Abnormal Interests

Another campaign trying to leverage issues involving the LAUSD is mayoral candidate Bob Hertzberg. After telling us that LA needs a mayor that doesn't tiptoe around issues, Hertzberg begins one of his forceful TV ads with the following two lines,

First, the LA Unified School District is a failure. I'll break it up into smaller districts.

The graphic proclaims, "Breakup the LA Unified School District." He tells this before he talks about road construction and traffic lights. Wow, if elected, Hertzberg will to break up the LA unified School District as his first priority.

Well, he won't. The problem with these two ads is that they rest on a serious equivocation. The mayor of LA has no power over the LAUSD. They are separate jurisdictions, separate legal entities, have separate elected governing bodies and they don't even cover the same geographical area. At best, the mayor has bully pulpit rights with regard to the school district but nothing more. Hertzberg admits this on his web site but TV, not a mock interview on a web site, makes the major impression on voters.

I am not claiming that Hertzberg and SSA have anything to do with each other. By my reading, they want to do quite different things. I am saying that they are both using a deceptive ploy to attract attention to their own cause. And we have had more than enough of this kind of deception. A deception where one says something loudly and takes it back softly. For this reason, I don't trust Hertzberg or the SSA and if I lived in LA, I would vote against them or their cause for fear that they real goals had nothing to do with their stated goals.