You know the political silly season is upon us when campaigns start to make fools of themselves trying to court Latino voters.
In the Los Angeles mayoral race, that moment kicked off last weekend.
On Friday, a social media account called Latinos Por Pratt released an AI-animated music video praising the mayoral candidate and former reality television star Spencer Pratt. It starts with a fit, sunglasses-wearing Pratt rolling a trash bin brimming with detritus and Mayor Karen Bass past a crowd of cheering Angelenos. The Hollywood sign looms in the background as the title “Spencer, Saca La Bassura” flashes on the screen — Spencer, Take Out Trashy Karen, with “Bassura” a play on the mayor’s last name and the Spanish word for “trash.”
Cut to scenes of Bass playing tourist on her infamous trip to Ghana while the Palisades burn. Splice in Pratt dancing with his wife, Heidi Montag, onstage at a street party where onlookers wave a Mexico and U.S. flag. And because L.A.’s Latino majority is overwhelmingly of Mexican descent, the thing was anchored by a peppy accordion, dramatic guitar plucks and a bold tuba, right? Right?
Uh, no.
Lyrics like “Latinos for Pratt we’re singing/Because we’re tired of this dirty beat” play over brassy salsa rhythms that are more Miami and Cuban than L.A., where Latinos are mostly of Mexican and Central America heritage and the soundtrack of the city — corridos tumbados, cumbias, Latin rock and pop — reflect that.
That didn’t stop clueless, mostly non-Latino Pratt fanboys and fangirls from going gaga over it online. Nor did it stop Bass from joining in the we-need-Latino-voters fiesta.
Soon after the video was released, a group called Latinos Con Bass brought out big-name speakers to Plaza de la Raza in Lincoln Heights— state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights head Angélica Salas, Service Employees International Union California President David Huerta — so they could pledge support for the incumbent with all the enthusiasm of doctors reminding people to take their flu shot. Bass greeted the crowd with an peppy “¡Sí se puede!” — the standard Latino politico rallying cry for decades but one that’s not so kosher right now given its association with César Chávez, the legendary labor leader whom a New York Times investigation recently revealed to have sexually assaulted teenage girls.
Latinos Con Bass came off as a bunch of establishment types sticking up for one of their own instead of anything organic. But at least we know the track record of those involved. Latinos Por Pratt seems to be just one guy: Adrian E. Alvarez, a Cuban American who his online profile says splits his time between the Miami area and L.A. If the lawyer by trade — who didn’t respond to numerous requests for comment — was really serious about winning Latino vote for his guy, he would’ve commissioned a corrido instead of a salsa tune. The Mexican ballad form has been trotted out by Angelenos for decades for everything from the tragic deaths of Robert F. Kennedy and Kobe Bryant and his daughter to the capture of sundry narco lords.
Those songwriters got it. Alvarez’s diss track doesn’t. And his use of Cuban Spanish on social media to promote it — carajo, fajame, mi gente — in favor of Mexican Spanish equivalents like güey, éntrale, and raza sounds like a guy who doesn’t know South L.A. from South Beach.
But to dismiss “Spencer, Saca La Bassura” as an inauthentic joke is to miss what it says about this political moment. In a year when Latinos nationwide will make or break the Democrats’ effort to win back Congress, they’ll play an even more crucial role in L.A.’s mayoral race.
And it’s the Bass campaign that needs Latinos more than any of her opponents — because there’s no guarantee she’ll get them.
A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll released last month and co-sponsored by The Times revealed 56% of likely voters view the mayor unfavorably, the only candidate to have a majority of those surveyed look negatively on her. She’s the top choice among Latinos — 29%, compared with Pratt’s 16%. But 27% of Latinos remain undecided about whom they want as mayor, the highest percentage of any ethnic group.
Pratt has some name recognition among Latinos as a C-list celebrity, but he’s also a registered Republican who thinks L.A. should coordinate with the Trump administration’s deportation leviathan, a position that’s as popular among Angelenos as rooting for the San Diego Padres. That obviously presents an opportunity for Councilwoman Nithya Raman, who’s running for mayor to the left of Bass — if she can smartly seize it. But Raman represents a district with one of the lowest Latino populations in the city and has yet to make a name for herself across town — no wonder the Berkeley poll found just 9% of Latinos favored her, trailing even Presbyterian pastor Rae Huang.
Those shortcomings should give Bass — whose children are Mexican American and who has worked alongside Latino L.A.’s political establishment for nearly her entire political career — an advantage among Latinos. But all that star wattage didn’t win her the Latino vote four years ago against Rick Caruso. And L.A.’s biggest problems during the mayor’s first term — homelessness, beat-up streets, busted streetlights, Trump’s immigration deluge — unduly affected the Latino areas of L.A. Even the inferno that engulfed the Palisades led to the loss of thousands of jobs for the nannies, housecleaners and gardeners that kept the neighborhood as pristine as it was.
Her campaign will trumpet all of Bass’ supposed accomplishments and trot out endorsements like they did at the Plaza de la Raza event, but she lost the narrative of a healthy L.A. a long time ago.
Pratt — who doesn’t seem to know Los Angeles besides the Westside and television studios — will have to do far more than Bass and Raman to attract Latinos. But by repeatedly referring to the mayor as “Karen Basura” — a juvenile, obvious insult but that nevertheless sticks once you hear it — he’s at least making Spanish a far more constant part of his campaign than his rivals. And Alvarez’s music video, as silly and un-L.A. as it is, speaks to an enthusiasm among at least one Latino Pratt supporter that will most likely remain catchier and more inspired than anything the Bass and Raman campaigns will come up with.
That reality seems to have already made Bass blink. She responded to “Spencer, Saca La Bassura” on social media a few days later with a photo of people at her Plaza de la Raza rally holding “Latinos Con Bass” signs with the caption “Latinos Con Bass > Ai Latinos.” It was meant as a political flex but came off as insecure posturing. Meanwhile, Latinos Por Pratt just released a teaser for another video, this time featuring Pratt as Batman carting out a clown-faced Bass and Raman as the villainous Two-Face.
Playing, again, to salsa. That’s weak sauce. Can someone try to really get Latino L.A.?
I promise: Sí se puede.
The post Spencer Pratt is sharing a Miami sound machine ad. It won’t play in LA. appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
