Harold Meyerson has spent the bulk of his working life shuttling between the political barricades and the journalistic trenches. And for much of that time, he has championed his Los Angeles hometown as the left-wing mecca of the future.
As executive editor and chief political columnist for the L.A. Weekly, Meyerson has argued that the new "L.A. model" of progressive politics, centered on a powerful labor-Latino alliance, offers a blueprint for reviving a sluggish U.S. liberalism. Even this month's defeat of mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa, whom he roundly endorsed, hasn't shaken Meyerson's conviction that the Golden State is rapidly shifting leftward, with L.A. at its tectonic midpoint.
Which is why it may surprise some to find Meyerson packing his bags this summer and heading for Washington, D.C., where the current political climate is palpably frostier to self-described social democrats. In his new role as executive editor of the American Prospect, an 11-year-old, left-leaning biweekly magazine of politics and culture, Meyerson will be moving to a city where think tanks and policy journals are as common as carwashes in the San Fernando Valley. "It's hard to leave it [Los Angeles]," he says, "which is why I'm not really leaving."
Not entirely, anyway. Though he soon will be living off DuPont Circle, Meyerson's byline will continue to appear biweekly in the Weekly, where his new title will be political editor. His column will alternate with one by another longtime Weekly political scribe, Marc Cooper. Meyerson says he plans to return to California fairly regularly to report on Left Coast political happenings for the Weekly and American Prospect. "He's still going to have a lot to say about what political stories we cover and who we endorse," says Weekly president Michael Sigman. "This way, I think he can kind of have his cake and eat it too."
In moving full-time to the American Prospect, where he's now a senior correspondent, Meyerson, 51, hopes to bring an outsider's perspective to perhaps the nation's most self-absorbed city. "What's good and interesting in this country is not what's happening inside the Beltway," says the native Angeleno. "I do view it as an advantage [to be coming from outside], because it's easy to become a captive of the Beltway view that all wisdom begins and ends there, which is not the case."
