Well, I gave him a chance, offering him my services.
He was willing to give the young rookie a primer on what a mayor can and can't do, and let him know that City Hall is a reality show like no other he's ever been on. But Spencer Pratt didn't call me in response to my column last week.
However, I did hear from many of his most fervent supporters.
Steven C. had this to say: “You're a left-wing idiot and… it's time for you to retire. You're a joke!!! You always have been!!! God bless Spencer Pratt and the 45th and 47th presidents of the United States, Donald Trump!!!!!”
Maybe you have something on your mind, Steven!!! I've been thinking about retiring!!!! But then a former reality TV star like Pratt shows up, launches ungodly attacks on the huddled, homeless masses, and tells Vanity Fair that he had a talk with God, who told him He wants Pratt to be mayor of Los Angeles!!!!! With people like this running for office, how can I retire?!!!!!
RW wrote to say: “You say Spencer has never done anything in his life… What credentials do you have? From what I've read about you, you're a lousy communist journalist who's never accomplished anything in your life!”
Recently, RW, I replaced a broken toilet tank flush valve and learned two Willie Nelson songs on guitar. That's nothing.
Peter didn't mince his words: “Your article about Pratt is an article full of nonsense… You should fuck off before someone eliminates you, which is the appropriate response to a guy like you. So please, fuck off and lay down dead, which is exactly what you deserve.”
Peter, I dropped dead once. Cardiac arrest. While on the other side, I saw God, who told me to pull myself together because he was going to tell Spencer Pratt to run for mayor. Who knew God had a defibrillator?
All of these, by the way, were real emails and there were many more like them. But it's fair to point out that despite the withering and foolish wing of Pratt's group, he has tapped into a justifiable sense of frustration with City Hall, given the lack of housing, the Palisades inferno, and the budget problems that are squeezing out all sorts of basic city services.
That's why Mayor Karen Bass is paddling furiously, trying to keep her political career afloat. In the last UC Berkeley-LA Times PollBass has 26%, Nithya Raman 25% and Pratt 22%. It's so tight that it looks like no one will get the 50% needed to win outright, and if we get a top-two runoff, it's unclear who will go to the dance.
So, as the primaries close, with Tuesday's election, five talking points come to mind.
Which candidate knows the city best?
Los Angeles has 114 distinct neighborhoods spread across 470 square miles (that's 10 times the size of San Francisco), and approximately 220 languages are spoken. Diversity is a defining characteristic, and about half the population is Latino, which makes it a shame there is no Latino candidate for mayor, especially given President Trump's raids and raids.
A mayor doesn't have to speak six languages and know every corner of the city, but residents want to be seen and heard, and feel understood and represented.
Raman knows homelessness policy well and is right about the need for greater urgency in problem solving, but like my colleague Noah Goldberg reported: Voters in her district complain that they haven't seen enough of her.
As I said, Pratt has wisely targeted municipal failure. But in the realm of outside candidates with Republican credentials, Rick Caruso, who ran against Bass last time, was comfortable whether he was in the Valley, South Los Angeles or anywhere in between. And he connected easily with people. Would Pratt be a tourist in his own city?
By virtue of his work for the past four years, Bass, who raised a mixed black and Latino family, knows the city best, although its unfavorability rating is a big problem.
What about the other candidates?
In the aforementioned poll, housing minister and activist Rae Huang had 9% and former edtech entrepreneur Adam Miller had 5%. Virtually unknowns, neither man had a legitimate chance of winning, but they could be spoilers for one of the top three candidates.
I talked to both of them, and if you're on the fence, you should read about them before voting. In HuangOn the website, the first words are “Houses are for people, not profits.” Miller wants to bring his success in the business world to City Hall, and if his political agenda along with his nonprofit work with veterans and the homeless, He is a better candidate than Pratt.
But I wasn't on a reality TV show.
Democrats ruined Los Angeles and California, right?
If only I had a nickel for every time a reader suggested that.
By 101 measures, Los Angeles is one of the world's great cities and California has built the world's fourth-largest economy while leading the charge on climate change, so apocalyptic diagnoses are a bit off the mark.
Additionally, local elections are non-partisan. You don't run for mayor as a D or R.
And yet, it's true that Democrats and their policies and sensibilities rule the day, and they have a lot to answer for in Los Angeles and California.
But would the same critics suggest that in conservative cities like Fresno and Bakersfield, which have their own homelessness and other problems, Republicans are to blame?
When it comes to housing, poverty, health care, and streets occupied by people with addictions or mental illness, the failures go back decades, affect all levels of government, and transcend partisan lines.
Have I given up on Los Angeles?
When I pointed out that Pratt seemed unaware of these complexities and the structural limits of the mayor's power, readers suggested that he was rising to the challenge while I resigned from Los Angeles.
You are welcome. I care about Los Angeles enough to hold its leaders more accountable and scrutinize the phonies and pretenders who think they can do a better job.
My advice to the next mayor.
Fix what's broken, celebrate what works, and take responsibility for what doesn't.
Now let me try one more time:
Spencer, call me.
You can't tell us you had a conversation with God about running for mayor and not share more details.
Did God scold him for referring to the mayor as Karen “Basura,” which means trash in Spanish?
Did he say we should pull out of the '28 Olympics, or did he have any advice on filling potholes and fixing sidewalks?
If you have regular City Hall conversations with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we're dying to know:
About homelessness, what would Jesus do?
