With the sun beating down and the temperature soaring on a recent afternoon, 11th District City Council candidate Cindy Miscikowski could hardly have been called cool as she knocked on voters' doors in Mar Vista.
But the veteran council staffer doesn't seem to be sweating Tuesday's election to replace her ex-boss, Councilman Marvin Braude. Instead, Miscikowski exudes confidence that she is on the road to a comeback after a second-place finish in the primary turned her from front-runner to underdog overnight.
Earlier that afternoon on her home turf in Tarzana, front-runner Georgia Mercer was confident--and cool, a feat that could only have been achieved indoors on a scorcher of a day.
The former Valley liaison to Mayor Richard Riordan was on the prowl for votes too. She glided through a roomful of women playing bridge and mah-jongg, then moved into the Braemar Country Club dining room to schmooze with the lunch crowd.
"I just feel the momentum," Mercer said of her chances of representing the city's most affluent district, which is split almost evenly between the Valley and the Westside.
Only one can win, of course, but with Mercer just 900 votes ahead of Miscikowski out of 46,414 cast in the April primary, it is not clear who that will be.
That is why both campaigns, as the race comes down to the wire, are being waged the old-fashioned way: voter by voter, neighbor to neighbor, phone call by phone call.
For Miscikowski that means donning white tennis shoes most days to walk precincts. Pleading foot problems, Mercer relies on phone calls to voters, supplemented by small "meet and greets" set up around the district by supporters.
Unlike the primary, there have been few conventional campaign debates, but they have been more tense than the early days when the candidates displayed similar styles and views in meeting voters.
Conventional political wisdom--the same wisdom that predicted Miscikowski would win the race outright in the primary--now sees Mercer as having the momentum.
Her primary win in the Valley was in double digits and she lost on Miscikowski's home turf in the Westside by a few hundred votes.
When campaign finance reports were filed last week, Mercer had substantially out-raised Miscikowski during the runoff period--often viewed as a sign of which way political types believe the wind is blowing.
