Well, that was quick! Yesterday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti issued an email endorsing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign. An hour later the mayor’s office sent out a second email reading in essence “Ignore previous email.” In reality it was just as short, consisting of a single sentence that said, “Today’s statement on Hillary Clinton was sent in error.”
But the story doesn’t end there. According to the Los Angeles Times, this was all a technical snafu, prompting reporters to ask “whether the … endorsement might have been a misuse of city resources for campaign purposes. Both city and state law prohibit the use of government staff time and equipment for campaign news releases, including endorsements.”
Some time later, “a Garcetti staff member said the original Clinton endorsement was sent from the wrong email account but declined to comment on whether the endorsement of Clinton was being retracted. The mayor’s staff referred that question to Bill Carrick, Garcetti’s 2017 reelection campaign consultant,” who said that the endorsement of Clinton stands and that a re-endorsement statement would be issued through a non-governmental email account. He said he could not explain the circumstances surrounding the first endorsement statement.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Late Thursday afternoon, Garcetti’s campaign sent its own email to supporters re-endorsing Clinton.
Garcetti’s endorsement comes a week after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared his backing for Clinton’s candidacy. The support of the mayors of the nation’s two largest cities marks a further step in Clinton’s consolidation of party support for her nomination after a shaky summer on the campaign trail.
In the meantime, if you’re Clinton, do you still want the endorsement of a clown like Garcetti?
