Hiring a 12-year-old campaign manager might not be the most traditional strategy for running for any political office, but Pamela Conley Ulich’s campaign for a county office isn’t trying to be traditional.
The former Malibu mayor announced her candidacy for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors last month. She’s running to fill the Third District seat that will be vacated when Zev Yaroslavsky terms out next year after spending 20 years representing Third District cities such as Malibu, Topanga, Pacific Palisades and Agoura, among dozens of others.
Ulich and campaign manager Dylan Strickland, her neighbor, are running to not only fill Yaroslavsky’s seat, but also to take a stand against the influence of money and special interest groups in politics.
“Most of this was inspired by [Strickland],” Ulich said. “This 12-year-old was inspiring me because we were talking about Citizens United and how what’s happening in our political arena is that sometimes money may overrun politics and we start having politicians beholden to money and special interests instead of the people they represent.”
Their campaign, “Team Love LA,” is based on the idea of using people, not money, to get elected and therefore representing the people, not special interests. She ran for Malibu City Council under the same campaign, and wants to use it to draw attention to the large amounts of money spent on political campaigns today.
“I feel like it’s almost like heroin. Politicians just need another shock every time they want to get elected,” Ulich said. “That scares me. I feel like money should have nothing to do with whether or not you should and can adequately serve the people you’re representing.”
Ulich is not eschewing fundraising altogether, but is emphasizing more nontraditional, grassroots methods to spread the word.
“We will be doing a little fundraising because my 12-year-old campaign manager insists we get a better website,” she said.
Some funds will be raised to hire a web developer to redesign the Team Love LA website and help build the campaign’s social media presence, and to print some fliers. But much of the campaigning will be talking to people.
“We’ll be going out, knocking on doors and getting people to join the Team Love LA movement,” Ulich said. “We’ll have people join us and talk to their friends, so we’re really enlisting people to join us. The power of the people is stronger than money.”
When asked if this is a symbolic campaign meant to bring attention to money in politics, or whether she is serious about winning, Ulich said she was optimistic.
“We are going to try and do the very best we can to get the most votes. I do think anything is possible with the advent of social media. Facebook doesn’t cost money, Twitter doesn’t cost money.”
Kevin Acebo, a political consultant who managed Zev Yaroslavsky’s re-election campaign for L.A. City Council in 1993 and his successful supervisorial campaign for the Third District in 1994, said not raising money would make winning difficult in reality.
“On a county scale of this size, I think it’s an extremely steep, uphill battle to win 50 percent plus one, without figuring out how to raise money,” Acebo said. “[To use] social media alone, there’s all this staff, you have to produce, edit [campaign] content, prepare for forums.”
Acebo said the population of the Third District also provided logistical hurdles, to go with the quality of the opposition.
“With 2 million people roughly, that’s larger than some states in the union roughly,” he said. “…We [also] don’t know who’s running yet, but it could be 6, 7 individuals with very large name [identification who] have very large resources with campaign experience.”
Ulich served on the Malibu City Council from 2004 to 2012, and served two terms as mayor. During her time on the council, she worked to renovate the Malibu Library and helped prevent two liquefied natural gas facilities from being built off of Malibu’s coast. She said her work in Malibu has helped prepare her to take on issues of education, the economy, the environment and emergency preparedness within the Third District.
Former California state senator and assembly member Sheila Kuehl announced earlier this year that she will also run for the position. Former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Wendy Greuel told KPCC that her supporters are urging her to also run for the position, and former Santa Monica councilman Bobby Shriver told the Los Angeles Daily News he was considering running last fall, although neither have declared candidacy.
Still, Ulich believes she has a campaign that will garner support from Third District voters because of her emphasis on the people.
“I will try and be a representative of the people,” she said. “I will be open and not be afraid of sometimes when my interest and the people’s interest is different, even if it will cost me politically.”