November 4, 2008

It was a great night to be on Crenshaw Boulevard.

Even though Parks lost, and badly, people at his headquarters were thrilled because of Obama's win.  They were mostly middle-aged, politically active African-Americans.  Most people I asked said they never thought they would see a black man elected president.

There were guys running through the parking lot of the strip mall chanting "Obama", people were driving down  Crenshaw honking their horns and screaming like a party was about to start.

There was roasted pig served in the back lot, a band played and almost everyone cried at some point in the night.

The results of the County Supervisor race weren't in when I left at 10:30 that night.  And the results that had come in weren't shared with Parks' supporters before I left.  Driving home I heard on the radio that, with 30 percent of the vote counted, Parks was trailing the race against Mark Ridley-Thomas 60 percent to 40.

But that was something of a foregone conclusion.  Parks' campaign couldn't compete with the campaign offices, television ads, fliers and workers that Ridley-Thomas brought to the race.  The irony of the night and that race was that Parks and his campaign resembled Hillary Clinton's campaign for president and Ridley-Thomas ran a campaign much more like Obama's.

Parks relied on the traditional sources of political power in South Los Angeles.  He represented the old political establishment.  Ridley-Thomas, in going after new voters and in spending an unprecedented amount of money, ran a modern campaign that proved to be unstoppable.

And Jaime Regalado of the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State Los Angeles, an expert on South Los Angeles politics, told me that Parks' political lustre was seriously tarnished by the loss he suffered, much more so than after running for mayor.