Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, and it’s Saturday, July 27. I’m again after three weeks in Norway and Italy — did I miss something?
I ask that query, in fact, with tongue firmly in cheek. The final 4 weeks have been among the most consequential, earth-shattering days in American presidential politics, and it was unimaginable to flee the information whereas on trip. From Rome, I wrote about what it felt like watching all this unfold from stable social democracies and answering questions from involved kin in Norway — and that was earlier than President Biden dropped out of the race and Vice President Kamala Harris took his place because the main Democratic presidential candidate.
As for Harris, she has an extended historical past in California — and consequently, The Instances’ editorial board has an extended historical past protecting her. As she talked about on the marketing campaign path, Harris served as lawyer common of California and the San Francisco district lawyer earlier than she turned a U.S. senator in 2016.
Which received me questioning: Did she earn the board’s endorsement in 2010, when she narrowly received her race for lawyer common in opposition to Steve Cooley, the Republican (you learn that proper) district lawyer of Los Angeles County? Well, no, she didn’t. Cooley, the board argued, had demonstrated efficient administration of his unwieldy workplace in a time of disaster regionally, and for the state lawyer common political ideology issues lower than managerial competence. The Republican received the endorsement in 2010, but when former President Trump’s marketing campaign has any intention of utilizing that in opposition to its opponent now, it’ll need to skip over the components the place Harris was effusively praised:
“On these points, Harris is correct the place Cooley is unsuitable. She helps the healthcare regulation and same-sex marriage. She opposes the loss of life penalty, although she would implement and defend it as lawyer common. Furthermore, Harris is a great, dynamic and forward-thinking chief whose shiny future we fortunately anticipate. She sees a possible for the lawyer common’s workplace that’s greater and extra complete than the workplace that exists immediately, one which addresses points similar to truancy and prison recidivism, that assaults crime at a causal stage, not only a reactive one. She is a thinker, and a very good one.”
That’s about as optimistic of a non-endorsement as I’ve seen. And with Harris operating for president, it might appear we’re within the “shiny future” that the board anticipated — although, I’d argue, issues are little extra dim than was hoped, what with the survival of American democracy on the road.
What Kamala Harris’ run for California attorney general can tell us about this campaign. Former L.A. Instances reporter Dan Morain remembers Harris as a “robust, formidable, disciplined” campaigner throughout her 2010 lawyer common run, a really shut race in opposition to Cooley. Additionally, discover in Morain’s fascinating piece a point out of pre-insurrectionist John Eastman, a marginal determine in California politics earlier than he had Trump’s ear.
Are Asian American voters loyal to Democrats or shifting Republican? Historian James Zarsadiaz appears to be like on the shifting political panorama for Asian Individuals, who’ve a historical past of activism within the Republican Celebration going again to the Fifties. He notes that Democrats received Asian American voters by smaller margins in 2020 and 2022 than in previous elections, and we’ll see if that development continues with Harris, an Asian American, on the high of her social gathering’s ticket.
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Inglewood needs the people mover, Rep. Waters. SoFi Stadium, the Kia Discussion board and the model new Intuit Dome — all in Inglewood — will host 400 occasions subsequent 12 months, attracting as much as 5 million guests. Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts says the crushing automotive visitors that comes with these occasions exhibits the necessity for a devoted individuals mover connecting the three venues to the Okay Line, so Rep. Maxine Waters’ latest effort to undermine federal funding for the mission is shocking and unwelcome.
Southern Californians shaped the nation’s biggest political problems. We can solve them too. Historian James Tejani is bullish about our means to handle a lot of what’s unsuitable in America, writing that the area is “the opportune place to resolve these dilemmas of historical past and to guide the U.S. ahead, whether or not by coverage experimentation or new ideas for a way wealth is likely to be constructed, sustained and shared. Shaping the nation’s higher future will contain robust decisions. It actually will take visionaries and daring. But that, too, is a legacy of Southern California’s previous, one able to be reclaimed.”
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