I recently did what almost no media in Los Angeles were willing to do: I covered the Mayor's "race."
See, most LA media are progressive. So much so, in fact, that they are unwilling even to acknowledge rival voices. Some of those rival voices were Republican or stealth-republican independents, but one was a progressive homeless advocate, one was a Socialist Party rep, and one was a progressive who doubles down as a deejay.
I interviewed most of the candidates, went to debates and reported, and tried to draw the Mayor out of his bunker (Villaraigosa's bunker was only slightly less deep then Cheney's).
The end result: no op-ed page would so much as even mention any rival candidate. Yes that's true, and you could look it up.
No, in Los Angeles, democracy itself failed in the past election. Yes, a Democrat won. But really, everybody lost.
The Mayor, with progressive media in his corner, and a media blackout of other candidates, got a whopping 55% of the vote against his rivals---in other words, his rivals, with less than ten percent of his resources, fared better in the city than John McCain did.
If the future of progressive politics is here in Los Angeles---and I hope it isn't---we don't have much of a future at all. When progressives outspend unknown candidates over 10-to-1 and can only muster 55%--yikes.
I hear New York is even worse. But when you're looking at your own local politics, please be honest. Is democracy being served in your own town? It isn't here.