Los Angeles Times - 24.02.2020

CALIFORNIA

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2020:: LATIMES.COM/CALIFORNIA

B

During a

third-grade

lesson on

Latino cul-

ture, my

teacher

assigned me

a Spanish

name: Fran-

cisco.

I never thought that

information would be of use

to anyone, so I’ve never

shared it. But Democratic

presidential candidate Amy

Klobuchar thought differ-

ently last week when she

proudly told a group of

workers from the Nevada

culinary union that, when

she was in the fourth grade,

“Me llamo Elena.”

In the video, the largely

Latino audience responded

with deafening silence.

Pundits and social media

posters quickly accused

Klobuchar of pandering to

Hispanics, or “Hispander-

ing.” It was the latest exam-

ple of what has become a

familiar political tradition

among people of color:

laughing at the cultural

blunders of presidential

candidates.

Over the years, candi-

dates’ attempts to reach

people of color have gifted

us with a long and hilarious

highlight reel of cultural

FORMER VICE PRESIDENTJoe Biden visits Koreatown’s Oaxacan culinary mainstay Guelaguetza in

December. To young nonwhite voters, such campaign stops can seem hackneyed and hollow.

Allen J. SchabenLos Angeles Times

These photo ops fall flat

Candidates think tacos and boba win nonwhite voters. Not exactly.

FRANK SHYONG

SEN.Amy Klobuchar, who touted her fourth-

grade “Spanish” name last week to Latinos in Ne-

vada, speaks at Jethro’s BBQ restaurant in Iowa.

Tom BrennerGetty Images

[SeeShyong,B6]

SACRAMENTO — Vot-

ers in California, like others

across the country, have

long assumed that only one

candidate can win an elec-

tion. And in most cases,

they’re right.

But most presidential

primaries work differently —

a fact obscured in years past

when the race was all but

over by the time Californians

cast ballots. On March 3, the

Democratic presidential

campaign will be far from

over and the arcane rules for

winning in the Golden State

will come into play.

There are 54 Democratic

primaries in California.

California will send 494

delegates to the Democratic

National Convention in Mil-

waukee this July. Most of

them — 271 delegates — will

represent one of the state’s

53 congressional districts.

In essence, the March 3

primary is made up of one

statewide election and 53

district-level elections. Can-

didates will be awarded dele-

gates based on how they do

in each of these contests,

and the remaining delegates

will be divided by the top

statewide vote-getters.

Not all of these 54 races

will award the same number

of delegates. The statewide

results decide who wins 90 of

California’s “at-large” con-

vention delegates, the single

largest subset, as well as 54

delegates representing

party leaders and elected of-

Not so

easy to

win the

state

On March 3, arcane

rules for California’s

presidential primary

will come into play.

By John Myers

[SeePrimary,B5]

Gov. Gavin
Newsom may
be piloting a
lifeboat that
will rescue the
sinking Cali-
fornia Delta. Or
he may be in
water over his
head on a doomed mission.
The governor gets angry
with skeptics who say he’s
being delusional. But his-
tory sides with the doubters.
“I love reading all that,
‘Hey, he’s naive. He’s being
misled,’ ” Newsom recently
told a forum sponsored by
the nonpartisan Public
Policy Institute of Cali-
fornia, his voice rising with a
touch of sarcasm.
“It means we’re doing
something a little different.”
No California water hole
has been fought over more
than the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta. It’s
right up there with the
Owens Valley and the state’s
share of the Colorado River.
The delta supplies water
for 27 million people and
irrigates 3 million acres.
California’s economy de-
pends, in large part, on its
health.
But the delta’s ecology
has been declining, primari-
ly because water from rivers
has been diverted for agri-
culture before it reaches the
West Coast’s largest es-
tuary. And the water that
does make it there has been
overpumped through fish-
chomping monstrosities
into southbound aqueducts.
This has devastated
native fish — salmon,
steelhead, smelt — and
prompted courts to occa-
sionally tighten the spigots
on water pumped to San
Joaquin Valley farms and

CAPITOL JOURNAL

Newsom

chasing

a ‘white

whale’?

GEORGE SKELTON
in sacramento

[SeeSkelton,B4]

In 2002, daredevil “Mad
Mike” Hughes successfully
jumped a Lincoln Town Car
stretch limousine 103 feet at
the Perris Auto Speedway in
Riverside County.
The stunt landed him in
the Guinness World Records
for the longest limousine
ramp jump, beating a previ-
ous 75-foot jump Hughes
made in Las Vegas. He seri-
ously injured his back when
a mountain of car tires in-
tended to cushion his land-
ing separated, and he
crashed into a wall.
But Hughes was not de-
terred.
The next year, he tried for
a new record of 125 feet, cov-
ering his body in bubble
wrap and gunning his 3-ton
white Cadillac limousine up
a ramp at 65 mph at the Or-
ange Show Speedway in San
Bernardino. He flipped over
before reaching a cushion of
tires but was unhurt.
“Sometimes, I feel like
the cartoon character Wile
E. Coyote, when he suddenly

runs off a cliff,” Hughes told

The Times ahead of the

jump. “But it’s the price I pay

for a life that’s not boring.”

After years of close calls,

the 64-year-old Hughes met

his end Saturday when he

was killed during the launch

of a homemade rocket gone

awry outside Barstow. It’s

unclear what went wrong.

Dramatic video of the

botched stunt posted on so-

cial media appears to indi-

cate that there was a prob-

lem with his parachute.

“Like any daredevil, I

think they’re driven by a

sense of that need to do

something incredible but

also to risk their life,” said

Toby Brusseau, who di-

rected “Rocketman,” a 2019

documentary about

Hughes.

Hughes, originally from

Oklahoma City, started at-

tending car races with his fa-

ther at 2 months old and be-

gan racing motorcycles at

the age of 12, according to an

author biography for his

2007 self-published book,

“What Does A Limo Driver

“MAD MIKE” HUGHES’final flight. The daredevil
and self-taught engineer died Saturday in a crash.

Mercedes Blackehart

‘Rocketman’

pushed limits

By Alex Wigglesworth

[SeeDaredevil,B2]

Quarantine

plan is assailed

in Costa Mesa

Residents and

officials back a filing

for a restraining order

to block coronavirus

patients. B

Stay away from

Staples Center

Bryant fans should

avoid the area unless

they hold a ticket for

the service. B

Investigation in

bus crash grows

Federal agency sends

a team to San Diego

County to scrutinize

the wreck scene. B

FANSgather at a makeshift memorial for Kobe Bryant this month at L.A. Live. Lottery......................B

Christina HouseLos Angeles Times

F

or decades, Beverly Cassirer

and her husband chased after

the elusive Impressionist

painting that had been taken

from the family by the Nazis during

the dawn of World War II, a madden-

ing hunt that came up empty again

and again.

The evocative Parisian street

scene by Camille Pissarro had van-

ished into the mists of the war and

then resurfaced decades later in

Madrid, hanging for all the world to

see in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-

Bornemisza, a treasured work by an

Impressionist master valued at

roughly $30 million.

Cassirer and her husband,

Claude, pursued the painting in the

courts of Los Angeles, arguing that it

had essentially been stolen by the Na-

zis, who had

BEVERLY CASSIRER, 1920 - 2020

Fought to regain Nazi-looted art

By Steve Marble

Allen J. SchabenLos Angeles Times

LOCKED IN LEGAL BATTLE

Beverly and Claude Cassirer sued to reclaim a Pissarro that the

[SeeCassirer,B5] Nazis confiscated and that now hangs in a Madrid museum.