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On Feb. 22, Carlos Alvarez, Party for Socialism and Liberation Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, battled five other mayoral candidates at a community forum held at the CBS studios in Studio City before an audience of 120 people.
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The forum was sponsored by the Los Angeles Daily News and the San Fernando Valley Alliance of Neighborhood Councils. It was the sixth candidate forum in this election cycle. Conspicuously absent was current mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Alvarez introduced himself as a member of the PSL, outlined his support for the creation of public, union jobs, and demanded that the City of L.A. grant all its residents access to health care, housing, and quality education. Alvarez also stated why socialism is the only system capable of improving conditions for workers in Los Angeles and across the world.
The moderator, L.A. Daily News Editor Mariel Garza, then posed a series of questions to all candidates. The first question was “What is the biggest mistake Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has made during his first term?” Alvarez said it was failing to fire LAPD Chief William Bratton after the 2007 May Day police riot, when police clubbed and shot immigrant rights supporters with rubber bullets.
This evoked booing from sectors of the audience, which was overwhelmingly white and over 60. It also brought forth xenophobic and racist responses from the other mayoral candidates. But a strong core of PSL supporters and progressives cheered for Alvarez.
When asked what measures candidates would take to “deal” with undocumented workers and street vendors, every candidate, except Alvarez, spewed racist, anti-immigrant bile.
Phil Jennerjahn prescribed “immediate arrest and deportation,” Walter Moore said he would “[repeal] Special Order 40″—the LAPD order that bars the police from arresting or questioning people on the basis of being undocumented. Craig X. Rubin declared he would mandate English-only telephone services at City Hall. Another candidate characterized taco trucks and street vendors as “unclean” and pledged to take them off the streets.
Alvarez then stood up and stated that he was outraged at the racism of the other candidates toward immigrants. He said that his campaign is for full legalization of all undocumented immigrants. “I stand with the taco trucks! I stand with the vendors,” Alvarez exclaimed. “If you all are so concerned about vendors, then legalize them all and don’t force them into poverty.”
This response polarized the room. The majority of the crowd was hostile and visibly angry, but the Alvarez supporters stood up to shout them down.
The mood calmed after a round of benign questions, but things quickly heated up again when candidates were asked who they would support if they were not running. Arch-reactionary Jennerjahn smirked smugly when he said, “I’m sorry, but ‘Taco Truck Alvarez,’ I don’t think I can support him being in charge of the city.”
It was a racist attack. Alvarez then told the room that he refused to answer another question until Jennerjahn publicly apologize for his racist name-calling. Embarrased, Jennerjahn was forced to stand up and apologize, although he clearly was not happy about it. Jennerjahn tried to pass the slur as “just a little joke.” But the fig leaf covering Jennerjahn’s fascism was already gone.
Despite the hostility from the crowd and the candidates, Alvarez remained steadfast. He continued to put forward a pro-working-class, anti-racist position. He called for a moratorium on foreclosures, a $15 minimum wage, quality education and health care, amnesty for all undocumented workers, slashing the police budget, and repealing California’s homophobic Proposition 8.
Most importantly, Alvarez did not waver in his denunciation of the racist campaign platforms of his opponents. He was the only candidate speaking for workers’ interests.
It is worth noting that Mayor Villaraigosa has refused to attend any of the candidate forums. He believes he will win without campaigning at all. This may be true, but it reveals how his carefully crafted “man of the people” image is a lie.
Villaraigosa is a slick, capitalist politician who has not weighed in on the issues affecting people in Los Angeles. He will not do a thing for working people. Villaraigosa’s true constituents are the capitalist owners and developers who own Los Angeles. He feels accountable only to them.
There is a small but growing uproar about the mayor’s non-campaign, however. At a subsequent candidate forum just days later, sponsored by the Leader-to-Leader African American Community Empowerment Think Tank (LLAACETT), the moderator condemned Villaraigosa, and told the crowd to remember at the ballot box how little he seems to care about the community.
The LLAACETT forum was night-and-day different from the Daily News event. Alvarez was the only mayoral candidate to address the entirely African American crowd, which was gracious and receptive to the PSL’s politics.
Alvarez’s campaign is gaining steam and volunteers. The PSL campaign has been covered extensively in the Los Angeles Times, the Daily News and on all major TV outlets. Before the March 3 election, Alvarez will speak to students at UCLA and USC, and at a South L.A. community forum at the Paul Robeson Center.
Through the campaign’s hard work, the message of “people over profits” is reaching tens of thousands of people. Alvarez may not win the election, but the PSL is winning over so many who hear the message of putting the vast wealth of society into the hands of those who create it.
Vote PSL on March 3! Vote Carlos Alvarez for Mayor of Los Angeles!
