New TV Ad Offers Voters A Stark Choice: Kevin James Or Bankruptcy?

By Gene Maddaus Thu., Feb. 14 2013 at 11:44 PM

Kevin James / Facebook

A new TV ad supporting Kevin James' campaign for mayor will start running tomorrow, making him the third candidate with a spot on the airwaves.

The ad is the second one in a week to raise the specter of bankruptcy. This one contends that the three City Hall veterans in the race -- Wendy Greuel, Eric Garcetti, and Jan Perry -- cannot fix the city's budget crisis because they created it.

"Only Kevin James can solve our problems, because only Kevin James did not cause them," the narrator says.

James doesn't have enough money in the bank to run his own TV ads. Instead, he's relying on Fred Davis, the Republican consultant who formed the Better Way L.A. Committee to back his candidacy. Davis has reported raising $700,000 so far, almost all of it from Harold Simmons, a right-wing Texas billionaire.

Davis is believed to have booked at least $350,000 worth of TV time in the coming week to air this 30-second spot:

Unlike Garcetti and Greuel -- who also have spots on the air -- James is being introduced to voters with an entirely negative message. The only argument in his favor in this ad is that he's not Garcetti, Greuel or Perry. That same argument works just as well for Emanuel Pleitez, the "other" outsider candidate.

The other ad that mentions bankruptcy came out last week from Working Californians, the IBEW-funded group supporting Greuel. And wouldn't you know, that one says that only Greuel "has what it takes to clean up the mess at City Hall."

One other note about Richard Riordan's prediction that the city would go bankrupt in two years. That's out of date. The last time we talked to Riordan, in December, he was predicting that bankruptcy might arrive in 2017 -- a three-year postponement of his earlier prediction.

Tags:

Eric Garcetti, Kevin James, mayor, Super PAC, Wendy Greuel

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canadaphile

Dick Riordan is hardly the expert on LA's financial state given that he's been out of office for 12 years. Also, all this ad says is that Garcetti, Gruel and Perry are responsible for the city's fiscal mess. What makes Kevin James the guy to solve these problems? From the commercial, you don't know didly squat about him. Right now all I know is that Kevin James is the name of an actor and of a LA Mayor candidate. That's not enough for someone to cast a ballot for Mayor.

photography87

Kevin James is the hope of Los Angeles

abramsrl

I have let to see the Kevin James' ad. It seems that while James is GOP, he is not acceptable to the lunatics running the party at this time. I see no cross over between the right wing nut cases in Washington DC and many states and Kevin James.

Thus, to me Kevin James is a sensible Democrat who is not owned by the Unions. However he is very silent about the ills at City Hall. Perhaps that is because so few would believe how bad things are.

Penal Code 86 makes it criminal to pre-arrange how a councilperson votes. Thus, any agreement that I will vote yes for you if you vote yes for me is a criminal conspiracy under state law. Look up Penal Code 86 -- written only as a citizen-hating lawyer could write, but if you diagram out the sentence, you can finally figure out that the City Council was run as a criminal enterprise the entire time Garcetti was Council President and all councilmembers participated.

The last session of December 2011 Garcetti announced what while he was council president, the council voted in unanimously over 99% of the time. I believe 9 is a quorum although there are usually 11 to 13 councilmembers present. The chances of that many people voting unanimously over 99% of the time with an illegal voting agreement are zero. There has been an agreement that each councilmember will support whatever any other councilmember wants -- a violation of Penal Code 86. That is why Garcetti can divert hundreds of millions of dollars away from the paramedics to his developer buddies. That how Wesson gets all the tax money for CIM Midtown. That's how Garetti downsizing the fire department and why LA roads are the worst in the nation. Each councilmember is the member of a criminal conspiracy in violation of Penal Code 86 to allow each other coucilmember to rip off as much money as he/she wants.

Do not believe me -- read Penal Code 86 and look at the unanimous voting record while Garcetti was council president. All the time Greuel was controller, she never bothered to mention this "mathmetical fluke."