Hilary, Your Class is Showing

Saturday's Claremont Courier carried a peculiar ad by Claremont school board candidate Hilary LaConte.

The ad mentioned LaConte's gratefulness for public forums. However, it did not really explain much, other than to make a vague reference to inter-district transfers (students who live outside the Claremont Unified School District but who go to Claremont schools).

The ad left us scratching our heads until a reader sent us links to two letters in the Daily Bulletin. The first letter ran on October 11th and was from one of LaConte's opponents, Barbara Miller.

Miller's letter stated that at the October 2nd League of Women Voters candidate forum, after Miller gave a response describing the criteria CUSD uses for inter-district transfers, LaConte claimed that Miller was wrong and that LaConte "went on to compliment the audience for being nice enough to clap even when answers were wrong."

Translation: LaConte - "It's nice of the audience to clap even when my opponent is being stupid."

The problem is that it turned out, as Miller's letter details, LaConte was the one who was wrong. Miller's letter to the Bulletin detailed CUSD's policy and cited the applicable section of the state of California Education Code, as well as the Los Angeles County rule.

But in Claremont, it's not enough to be right. In fact, it doesn't matter at all.

As is typical of the Claremont 400, LaConte tried to intimidate and bully at the League forum, but got caught in the wrong. Now she feels compelled to eat crow. The Bulletin ran a response letter from LaConte on October 14th, and LaConte's ad ran in the Courier the same day.

Of course, LaConte's ad doesn't put the matter in context, nor does it apologize to Miller the way LaConte's letter to the Bulletin on October 14th did.

Why? Because LaConte knows that the majority of her voters read the Courier, not the Bulletin, so she included as little context and as much obfuscation as possible in the ad. Talk about mealy-mouthed!

Which just illustrates several points. First, those who defend LaConte as a nice person are simply wrong. Nice people do not make the catty sort of remarks that LaConte did at the League forum. Especially when they're wrong!

Second, nice people hold themselves accountable and apologize when they are wrong. LaConte made a minimal apology where she thought few of her supporters would see it, and then ran an ad in the wider venue (for this election) in which she said very little of substance and offered no context, no accountability, and no apology.

Third, LaConte did not do her homework, at least on the inter-district transfer issue. Then, she compounded matters by attacking the person who was more knowledgeable - Miller. Ignorance, arrogance, cattiness - all the Claremont 400 attributes rolled into one.

Not that it matters. As we've pointed out in the past, with this election and with others, being right has no bearing on the outcome. It's just a matter of being picked by the right people and getting the machine behind you.

But, that is also why Claremont and the Claremont 400, and such associated community groups as the League of Women Voters have lost so much of their credibility and are not deserving of our trust.