Chances are you’ve never heard of him, but Walter Moore
has no doubt that he will be the next mayor of Los Angeles.
Though most news organizations rarely bother to cover the nearly
anonymous candidate’s campaign and often exclude the trial
lawyer’s candidacy in polls, Moore believes that he has 20
percent of the vote, putting him neck and neck with current
frontrunner Antonio Villaraigosa. “The L.A. Times polls are
not worth the paper they’re printed on,” Moore said.
“The only poll that matters is the one on March 8.”
Such resolve is common among the seven lesser-known mayoral
candidates, who are more often than not excluded from debates,
ignored by the media, and dismissed as too extreme, too unqualified
or simply too wacky to be taken seriously. “If I don’t
win this election, I’ll tell people the words of Arnold:
“˜I’ll be back,'” said Martin Luther King
Aubrey, Sr., who is running for mayor for the third time.
“And I’ll be back stronger.”
These less well-known candidates, who are not expected to win
over a significant portion of the electorate, often campaign on
platforms that mainstream candidates would not even touch. Addie
Miller, a senior citizen advocate and lesser-known mayoral
candidate, says that illegal immigrants are responsible for crowded
buses, limited housing and large classrooms in public schools.
“I’m sick and tired of all this Latino power.
It’s almost like we have another country in Los
Angeles,” Miller said. “They’re saying “˜my
race is here so get out’ and they’re just pushing
people out of their houses.”
Moore also advocates an anti-immigration stance, calling to
repeal laws that restrict police officers from investigating
illegal immigrants. The trial lawyer and Princeton graduate, who
has put his career on hold for eight months in an effort to replace
incumbent mayor James Hahn, says the influx of Spanish-speaking
immigrants is destroying American culture.
“They go to the LAUSD meetings and come up to address the
school board and they do it through an interpreter,” Moore
said. “You lived here 20 years and you don’t speak the
language? That’s insane.”
Many of the lesser-known candidates blame their lack of exposure
and limited following on the wide gap in campaign funding between
the frontrunners and the lesser-knowns, who often pay for their
campaigns out of their own pockets.
“I’ve spent less money on my whole campaign than
they’ve spent on fresh flowers for their office,” said
Moore.
Given their lack of resources, the lesser-known candidates are
often forced to resort to more creative means of campaigning.
Aubrey, while stuck in jury duty, saw the crowd of bored fellow
jurors as potential voters. Inspiration struck.
“I told them my name and told them that I’m running
for mayor. I said, “˜You don’t know me and if you
don’t know the current mayor, don’t worry about it
because we’re getting new leadership on March
8,'” Aubrey said.
In response to being denied an invitation to any of the major
mayoral debates, Bill Wyatt, another lesser-known candidate, used
text-to-audio technology to create an animated mayoral debate that
gives him a chance to virtually spar it out with the top dogs.
“Being eliminated from even consideration for any of the
so-called legit debates, I figured the use of technology could be
just as potent,” Wyatt said.
For some of the lesser-known candidates, winning isn’t
everything, as campaigns are used to spotlight issues that they
believe are not sufficiently addressed by other candidates.
Bruce Darian, also a mayoral candidate, said he believes that
Los Angeles schools should implement terrorist attack evacuation
plans similar to those common during the Cold War.
“We’re living the same complacency as those at Pearl
Harbor,” Darian said. “The less prepared we are, the
more the likelihood of a greater tragic result.”
Though their campaigns are sometimes characterized as desperate
calls for fame, many of these fringe candidates say they had their
political aspirations sparked by a powerful and genuine concern for
the well being of the city they call home and the citizens they
call neighbors.
Aubrey, a South Los Angeles native, said the city’s poorer
neighborhoods are ignored by elected officials, who he said are
more concerned with catering to campaign donors than with serving
the community.
The mental health worker finds his motivation to run right
outside his front door. Aubrey said he frequently hears police
helicopters, gun shots and the screams of PCP addicts who are
“so high that they strip their clothes off because they think
they’re burning up.”
“If you want to see anything change, tell Mr. Bush and
Cheney that there is oil in the ghetto and he’ll clean up all
the crime in a matter of days,” Aubrey said. “He will
straighten this whole place out.”
Aubrey, who is black, said police officers once tackled him
while at a diner with fiance, who he said was light-skinned. Aubrey
said the officers accused him of raping his wife-to-be, an
accusation he said was motivated by the officers’ prejudice
against biracial couples.
Aubrey hopes to rid the city of police officers who unfairly
target people of color.
Though election polls often indicate slim chances for victory,
these lesser-known candidates are rarely quick to give up.
“My race is like the tortoise and the hare,” Miller
said. “I’m the tortoise.”