Well, well, well. There is some life in the
current city council race after all. Admittedly, it
wasn’t a major power surge, but the blandness of the
forums and the homogeneity of the look-alike campaign
literature (do that many political consultants really think
their clients are so alike?) finally gave way to some emotion
at Monday night’s city council meeting. As some of the
greatest political communicators from Franklin Roosevelt to
Ronald Reagan knew all too well, political rhetoric has to
reach people’s hearts, as well as their minds. Too many
Malibuites have been saying that neither are being engaged in
the current council campaign. That might change. The Malibu
Park Homeowners Association says it hopes to shake things up
with a forum that won’t be a carbon copy of the earlier
“question-from-the-card, answer-please, yawn” type
forums, and actually allow candidates to question each
other. As opposed to the highly masticated responses that
have been offered to voters so far, there may even be
spontaneous examples of how well people think on their feet and
what their views are when they are not prepped from cue cards.
Check the calendar for the time, date and place, and keep your
fingers crossed that there will be opportunities to address
real issues, not sensationalized or sanitized talking points.
We have to give Dick Van Dyke credit for
taking the discussion of underwear purchase out of the closet,
or should that be the top drawer? Nothing short of a beachside
photo shoot for Victoria’s Secret attracts that kind of
local attention to undergarments. What the city council
race lacks in interest appears to be made up in the
community’s ongoing dialogue about whose underwear will
prevail in Malibu’s commercial hub. Communities that
rally to defeat a big box behemoth have it easy compared to the
Malibuites who are torn between substance and image as
they look at the list of businesses that may be moving to
Malibu. Comparing the vociferous outcry of a crowd opposed
to a superchain whose employees are paid minimum wage to
objections to stores where sales commissions may rival local
real estate values rings hollow to many outsiders’ ears.
“What’s wrong with you people?” asked a
British reporter in town last week, when someone said
there were too many pricey boutiques. Perhaps those
“people” think Malibu is already a special place.
It doesn’t need a label to prove itself.
