u.s. senator

The rich, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, are different. In California, they lose a lot of very expensive, very high-profile political races.

Over the past 50-plus years, a half-dozen fabulously wealthy men and women — William Matson Roth, Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina among them — have clambered atop their hefty cash piles and, despite any significant political experience, tried to launch themselves into the office of governor or U.S. senator.

Every last one of them failed.

Others with at least some background in elected office — Michael Huffington, Jane Harman, Richard Riordan to name a few — sunk a goodly chunk of their fortunes and came up similarly short in their efforts to win one of California’s top two political posts.

That history is worth noting as the very-well-to-do Rick Caruso eyes a possible entry into the wide-open race to succeed Gavin Newsom. Caruso recently told my colleague Julia Wick he was “very seriously considering” both a gubernatorial run and a second try for Los Angeles mayor.

“I’m running down two parallel paths,” the billionaire developer said. “As we speak, there are teams very busy working on both of those paths.”

(Wealthy businessman Stephen J. Cloobeck, another political first-timer, has been campaigning for governor for months, spending liberally to little avail.)

There’s a common disclaimer in the field of investment — “past performance is no guarantee of future returns” — which certainly applies here.

Still, as waiting-for-Caruso replaces waiting-for-Kamala among political gossips, it’s worth asking whether there’s something — floating in the air, mixed in the water or soil — that has made California such an inhospitable place for so many lavishly monied candidates. Unlike, say, Illinois or New Jersey, which elected billionaire neophyte JB Pritzker and multimillionaire Frank Lautenberg, as, respectively, governor and U.S. senator.

Part of the reason could be the particular political climate.

“If you’re the rich outsider, you have to show up in an election cycle where people want the outsider,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist who worked for Meg Whitman’s failed 2010 gubernatorial campaign, which cost a cool $180 million.

(Yes, $180 million. The former tech CEO coughed up most of that sum at a time California’s median household income was about $61,000.)

All that lucre couldn’t override the prevailing sentiment among discontented voters who were ready, after nearly eight years of the uber-outsider Arnold Schwarzenegger, to embrace the tried-and-true experience of the reemergent Jerry Brown.

That said, there’s a lengthy enough record of futility to suggest more is at work than the changeable mood of a fickle electorate.

Garry South believes California voters are of two minds when it comes to super-rich candidates. In 1998, the Democratic strategist helped Lt. Gov. Gray Davis maneuver past two moneybags, billionaire former airline executive Al Checchi and Rep. Harman, to win the governor’s race. Four years later, South led Davis’ successful reelection campaign against another multimillionaire newcomer, William Simon Jr.

“Part of them kind of admires someone who went out and made a killing in our capitalistic society … and walked away filthy rich,” South said of voters’ dueling impulses. “But they also have a suspicion that, because of their wealth and because of the benefits that it confers on that person, they don’t really know how the average person lives.”

Call it an empathy gap.

Or, perhaps more aptly, an empathy canyon.

“If somebody has $150 million sitting around they can dump into a campaign for public office,” South said, channeling the skeptical sentiment, “what understanding do they have of my day-to-day life?”

Bill Carrick, a consultant for Harman’s 1998 campaign, agreed it’s incumbent on a rich candidate to “have something substantive to say and be able to articulate why you’re going to make people’s lives better.”

That’s no different than any other office-seeker. But unlike less affluent, more relatable candidates, a billionaire or multimillionaire has a much heavier burden convincing voters they know what they’re talking about and genuinely mean it.

Don Sipple, who helped elect Schwarzenegger governor in California’s 2003 recall election, said wealth often comes with a whiff of privilege and, even more off-putting, an air of entitlement. (To be clear, Schwarzenegger won and replaced Davis because he was Arnold Schwarzenegger, not because of his personal fortune.)

A lot of California’s failed rich candidates, Sipple said, appeared viable — especially to political insiders — “because of their money. And they really didn’t have anything to offer beyond that.”

“It’s the same as somebody who goes out and tries to earn a job,” he went on. “You never deserve it. You’ve got to out and work for it. And I think voters make the distinction.”

Of course, wealth confers certain advantages. Not least is easy access to the extraordinary sum it takes to become well-known in a place with more eligible voters — nearly 27 million, at last count — than the population of all but a handful of states.

California is physically immense, too, stretching approximately 800 miles from north to south, which makes costly advertising the only realistic way to communicate in a statewide top-of-the-ticket contest.

There’s another old aphorism about wealth, credited to the burlesque star and actress, Sophie Tucker. “I’ve been rich,” she famously said, “and I’ve been poor. Rich is better.”

That’s undeniably true, so far as it goes.

The singer and comedian never tried to be governor or a U.S. senator from California.

Elex Michaelson, veteran anchor of KTTV’s evening and late night newscasts, is departing the station.

A representative for KTTV parent Fox Television Stations confirmed Michaelson’s plan to exit, which was described as amicable. His last day is Aug. 15.

Michaelson did not respond to a request for comment. People familiar with his plans who were not authorized to comment said the anchor was leaving for another position.

Michaelson, 38, has been with the Los Angeles outlet since 2017. He co-anchored the 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts with Christine Devine and the 6 p.m. edition with Maria Tellez.

Michaelson is also host and producer of the weekly statewide political talk show “The Issue Is,” which airs on various TV stations throughout the state in addition to KTTV.

He previously worked at Disney-owned Los Angeles station KABC-TV and XETV in San Diego. The Agoura Hills native’s first job in broadcasting was as an intern at KTTV.

Michaelson is a well liked figure in Los Angeles media circles. Some of that good will is due to his mother’s baked goods, which are prepared on Thursday and given to guests at the Friday taping of “The Issue Is.”

Fox 11 anchor Elex Michaelson and former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger eating Michaelson’s mom’s baked good at a prior event.

(Elex Michaelson)

Michaelson is the winner of eight local Emmy Awards, seven Golden Mics, and six L.A. Press Club awards including TV Journalist of the Year.

While at KTTV, Michaelson organized and co-moderated debates for California governor, U.S. senator, L.A. mayor, L.A. county sheriff, and multiple congressional races. He also covered national politics for the station.

Matt Hamilton contributed to this report.

Things were looking tense in Los Angeles on Thursday even before federal agents took down U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla.

We had the Marines, slightly trained in domestic crowd control, heading out to do crowd control. We had ICE raids, sweeping up a man from a church. Or maybe it was ICE — the armed and masked agents refused to say where they were from.

But then the situation went further south, which to be honest, I thought would take at least until Monday.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was in town to cosplay at being an ICE agent herself. You know she loves to dress up. Padilla, who was in the same building to meet with a general, went to a news conference she was hosting and tried to ask her a question.

Bad idea.

Federal agents manhandled him out of the room, shoved him down onto his knees and handcuffed him. The FBI has confirmed to my colleagues that he was not arrested, but that’s little comfort.

While officers may not have known Padilla was a U.S. senator when they started going after him, they certainly did by the time the cuffs were snapping.

Padilla was heard saying, “Hands off, hands off. I’m Sen. Alex Padilla,” as the officers pushed him back.

The hands remained on.

Shortly after the video of this frightening episode hit social media, Gov. Gavin Newsom posted on X, “If they can handcuff a U.S. Senator for asking a question, imagine what they will do to you.”

Indeed.

After the news conference, Noem offered a sorry-not-sorry.

“I wish that he would have reached out and identified himself and let us know who he was and that he wanted to talk,” she told reporters. “His approach, you know, was something that I don’t think was appropriate at all, but the conversation was great, and we’re going to continue to communicate.”

It was great! Send in the Marines!

When asked why she had ordered the removal of Padilla, Noem deferred to law enforcement.

“I’ll let the law enforcement speak to how this situation was handled, but I will say that it’s people need to identify themselves before they start lunging at these moments during press conference,” she said.

“Lunging.”

It is starting to feel like being brown in America is a crime. Brown man allegedly lunging is the new Black man driving — scary enough that any response is justified.

Sen. Adam Schiff, our other California senator, came to his colleague’s defense, demanding an investigation.

“Anyone who looks at it — anyone — anyone who looks at this, it will turn your stomach,” he said. “To look at this video and see what happened reeks — reeks — of totalitarianism. This is not what democracies do.”

Political pundit Mike Madrid pointed out how personal this issue of immigration is to Padilla.

Padilla is the son of Mexican immigrants, Santos and Lupe Padilla. He went into politics in 1995 because of the anti-immigrant Proposition 187, the California measure that knocked all undocumented people off of many public services, including schools. He’s been a champion of immigrant communities ever since.

“Hard to describe how angered and passionate Senator Alex Padilla is — I’ve known him for 25 years and never seen anything like this,” Madrid wrote online. “He’s a living example of how Latinos feel right now.”

And not just Latinos — all Americans who care about democracy.

We are about to have approximately 3,000 hours of debate on whether Padilla deserved what he got because he was not invited to the press conference.

The right wing is going to parse the video looking for that lunge and saying Padilla was aggressive. The left will say he has a right to ask questions, even a duty because he is an elected representative whose constituents are being detained and disappeared, even ones that are U.S. citizens.

I’ll say I genuinely do not care if you are pro-Trump or pro-Padilla.

If you care about our Constitution, about due process, about civil rights, watching a U.S. senator forced onto his knees for asking questions should be a terrifying wake up call.

It turns out that it’s true: after they come for the vulnerable, they do indeed come for the rest.