the Melvoin campaign and won’t take a call from them.”  It just kept getting stranger and angrier all night.  (Just what you want from a president of a school board...) 

I have no doubt Steve Zimmer didn't like the criticisms against him.  And no doubt thought they were unfair.  No one likes being criticized.  But then he was as critical and unfair of Melvoin.  More so, in fact, because his was the only campaign that stooped to smearing -- not just criticizing platforms, but knowingly ascribing false motivations (that Nick was in the pocket of Trump and Betsy DeVos, when in fact he had worked in the Obama Administration, was endorsed by Obama's Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and endorsed by former Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer).  So, the Zimmer bitterness seemed ill-proportioned.

I'm sure Zimmer too was upset by how expensive the race was -- but though Melvoin raised the most, Zimmer raised a huge amount, as well.  And both had outside groups running their own separate campaigns.  In fact, I get the sense that most of the mailers and negatively on both sides came from these outside groups, not the campaigns themselves.  From what little I know, both candidates were bothered by it.

The larger point is that while any losing candidate is going to be upset, I think that Steve Zimmer's Nixonian bitterness was understandable, but profoundly myopic with no self-awareness of how much he himself was at the heart of things.

But back to the night.

Late in the evening, a reporter from the local ABC station did a live remote.  I was sitting about eight feet away, and just was he finishing his final words...some guy ran on camera and screamed out something incredibly crude  (let's just say some of it included Trump's Access Hollywood words from the bus...but worse) and then ran off.  When the camera cut, the reporter -- to my surprise, but to his credit, I think -- pounded over to the guy, furious and read him the riot act.  The guy didn't seem to care (either because he was drunk or an idiot), and when he wandered off, the reporter pursued him, continuing to tell him off.  Even when he came back to his equipment he was still steaming.  "I was prepared for someone interrupting, but not that," he said.  I tried to placate him, but he was too bothered.  I got the sense he was also bothered because he said they couldn't use his piece now online -- but I can't believe they can't just bleep out the deeply crude words, or even just cut the segment two seconds early.

Anyway, as I said, people there were really bewildered by the very-early concession, to the extent of dismissing it.  When Nick was asked to make a speech, he put no stock in an early concession saying the only thing that matter was the final vote count.

The biggest oddity of the night though (at least to me) was something I discovered around 1 AM and no one else had noticed – including Nick and his campaign manager, when I told them.  And no one had noticed the big monitors around the room were only showing the specific results of the race from the City Clerk's  webpage, but not what was as the top of the web page.  Only when I decided on a whim to to onto that same page on my mobile phone did I notice it.  Usually, one assumes that absentee ballots will make up about 10% of the results, and that’s what everyone presumed there, and so everyone was waaaaaiting all night for all the votes to come in.  But I discovered something at the top of the page that broke down where the votes come from – whether at the polling locations or by mail.  And it turned out that an amazing 62% of votes came by mail!!!  So, when those first results were posted at 8:30 in the evening, and they broke so heavily for Nick, up by 6,500, the race actually was pretty much over.  He ended up winning by 8,000 (out of 53,000 cast).  He got 57% of the vote, to Zimmer's 43%, which is pretty much a landslide.

Ultimately, that must be why Zimmer conceded so early in the evening.  He probably saw how far he was behind and knew (at that point) that about 75% of the vote was in and couldn’t be made up – while everyone at the Melvoin event all thought it was only about 10-15% of the vote.  And when it was taking soooo long for votes to come in – that was because most of the votes were actually already in!!!

 So, for whatever reason, he did really well with absentee voting by mail.  Maybe it’s because those people missed all the mailers, who knows?
 
There was something else at play here, too, though.  In a general election, lots of people vote, have no idea who anyone is for school board, and vote for the person whose credentials are listed as “School board member.”  In this runoff election, you don’t get those masses of “general election” people who don’t have a clue who they’re voting for.  By comparison, in the runoff, the vote totals were paltry, yet everyone voting knew who they were voting for.  And “get of the vote” efforts were critical, which I think the Melvoin campaign did a strong job of, including going after mail-in votes.  

And there was one other matter I mentioned to people during the campaign.  In the general election, Steve Zimmer got 46% of the vote.  That said to me it seemed possible that 54% of the public simply didn't want him back on the school board.  Sometimes, people do vote for someone in a runoff who they didn't in a general election, because they like that person but just not as much as they like their first choice.  But I don't think that's the case when the person you didn't vote for the first time is the sitting president of the school board.  Either you like him and vote for him the first time, or you don't.  
 
Also, the campaigns and mailers probably made at least some difference.  Not just convincing people to vote for a candidate or against the opponent, but in some cases I’m sure there were some people who voted the opposite of what a negative or smear was saying.  And as much as Zimmer was complaining about negative attacks, it was his campaign that went over the top trying (reprehensibly) to tie Melvoin to Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos.  And that could have backfired. 
 
I’m sure the Melvoin campaign was helped by endorsements from Barbara Boxer, Obama’s Secretary of Education, Democratic ex-Mayor Villaraigosa, Republican ex-Mayor Riordan, the L.A. Times and L.A. Daily News.

And of course issues mattered, as well.  Though to what degree, I have no idea.  In large part because there was such odd overlap there.   For instance, Nick was was positioned by his opponents as the “charter” candidate.  Yet it was just one part of his platform – and Zimmer actually supported some charters, too, he just didn't promote that.  In fact, in Melvoin's victory speech -- in which he praised Steve Zimmer's long service to education -- he ONLY spoke about public schools, saying how lucky he was where he grew up, unlike the kids who were unlikely by where they grew up, “which is so unfair and un-American, and we have to fix that and give everyone an equal chance with public education that is so important.”  Keep in mind, he said that after he won, not just mouthing words on the campaign trail to win support.  It's what he campaigned on for the first -- in public and on his website -- but it wasn't how he was positioned by the other side.

Ultimately, I don’t think any single reason was why Nick Melvoin won.  It’s probably a mix of all that --- and probably other things thrown in.
 
But he did win.  And by a LOT.  
 
A year-and-a-half ago, when Nick’s mom told me he was running, I thought it was great.  When she said his opponent would be the sitting school board president, I said, wow, that’s going to be an uphill struggle.  I thought that even until about 1 AM last night, even when he was ahead.  I wasn’t alone.  Even he mentioned what an uphill race this was.
 
So…who knows why Nick won?  But he did, and in a landslide.

I'm biased.  I've known him since he was a kid.  But because I know what a thoughtful, decent, smart, caring guy he is, I'm thrilled for him.



 

​Tomorrow, Tuesday, there is a special runoff election in Los Angeles for school board.  If you don't live in L.A. -- or in District 4 where the election is for -- good news!  You can skip right past this with no sense of guilt.

For all others, I suspect you know the drill at this point.  I hope you'll go out and vote for Nick Melvoin.  As I've said, I'm biased being good friends with his parents Jeff and Martha Melvoin, and have known Nick since he was a kid.  But that doesn't mean he isn't wildly qualified -- having worked in the Obama White House, worked for the ACLU and been a teacher in Watts (as well as a sports coach there).  This, on top of his undergrad degree at Harvard and a law degree from NYU.  He's a great guy, smart, active, deeply caring and involved.

In fact, here's a :30 video made by NYU law school a while back of Nick explaining how teaching in Watts got him to got him to go to law school and work on behalf of being an advocate for kids.

All of which is why I find the smear campaign by his opponent Steve Zimmer to be irresponsible and reprehensible, to the extent that it should disqualify him from consideration.  Again, I'm biased -- but I think reality shows I'm right.  

I wrote about it all at length here, so I won't repeat it all.  I'll just summarize to explain.  After all, it's one thing to make a charge, it's another to be able to stand up and support it.  And do so.

To be clear, there is a distinction between negative politics and smears.  Negative politics covers a lot of ground, and some is very fair, while some isn't.  Criticizing your opponent, even bluntly, is fair when you're stating their record accurately.  Even stretching the truth is simply part of the process, as long as it's based on the truth, problematic as that may be.  Where "smears" come into play is when one ascribes motives to their opponent and those have zero bearing on honesty, and knowingly so.  And that's what the Zimmer campaign has done.

I completely understand Zimmer supporters disagreeing with Nick Melvoin's platform -- and vice versa.  They have different points of view.  Melvoin wants a range of options available, whatever works best in different conditions.  That includes la combination of local neighborhood public schools, magnet public school programs known for their innovation, and nonprofit charter schools. 

If Zimmer supporters disagree with that -- and other the Melvoin platform issues -- that's fine and fair.  But they have latched onto the nonprofit charter schools and not only made it seem like that is his sole solution, but (and this is the critical point) they have flooded mailboxes and TV with the false charge that Nick Melvoin is tied to Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos. 

Again, in brief --

Nick Melvoin worked in the Obama White House.  He worked for the ACLU.  He's been endorsed by former Democratic U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, former Obama Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, former mayors Antonio Villaraigosa and Richard Riordan (a Democrat and Republican), and the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Daily News.

If you don't like his platform, great, explain why and even bluntly, and say why yours is better -- but to try and scam the public into thinking that this profoundly life-long liberal with substantive ties to the Obama Administration is a Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos puppet is knowingly a galling, shameful smear.

If I seemed pissed off by this, you're wise and observant.  I have no doubt the Zimmer campaign doesn't like that Melvoin forces has criticized them, and I'm sure they think it's "unfair," whether it is or not.  But criticism is a separate world from smearing with 100% fictitious motives you know are untrue.  And this in a campaign for who's to be responsible for children??  What kind of sick message is that?

(Actually, they've even gone further, referring to Melvoin in early mailers as wanting "For profit" charter schools. Not only does his platform clearly state he's not, but there are no "for profit" charter schools in Los Angeles.The false charge was egregious enough that the Fair Political Practices Commission agreed to investigate.)  

From the first, this has been an uphill battle for Nick.  It's his first citywide race ever, and he's up against the sitting president of the L.A. school board.  But he was able to force a runoff, and in a special election -- when this is the only race on the ballot (!) -- turn-out will be tiny, so Get Out the Vote will be significant.  I suspect everything will revolve around that.

And so, if you live in the district, even if you weren't planning on voting, please know that your vote in this particular race actually, really, truly does matter -- I hope that you'll consider voting for Nick Melvoin (or even vote against a smear) and make the effort to go the police.

I'm Robert J. Elisberg, and I approve this candidate...

​The other day, I received a mailer sent out by the Steve Zimmer for School Board supporters which was one of the most underhanded, despicable political mailers I've gotten.  I can't say it's the worst, because I wrote a series about some pretty heinous political mailers in a California State Assembly race put out by Big Oil and banking interests to defeat Betsy Butler, which backfired.  But this is up there, and arguably worse because it was more sickeningly smarmy -- and knowingly so.  May it backfire just as badly.

I will admit to having a bias for the candidate who was smeared, Nick Melvoin, who I personally know, the son of my good friends Jeff and Martha Melvoin.  But the gross, pathetic smear by the Zimmer forces would be just as repulsive whoever the candidate was.

The mailer says, in huge letters, "Say No to Trump.  VOTE AGAINST NICK MELVOIN."  If that wasn't clear enough, on the reverse side, it covers the page with "STOP the TRUMP Education Agenda by VOTING AGAINST NICK MELVOIN for School Board."  

Then there are individual paragraphs throughout, each trying to tie Nick Melvoin to Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, like "Bringing the Extreme Trump Agenda to L.A."  And at the end, the final word at the bottom of the page is, "There's too much at stake to let the Trump agenda win."

Pretty awful charges against that Nick Melvoin fellow.

Here's the reality.

Nick Melvoin actually worked in the Obama Administration.

He is endorsed by Arne Duncan -- the Secretary of Education under President Barack Obama

And just this week, he was endorsed by former U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer.  (D-CA)

Nick Melvoin was also endorsed by the Los Angeles Times which just a few weeks ago published an epic six-part scathing series of editorial against Donald Trump.

And he was endorsed by the Los Angeles Daily News.  As well as endorsed by the two most-recent Los Angeles mayors. on both sides of the aisle -- Democrat Anthony Villaraigosa and Republican Richard Reardon.  That's how even-handed and fair-minded he is.. 

That's who the Steve Zimmer campaign is trying to make voters think is an evil surrogate for Donald Trump.  It's shameless.  Despicable.  Low-life.  And most obvious of all -- desperate.

If someone doesn't like Nick Melvoin's issues, fine, fair enough, that's all personal preference.  I happen to think he's great.  I think he has well-rounded, thoughtful positions that encompass a lot of education options to give families and students choices.  And is a wonderful person on top of it all, with great, even noble experience making him terrifically suited for the School Board.  But if someone prefers different options, swell.  Your choice.

But to try and make people think that he is someone who in any way is tied to Donald Trump and the Trump administration -- that's Nixonian.  That's right out of the Tricky Dick playbook of false innuendo painting his opponents pink and red-baiting them.  The Zimmer mailer even has Nick Melvoin's picture in red.

There are specific "statements" in the mailer which are disingenuous, misleading and deceitful -- but I'm not going to even deign refuting them here because a) I've done so elsewhere, and b) they aren't the point.  They pale in comparison to the overall lying smear, which is the point of the mailer.  And to deal into them would completely distract attention from the despicable issue.

And the issue is the scurrilous attempt to tie someone with strong ties to the Obama Administration -- endorsed even by Barack Obama's Secretary of Education -- to Donald Trump and the Trump administration.

Apparently, this is who Steve Zimmer is.  Skulking around the shadowy hallways, mean-spirited and nasty. Standing behind his surrogates without refutation or reprimand.  Accepting the smear and so ultimately tarnished by it himself.  And personally, my feeling is that even if one prefers the agenda he is proposing, this stain on his being, on his character is enough to disqualify him from consideration.  And yes, I'm biased about that.  But that doesn't mean I'm wrong.  Someone like this is a person I personally don't want even remotely near teaching children and sharing his lack of values.

The shame covering him is vast.

​For the record, this is who Nick Melvoin is.

Today, I decided to head down to MacArthur Park which is where a large number of groups were meeting before heading out on their May Day march to protest the first 100 days and policies of the Trump administration, all part of the Resist movement.

For those of you who've never seen MacArthur Park and only know of it in song, here it is on the approach from the Metro station -- and as you can see, since it's daytime, the place is not melting in the dark, with not a drop of sweet, green icing flowing down to be seen.  Though in the distant far right corner, you can probably make out that there are already people lined up in the street.

​There was one particularly amusing oddity of the day.  Heading down on the Metro line, a group of women got on after me, and as the train headed downtown, I was asked to take a group photo of them.  A nice bunch.  Anyway, once reaching MacArthur Park, and the crowds grew and mingled, we headed toward the street and got some comfort under the shade trees.

One of the women asked what brought be there today, and I explained a little bit of why, including noting that I wrote pieces for the Huffington Post on occasion, and my website here.  One of the women got a curious look and asked, "Are you related to Jim Kaplan??"

Now it was my turn to get a curious look.  Because, yes, I am.  He's my cousin who lives on the Westside.  How on earth did she know???  It turns out she's not only the next door neighbor of my cousin and his wife -- which is quite a swell bit of coincidence right there -- but also a good detective.  She knew that I had gotten on the train on the Westside.  And she knew some of my background as "Cousin Bobby," who she'd heard about, and what I had said.  And she saw that I had a Cubs hat.  Plus...we'll we had met at my cousin's house two or three years ago.  (I have a great memory for details and zero for faces.  She's obviously fine on the whole faces part...)

Though the various emails I received said that the event was for 11 AM, and I timed my arrival for that, it turns out that that was for the rally, and the march wasn't set to start for another hour.  I'm certainly glad I didn't pay any attention to some of the other emails I got from various other organization that gave meeting times as early as 9:30 or 10 AM.  

As people were waiting -- us under a group of shade tress, but most people were standing in the middle of the street under 85-degree sun -- I could hear someone singing, "This Land is Your Land," and then after a while there seemed to be some speeches.  (I completely get there being speeches when people gather at a rally.  But at a march, people are there to...well, march.  We don't need to be excited and built-up to march, that's why we came.)  By the way, I learned later from coverage in the L.A. Times that that singer I'd heard was Tom Morello of the rock band Rage Against the Machine.  That surprised me a bit since, honestly, he wasn't that great (my initial thought was, "How nice, someone brought his guitar...", but it was good of him to be there. 

And eventually we started.

Apparently there were three meeting points throughout the city, all of which were eventually to gather at Grand Park downtown.  As a result, the crowd I was in the midst of seemed like it had about 5,000 was my guess. though it was hard to tell from the perspective I had, obviously.  It turned out to be pretty close, though, since final estimates in the L.A. Times from city officials was 15,000.  it may not have been massive, but for a Monday it certainly was a very large crowd.  
​
I did my best to stay on the outside, not wanting to be caught up too much in the center.  And to give a little bit of sense of it all, since still photos have an emphasis on the "still" portion, here's a little bit of video I took.

Nonetheless, even that video doesn't give much a sense of the full size of the crowd -- which was indeed extremely large, as I said.  So, I stepped off to the side to take some more footage and give at least a slightly wider perspective.​

Alas, despite protesting and marching, magic didn't happen and the guy is still in the Oval Office. But it certainly is heartening to see so many people -- not just directly here in Los Angeles but across the country not accepting this as normal.

Even if you don't like sports, this is a nice two minutes.

Bob Miller is the longtime, and popular Hall of Fame hockey announcer for the Los Angeles Kings. A month ago, he said that he would be retiring at the end of the season, after 44 years with the team, at the age of 78..

Last night was the Kings' final home game.  Since the team didn't make the playoffs this year, that meant it was Bob Miller's last game before the home crowd.  There's still one game left in the season (tonight), but being his final home game, the club had had celebrations planned to honor Miller.

Little did anyone know that those celebrations included the game.

Los Angeles was losing 2-1 with only a minute to go.  But with just 50 seconds left, they tied up with the game.  And then, only 30-seconds into overtime, the Kings scored -- which meant that Bob Miller got to go out calling a game-winning goal on his final play.

Here's the video of those two calls.  Making it all the nicer is that there was a camera positioned on the broadcast booth, so you can watch Miller and see his happy reaction to both goals.

(By the way, for those who keep notebooks of deep, meticulous minutiae, the Kings won this final home game against the Chicago Blackhawks, and Bob Miller is from...Chicago.  Just another informational service we provide for you.)

Since hockey moves so fast, know that for the first goal, the Kings are going from right to left.  In overtime, the teams switched sides, and Los Angeles is then going from left to right.

This will only be of interest to people who live in Los Angeles.  Actually, it will only be of interest to a particularly uncommon subset of Los Angeles, notably those who are residents of District 4 for the L.A. Unified School District.  Now, I'm going to guess that most people don't have a clue if they live in District 4, so if you live in Los Angeles, you might as well keep reading.  Especially since it's a fairly large district -- most the western part of the city, yet parts of it also spreading as far east as Los Feliz to the east and north towards the Valley.  So, as I said, if you live anywhere in L.A., might as well read on.

Or, happily, it's easy to find out if you're in District 4.  There's a citywide election tomorrow, on Tuesday, so just check your Voter Handbook.  If there's a race listed for the Los Angeles School Board in District 4...bingo, you're in!!  Read on, MacDuff.

Anyway, because of this election I'm going to jump in the reminder game.  I was going to say "endorsement," but I've already endorsed the fellow in question, so this is just to remind people in District 4 to vote in a race they probably usually ignore, and not ignore it but vote for a wonderful fellow named Nick Melvoin.

Though my political opinions are likely fairly well-known here, unless you read between the lines and miss what's glaring on the surface, I don't believe I've used these pages to ever specifically make any endorsements.  That's why I think this exception is notable.

Over the past several months, I've posted a couple of articles here about Nick, who's the son of my good friend and occasionally-mentioned Jeff Melvoin.  As you might imagine, I've known Nick for a while, and he's quite terrific.  Yes, I'm biased, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.  And in this case, I'm not.  This has never been a case of "Vote for Nick Melvoin" because he's a good guy.  This is - he'd be great in the position he's running for.  And the cool thing is that you don't even have to blindly take my opinion for it, if you prefer to ignore that.  I'll just note too that although he's running against the current president of the L.A. School Board, Nick was endorsed by the Los Angeles Times -- and was also endorsed by two former mayors, Richard Riordan (a Republican) and Anthony Villaraigosa (a Democrat).  

Since I've written about him twice, I won't go into a long explanation why Nick Melvoin is so impressive and why he's been endorsed by all these high-end folks.  If you're interested, you can read one of those more detailed articles here.  But I think at least a little background is important.  So, briefly in one pithy paragraph -- 

Nick graduated from Harvard, has a Masters degree in Urban Education, and got a law degree from NYU.  After that, he did some work for the ACLU, worked in the Obama White House with the Domestic Policy Council, and also clerked in the U.S. Attorney’s office in civil rights cases.  And then, rather than take a high-paying job at a big mucky-muck power law firm, he jumped from all that into -- getting a job teaching in the Los Angeles inner-city in Watts, where he also coached baseball and soccer.  And then helped start a school newspaper.

Like I said, just because I'm biased doesn't mean I'm wrong.  So, when I say Nick Melvoin is a great candidate, I'm not only in good company, but company that crosses the political lines.

That's why this is a reminder.  When you go to the polls on Tuesday, I hope you'll flip through the ballot and find the race for District 4 School Board and vote for Nick Melvoin.

I'll go a step further:  if you weren't planning to vote on Tuesday, since it's a reasonably-small, local election, I hope you'll go anyway, and even if you don't vote for anyone else -- even the race for mayor -- just go and vote for Nick.  This is likely a race that won't get all that many votes cast, so it's one of times when your vote really, actually, truly counts.  A handful of votes could, in fact, make a difference.

(By the way, I'm sure he is very grateful for this article.  Not because of what I wrote here but rather because I decided not to title the piece "Good St. Nick"...)

So -- okay, you get the point by now:  remember to vote tomorrow, and do consider strongly voting for Nick Melvoin.  He's a wonderful fellow, a pretty noble school teacher, a terrific candidate, and someone with a strong future.

As we always say in Chicago -- Vote early and often.

​I'm Robert J. Elisberg, and I approve this article.

Saturday afternoon I went to see the new play, For Piano and Harpo, written by and starring Dan Castellaneta (who as you may likely know does, among many things, the voice of Homer Simpson). It focuses on troubled musician/actor and bitterly-sarcastic wit Oscar Levant who spent a year living at Harpo Marx's house.  The show is very well written and acted, and has an interestingly-staged, fast-paced production which, though a drama, is often quite funny.  The show is at the Falcon Theatre in Burbank, and still has one more week to run, so if you're in the area, it's worth looking into.  

I'll leave it at that because Mark Evanier does a far-better job telling about it all, and how enjoyable it is, and you can read that here because I agree with pretty much all he says, except for the part about knowing many of the people involved...

A short while back, I mentioned that Nick Melvoin, son of my friend Jeff Melvoin, was running for the Los Angeles School Board in next month's election.  As you might imagine local elections, because they're so focused and personal, can be quite feisty.  As you might not imagine, this can include the School Board.  (Yes, really, the school board.)  You know, those races you usually don't vote for because you don't have a clue who anyone is, what the issues are, and who would do the job best..

Stick with me, there's a point to this all.

By way of background, Nick Melvoin is quite an accomplished and impressive young man.  He graduated from Harvard, has a Masters degree in Urban Education, and then decided that this wasn't enough so he got a law degree from NYU.  After that, he did some work for the ACLU, worked in the Obama White House with the Domestic Policy Council, and also clerked in the U.S. Attorney’s office in civil rights cases.  And then, with a wide range of highly-substantive career opportunities now available to him...he got a job teaching in the Los Angeles inner-city in Watts -- where teaching English wasn't enough, so he also coached baseball and soccer.  And in his spare time helped students start a school newspaper.

All of these things, along with his proposals, helped him just get the School Board endorsement from the Los Angeles Times for his District 4 race -- which is impressive enough for a young, first-time candidate...but even more so when you realize that one of his opponents in the race is the current president.of the L.A. School Board!  Beyond this, Melvoin was also endorsed by former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.

It's not often that school board races gets attention, but there have actually been TV ads for the race, critical of that school board president, Steven Zimmer.  (No, the TV ad did not come from Nick -- I asked, since it seemed so surprising.  He's done very good fund-raising...but not that good.  A TV ad for School Board??)  Much of the public criticism about Mr. Zimmer, aside from other issues, centers around a plan with iPads whose special software never worked and turned into a disaster, wasting $1.5 million.

Last week, the Zimmer side struck back at the general criticism, and a mail flyer showed up trashing two of his opponents, one of who was Nick.  The slam against him was that Nick Melvoin was apparently in the pocket of "billionaires."  This got repeated several times since being in the pocket of anyone, let alone "billionaires" seems an attention-getting charge.

The thing is, there were a couple of head-scratching oddities about the mailer.

The first is that...well, it didn't name any of the billionaires.  You'd think if you were charging someone with being in the pocket of billionaires, and kept repeating it, you'd name them.  All of them, since that was the whole reason for sending the flyer.  At the very least, you'd name one billionaire.  And shine the brightest spotlight on it.  "Look, over there, it's one dastardly billionaire!!"  But, no, nobody is named.  Just a generic charge of omnipresent and apparently venal billionaires.  Mind you, it would be nice to know who any of these "billionaires" are -- even if it's just one -- because there are some perfectly respectable billionaires around.  Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and Phil Knight, for starters.  But no, no one is named.  Just generic "billionaires."  It tends to make one think if you aren't willing to name a single billionaire out of all you allude to, you might not be able to support the specifics of your charge.  Which tends to be frowned upon.

The other oddity is that this flyer doesn't even really say what devious matters all these unnamed billionaires are doing to manipulate their personal candidates that is supposed to absolutely horrify us.  The closest it gets is saying that Nick Melvoin supports charter schools, and so do these mystical "billionaires" (who the flyer seems to suggest also own some.  Or own just one. Sorry, it doesn't say how many. Nor name any ).  But the problem is, that can't be their big "in the pocket" devious issue, since charter school aren't devious -- they're part of the U.S. public school system, schools that any child can go to (with high academics) and generally have excellent performance records.  Now, to be clear, for all their support, not everyone may support charter schools.  But they hardly are the sort of crooked, smoke-filled room deals that one associates with billionaires putting politicians in their pocket. That's generally centered on getting government approval when acquiring land-and-mineral rights and missile guidance systems.

Ultimately, all this presupposes too that "charter schools" are the sort of high-yield ownership investments that billionaires are apparently so-known for loading their portfolios when building their financial empires.  Lining their greedy pockets with charter schools -- indeed chains of charter schools, all sprouting up across the land, like a national empire of McCharters.

(Now, to be fair, we might have one clue about the billionaires.  Not all of them, but the former Mayor Richard Riordan is a billionaire, and he supports charter schools.  Horrors.  The thing is, as far as I know -- and the flyer doesn't say otherwise -- he doesn't actually own any.  Just thinks they're good ideas for public education with strong track records. And therefore he's endorsed the candidate who supports them.  So, it's hard to find anything underhanded there, either.  I'm guessing he paid for the TV ad.  Who all the other billionaires are, though, it's not clear...)

And that's where the odd charge by Zimmer forces remains.  That Nick Melvoin is, for some mystical reason, in the pocket of a rash of unnamed, manipulative "billionaire(s)" -- who support a form of public education.

Because, as we know, someone who graduates from Harvard, gets a Masters in Urban Education, earns a law degree, works with the ACLU, gets a job at the White House, clerks with the U.S. Attorney on civil rights and then goes to teach in the inner-city and coaches baseball, soccer and start a school paper -- is just the sort of person on the lookout for billionaire's payday...

If Nick Melvoin -- indeed if someone, anyone with those credentials -- wanted to be in the pocket of "billionaires," he'd have raced over breathlessly to Wall Street years ago, and be halfway up the ladder to his penthouse by now., 

But no, he took that "teach in Watts" and "run for the school board" route as a far better, faster and more clever way to riches and easy street.

Sigh.

Local politics can be fun.  Sometimes though it's much more loco.  

Ultimately, though, when someone makes unsubstantiated charges with unnamed participants of an uncertain problem, and it's all about support for a form of successful public education, the sense of desperation comes through strongly.

Thanks to Nick Melvoin's website, though, forewarned is forearmed, so the public can at least be on the lookout for the face of Machiavellian greed.