Around the Campaign Dial

Well, thank God that's over.

Wait, it's not. The race for Democratic candidate for governor was too close to call Tuesday night, although it looked like Phil Angelides would squeak out a victory. The rest of the races, however, were pretty much set. Jerry Brown will campaign for attorney general; the two propositions failed (sorry, Meathead); and locally, here in Glendale/Burbank/Silver Lake/Atwater Village/Los Feliz land, Paul Krekorian easily won the primary for State Assembly.

If you were smart, you caught all of this info online. But if you were looking to inflict a little self punishment (as I obviously was last night), you flipped around the local news operations, searching for any context to the results.

Kidding -- OK, I wasn't expecting much context. But I was looking for some meat-and-potatoes coverage. Unfortunately, election nights serve as a reminder that local TV news is not cut out for this kind of stuff. Political news ranks near the bottom of issues that they care about or cover most of the year -- so it's tough watching their reporters suddenly trying to cover the beat on the one or two nights of the year that they still have to cover politics.

I woke up from dozing in front of the TV at 10:45 (hey, I'm a new dad, gimmie a break) and frantically checked the 10 p.m. newscasts -- but KTTV, KTLA and KCAL were already on to other stuff.

So I tried again at 11. First off, I gotta commend KNBC for spending the most time on the elections. KNBC actually expanded its newscast to an hour, and focused on election returns for at least the first half hour, breaking quickly for other news and weather before getting back to the results. KNBC also trots out analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe (by the way, is she really the only politcal analyst available in Southern California? It seems as if no one else is ever featured on local TV, "Which Way LA," etc.), who may speak painfully slow, but still provides some context that is missing on the other newscasts.

KCBS, on the flip side, spent the least amount of time on the elections (well, actually, KCOP spent even less time -- but I consider KCOP's news as more of a magazine show than a traditional newscast). While KABC and KNBC covered Steve Westly's and Phil Angelides' speeches live, KCBS was busy covering the cop who was shot; Satanists celebrating 6/6/06; and going to commercial. KCBS also signed off straight at 11:35, while KABC and KNBC expanded their newscasts. (KABC signed off around 11:45.)

At all of the stations, when it came to reporters live at various campaign headquarters -- or interviewing candidates-- a lack of any real preparation was painfully obvious. One reporter at Rocky Delgadillo's headquarters noted that Rocky's name has been an asset -- and congratulated him for a good race -- yet never mentioned some of the recent questions about his past and record that may have tripped him up. Another reporter on a rival station kept reporting live from Angelides' headquarters -- but simply kept repeating that the race was tight and that the crowd was pumped. Really? Perhaps sending reporters up to Sacramento wasn't worth the budget after all.

But maybe I'm being a little too cynical. I am pleased that our local stations have been paying a little more attention to local politics these days. It may still be minimal, but the 2003 recall election definitely forced the stations to pay a little more attention. And the popularity and ubiquitous appearance of Mayor Villaraigosa has also forced the stations to focus a tad more on local government.

UPDATE: As you know by now, Phil Angelides has won the right to lose to Governator Schwarenegger this fall. (Call me fatalistic. But I just don't see Angelides winning, particularly once Schwarzenegger paints him as a tax-hungry politico.) If I were Angelides, I'd go the straight-shooter approach in ads. "Hey, that was fun, having a world-famous movie star play governor for a few years. But seriously, play time's over. California's facing some major challenges in the coming years, and you need a leader who can offer up more than a cutesy catch phrase." Just a thought.