3:25pm | Randy Gordon has spent 16 years as the president and CEO of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce. During his tenure, Gordon and the Chamber have become one of the most high-profile advocates for business and business growth in Long Beach. In addition, the Chamber is also one of the most sought after endorsements by candidates running for local office. lbpost.com reporter Keith Higginbotham sat down with Gordon to ask his view on yesterday’s election results.
What was your general impression of the election results?
Well, I think with the exception of Val Lerch, the incumbents obviously fared well. I think it goes to show you how difficult it is to defeat an incumbent. I haven’t counted the total number of votes, but let’s face it, with Val Lerch—40 or 50 more votes might have got him into a runoff. And if you are an incumbent and you get into a runoff, then your chances go up remarkably. And of course, Tonia [Reyes-Uranga] got into a runoff and because [James] Johnson didn’t get 50 percent, her name goes on the ballot. That’s going to be a really interesting race. But I think, personally, as an incumbent she is going to be hard to beat. And I think that if Val Lerch had been able to keep [Steve] Neal under 50 percent, he would have been hard to beat.
At least the change in the [city] charter gave Val hope, so it worked out well for Tonia, and she becomes the first recipient of the charter change. Because she made it and especially if she wins in June you wait and see, other council members in the future will do the same things. I think it will open the floodgates for other council members who want to continue to be council members, but who have future political aspirations and the timing for the Assembly or Senate is not right. So, they’ll run for a write-in and stay high profile and wait for the right time to run for a higher position.
I think Patrick O’Donnell obviously will be the first person—and maybe even [Rae] Gabelich—will be the first people to kind of test the waters for a write-in, especially if Tonia wins. We stayed out of that race, but quite frankly, my gut feeling is that [Tonia] wins. Again, because it’s very difficult to beat an incumbent.
What do you think Val Lerch’s loss in the 9th tells us?
I think the Neal victory in the 9th goes to show you, 1) how difficult it is to get people to write your name in on a ballot, even if you are as popular as Val Lerch is in that district, and 2) the large role played by union forces that hit the street—and there were just hundreds and hundreds of union workers that were being paid to walk those streets—and I think in that district that wins the race. When you’ve got an army of union people that walk and walk and walk a district, it’s going to make a difference in that district, especially when there are a lot of blue collar workers there that are members of unions, and that makes a difference. If you’re a union members and a union worker knocks on your door, I think it makes a big difference.
So we are very disappointed in the 9th district, we liked Val Lerch and thought he was really good for business, so obviously we are very disappointed and I would say very nervous about Steve Neal changing the voting balance of the Council.
Other than the 9th district race, was there anything else that surprised you about the election results?
Not really. I knew Tonia would come in second, I would have bet my house on it. I just knew that would happen.
It is not a surprise to me that the Mayor won since [Stevie] Merino was practically unknown, although it is interesting that 5,000 people did not vote for the Mayor, but that’s going to happen regardless of who is on the ballot, I guess. That speaks a little to the anti-incumbency that is sweeping the nation.
In the 5th I think there was no surprise. I think that [Mike] Hedges got his share of the vote, he’s building some name identification and I think he may be in a very good position four years from now, especially if [Gerrie] Schipske decides to not do a write-in.
And speaking of the write-ins, if there is a success in 2011 and 2012 with a write-in who knows how many more people down the road, including Schipske, are going to be doing that. Because those types of council members are backed by unions and their whole goal in life, in my opinion, is just waiting for the right moment to run for the higher office. You know, they are there, unions have placed so many of these elected officials in the pipeline, so to speak, and the unions do a much better job of placing their candidates in the pipeline than business does. And, of course, part of the problem with business is that business keeps supporting both sides because they want access.
In the 3rd district, I was very, very pleased. I think it speaks volumes about the total lack of respect for the POA. [Police Officers Association]. The POA did a couple of hit pieces on Gary and I think it backfired. I think Gary’s popularity is terrific and I consider Gary one of the absolute best council members the city has ever had in the 16 years I have been here. And I think that his victory proves that the people in the 3rd district are way too smart to believe negative attack mailers from the POA. Way too smart for that. And I think that they respect the heck out of Gary.
Do you think that Gary Delong facing what were essentially one-issue candidates played a factor in his win?
Well, first of all [the challengers] were virtually unknown and had no name identification whatsoever. One of them is a carpetbagger who couldn’t win in the 8th district, so what does he do, he moves to the 3rd district. Let’s face it, the POA would have never supported a challenger if Gary DeLong had not upset them. So when Gary upset the POA by voting on pension reform, well [the POA] ran out and got themselves a candidate [Terry Jensen]. I think that in their mind, the POA believes that they can find somebody, even though it is a carpetbagger who just moved to the district, and rally around him and beat a very popular incumbent. Ain’t gonna happen. Steve James [head of POA] is a very smart guy, but I can’t believe he really thought that he could back Jensen for that seat and take out Gary DeLong. I think what [Steve James] was hoping for at best was a runoff, so they could build on that and have more time to try to take down the incumbent. But, like I said, I think the voters in the 3rd district are too smart and too sophisticated to fall for that.
I know the Chamber did not take a position on the citywide races, but what was your take on the results?
There were really no surprises there. In the City Attorney’s race, I knew that Tom Reeves would have a really tough time unseating an incumbent [Bob Shannon]. They wound up about where I thought they would—I figured [Reeves] would be close. But it is really difficult to defeat an incumbent, especially when you are talking about those kind of races. The average resident doesn’t really know these people and even though there is a little bit of anti-incumbency out there, I think most people just feel safe going with the incumbent because they have voted for him before.
In the City Prosecutor’s race, I felt that [Doug] Haubert would win. He had all the endorsements in the world, I mean that guy had so many endorsements it was unreal. And he raised a lot of money and spent of lot of money.
Does the victory of so many incumbents tell us more about the voters or more about the lack of viable challengers?
I think it was a combination of both. I think that the overall message, as I have said several times, was that it is really hard to beat an incumbent. It also really hard to beat the unions when they send an army of people. An army of union people would not defeat Gary DeLong in the 3rd district, but an army of union people in the 9th district certainly kept Val Lerch from a run-off. So I think it depends on where you are in the city, because a lot of folks in the 9th probably work for a union.
What do you see happening in the run-off in the 7th district?
Tonia, I think, will win, because it is very hard to beat an incumbent. It’s probably going to be an interesting race between Johnson and Tonia, and there will be a lot of money spent. Interesting because it is union versus union. Democrat versus democrat and union versus union. [Editor’s note: The Teamsters, among others, supported Reyes-Uranga while the ILWU, among others, supported Johnson]. It will be really interesting to see since the unions have split the endorsements. Now, Johnson will most likely outrace Tonia. He is very good at raising money and I think he raised more than her going into last night. But, that’s not to say that the person who raises the most always wins—look at Dee Andrews. However, Tonia is very rooted in her district, especially on the West Side.
Disclosure: lbpost.com publisher Shaun Lumachi is a government affairs advisor to the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce