A second offering to Spencer Pratt, and 5 points about the L.A. mayor’s race

So I gave him a chance and offered my services.

I was eager to give the young newbie a primer on what a mayor can and can’t do and explain to him that City Hall was a reality show unlike any he’d ever been on before. But Spencer Pratt didn’t call me back. my column last week.

But I have heard from some of his most ardent supporters.

Steven C. said: “You are a left wing idiot and…it’s time you retired. You are a joke!!! Always were!!! God bless Spencer Pratt and Donald Trump, the 45th and 47th President of the United States!!!!!”

You might be on to something, Steven!!! I was thinking of retiring!!!! But then a former reality TV star like Pratt comes along and tells Vanity Fair that he had a conversation with God, and God told him so. He wants Pratt to be mayor of Los Angeles!!!!! How can I retire when people like this are running for office?!!!!!

RW wrote: “You say Spencer hasn’t done anything in his life… What credentials do you have? From what I’ve read about you, you’re a terrible communist journalist who hasn’t accomplished anything in your life!!”

Recently, RW, I replaced a broken toilet tank valve and learned two Willie Nelson songs on guitar. This is nothing.

Peter didn’t mince his words: “Your article about Pratt is a hit piece full of bullshit… You should go fuck yourself before someone takes you out, which is the appropriate response for an idiot like you. So please go away and die, which is exactly what you deserve.”

Peter, I fell to my death once. Cardiac arrest. I saw God on the other side telling me to get out of this situation because he was going to tell Spencer Pratt to run for mayor. Who knew God had a defibrillator?

These were all real emails, by the way, and there were many more like them. But it’s fair to note that despite the exploding douchebag wing of Pratt’s team, he still has a legitimate sense of frustration with City Hall, given homelessness, the Palisades inferno, and budget problems that are restricting every essential city service.

That’s why Mayor Karen Bass is rowing furiously, trying to keep her political career afloat. Latest UC Berkeley-LA Times pollBass is at 26%, Nithya Raman is at 25% and Pratt is at 22%. This is so difficult that it looks like no one will get the 50% needed to win outright, and if we get to the second round, there’s no telling who’s going to the dance.

As we close out the primaries with Tuesday’s elections, five issues come to mind.

Which candidate knows the city best?

Los Angeles has 114 distinct neighborhoods spread across 470 square miles (10 times the size of San Francisco) and an estimated 220 languages ​​are spoken. Diversity is a defining characteristic, and roughly half of the population is Latino; Which makes it a shame that there isn’t a Latino candidate for mayor, especially given President Trump’s raids and roundups.

A mayor doesn’t need to speak six languages ​​and know every corner of the city; but residents want to be seen, heard, and feel understood and represented.

Raman is very knowledgeable about homelessness policy and very mindful of the need for greater urgency in solving the problem, but as a colleague Noah Goldberg reported: Voters in his district complain they don’t see enough of him.

As I said, Pratt wisely took aim at municipal failure. But among outside Republican-identified candidates, Rick Caruso, who ran against Bass last time, was comfortable whether he was in the Valley, South Los Angeles or somewhere in between. And he connected with people easily. Would Pratt be a tourist in his own city?

Bass, who raised a family that is mixed Black and Latino, knows the city best through her work for the past four years, but the negativity rate is a big problem.

What about the other candidates?

In the aforementioned poll, minister and housing activist Rae Huang had 9% of the votes, while former edtech businessman Adam Miller had 5%. Virtual unknowns also had no chance of winning, but they could be spoilers for one of the top three nominees.

I’ve talked to both, so if you’re unsure, read them before voting. Open HuangThe first words on the website are “Homes are for profit, not for people.” Miller He wants to bring his success in business to City Hall, and given his policy agenda, as well as his nonprofit work on veterans and the homeless, He’s a better candidate than Pratt.

But it wasn’t on a reality TV show.

Democrats destroyed LA and California, right?

I wish I had a dime for every time a reader suggested this.

By 101 measures, Los Angeles is one of the largest cities in the world and California is leading climate change while building the world’s fourth-largest economy, so doomsday diagnoses are a bit off.

Additionally, local elections are impartial. You cannot run for mayor as D or R.

But it’s still true that Democrats, their policies and sensibilities dominate the day, and they have a lot to answer for in Los Angeles and California.

But do the same critics suggest that Republicans are to blame in conservative cities like Fresno and Bakersfield, which have their own homelessness issues and other problems?

When it comes to housing, poverty, health care and streets where addicted or mentally ill people live, failures date back decades, affect every level of government and transcend party lines.

Have I given up on Los Angeles?

When I pointed out that Pratt seemed unaware of these complexities and the structural limits of mayoral power, readers suggested that he was trying to meet this challenge while I was giving up on Los Angeles.

Like hell. I care about Los Angeles enough to hold its leaders to higher accountability and to scrutinize the crooks 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 talked to God about running for mayor and didn’t share more details.

Did God scold you for referring to the mayor as “Basura”, which means trash in Spanish, to Karen?

Did he say we should pull out of the ’28 Olympics, or do we have any advice on how to fill potholes and fix sidewalks?

If you regularly talk to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit about City Hall, we’re eager to know:

What would Jesus do about homelessness?

steve.lopez@latimes.com