The lookout

Tuesday, June 15--It's not every day that Santa Monica plays host to a potential presidential candidate. Sure, the city has more than its share of celebrities, but they're hardly presidential.

On Wednesday, however, Bill Bradley is scheduled to pay a visit to the Santa Monica Boys and Girls Club, talking about an issue that many Santa Monicans can relate to.

EQUALITY:
Bradley's focus is expected to be on Title IX, a federal mandate requiring colleges to spend money on female sports. But his theme is sure to be much broader than whether girls can shoot hoops and bat balls as well as boys.

It's about about giving everyone an opportunity to play - a theme that rings louder in Santa Monica than in most other cities. (See the excerpt below from one of Bradley's speeches.)

Bradley's visit comes at an interesting time for a coastal city that is fighting hard to preserve its progressive soul, a fight that manifests itself in local efforts among community leaders to give Latino hotel and restaurant workers a voice.

Santa Monica is a city where discussions about imposing a living wage ordinance on local businesses are heating up and the union is increasing its political stronghold. Battles continues with the Miramar Sheraton Hotel over labor issues, and key community leaders - including city council members - are part of the effort.

Santa Monica is a city where elections are beginning to be won and lost with the union's help.

Indeed, there's no question that Santa Monica shares Bradley's philosophy of equality. The question is whether the city's political leaders - the Democrats, that is - will greet Bradley publicly with open arms.

Remember, a perceived endorsement for Bradley is a perceived LACK of
endorsement for Vice President Al Gore.

And that could matter to members of the California Assembly - Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl, among them -- who followed the lead of Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa and voted nearly unanimously to support Gore for President. Santa Monica would be displaying some kind of political nerve to fete his rival.

Wonder how they will feel if Ralph Nader announces his Green Party presidential candidacy and stumps through Santa Monica on a carpet rolled out by council-members Michael Feinstein and Kevin McKeown, both Green Party members. (Nader is expected to hit town in July.)

Some might argue it wouldn't matter to California Democrats, but the party's leaders have been furious with the Greens -- and with themselves -- since earlier this year, when Assemblywoman Audie Bock won a seat in Oakland, the Green's first legislative position in California and a heavily Democratic district.

In politics, that's exactly the kind of embarassing upset people don't ever forget.

One in five children in America live in poverty. Among black children
40 percent are destitute. There is no reason why a multiracial coalition cannot be built to lift up our poorest children -- to make sure they have a healthy start, a nurturing childhood, and a chance for a good education.

If that became our shared purpose, millions of Americans from all races could join the effort. Working side by side -- as we did in fighting for civil rights in the 1960s and rebuilding burned-out black churches in the 1990s -- we could reaffirm our common humanity.

It would necessarily involve the parents of the children. They offer the leverage for whatever the rest of us will do. The coalition effort would challenge the national government to do more, utilize the rich untapped human resources of the community, mobilize the money of those moved to give, and attract the goodwill of the nation.

To say that such an objective is right or left misses the point. Ideas about how to save children can come from both sides of the political spectrum and all should be invited to participate