Let me tell you a little story about the miracle of scoundrels. No, I’m not talking about Lazarus rising from the dead, though Kevin de León’s political comeback might be the next best thing.
Two weeks ago, you could find him lounging on the edge of political obscurity, one foot out the door, the other planted firmly in a scandal he couldn’t shake off.
His opponent, Ysabel Jurado, was riding high on a wave of momentum, having trounced de León in the primary. She was poised to claim victory in the November election, thanks in no small part to her tenant-rights crusade and her sharp critique of his previous “indiscretions.” The polls were clear: Kevin was done.
But this is L.A., folks, where miracles don’t just happen in Hollywood. Sometimes they happen at City Hall, where the political ground can shift faster than a 6.2 earthquake on the San Andreas Fault.
Enter Ysabel Jurado, the upstart lawyer whose rise to prominence was as meteoric as her fall is turning out to be. All it took was a few fateful words—“F— the police”—uttered at a college meet-and-greet that was supposed to be a slam dunk for her campaign.
Now, I’m not one to say people don’t appreciate a good Kanye West lyric now and again, but there are some contexts where quoting Yeezy will land you in hot water faster than you can say “cancel culture.”
Let me paint the scene. Jurado, speaking to a room of fresh-faced students at Cal State L.A., is fielding questions like a seasoned pro. Things are going well—until one eager student, perhaps a little too eager, asks about her stance on police spending. Now, this is L.A., where the relationship between the LAPD and its citizens is often, shall we say, “complicated.” So, Ysabel—cool as a cucumber—decides to quote a little Kanye: “F— the police, that’s how I see ‘em.”
Cue the record scratch.
Maybe it sounded better in her head, or maybe she was just having one of those “keeping it real” moments. But whatever the case, the backlash was swift and unforgiving. In a matter of days, what had been a near-certain victory for Jurado was now looking like a political implosion of epic proportions.
The Los Angeles Police Protective League, never ones to shy away from a fight, jumped into action. “Her worldview of ‘F— the police’ conflicts with the hopes and aspirations of residents who want to feel safe,” said the union, while interim Police Chief Dominic Choi delivered his own sermon, chastising her remarks for eroding the relationship between the police and the community. It was like watching a Shakespearean tragedy unfold, except this time, the tragic flaw wasn’t hubris—it was Kanye.
Now, you’d think that Jurado would have backed down a bit, issued one of those non-apology apologies where she “regrets the misunderstanding” but totally stands by her principles. But no, this is 2024, and subtlety is out of fashion. Jurado doubled down, explaining that it was “just a lyric” and pointing to systemic injustice as the larger issue at hand. “I’m proud to be accessible to young people,” she said, presumably thinking this would clear things up.
It didn’t.
In a city where even the slightest whisper of disrespect toward law enforcement can sink a political career faster than the Titanic, Jurado’s words went over about as well as you’d expect. Suddenly, she wasn’t the fresh new face ready to oust the old guard. She was the radical upstart who just told the LAPD to go jump in the L.A. River. And now Kevin de León—beleaguered, scandal-tarnished, and practically handed his resignation by the President of the United States himself—was starting to look like the reasonable alternative.
And therein lies the political miracle. Kevin de León, who had become a political pariah after leaked audio revealed his involvement in a racially insensitive conversation—an episode so damning that even Joe Biden called for his resignation—was now, against all odds, poised for a comeback. As Jurado’s poll numbers plummeted, de León’s seemed to rise from the ashes. He was no longer the villain in the story; he was the devil we know.
It’s a classic case of the voters being given two options and choosing the lesser of two evils. Kevin de León is far from perfect, but in the court of public opinion, “F— the police” is a transgression that, in L.A. politics, rivals anything Kevin ever said or did. After all, de León had already weathered the storm of public outrage, and he was still standing. In a city where survival is half the battle, that counts for something.
Of course, there’s a lesson here somewhere, one that Mark Twain himself would have had a field day with. In politics, the scoundrels aren’t always the ones who get booted from office. Sometimes, they’re the ones who stick around because their opponents manage to trip over their own feet at the finish line. De León should have been toast, but here he is, possibly two weeks away from a victory no one saw coming.
As for Ysabel Jurado, well, if her campaign does go down in flames, it will likely be because of that single, fateful moment when she thought quoting a rapper was the best way to connect with voters. There’s a thin line between keeping it real and going off the rails, and she might have crossed it. She misread the room, mistook a catchy lyric for an ideological stance, and underestimated just how sensitive L.A. is when it comes to law enforcement.
But who knows? Maybe there’s another twist left in this tale. Politics, like Hollywood, thrives on comebacks and reversals of fortune. One day you’re the front-runner, the next you’re the underdog. And sometimes, when the dust clears, it’s the scoundrels who are left standing, victorious, blinking in the sunlight of a victory no one thought possible.
So, Kevin de León, as unlikely a political Lazarus as we’ve seen in recent years, might just find himself back in City Hall. Not because he’s beloved, but because in the grand tradition of American politics, sometimes it’s not the saint who wins—it’s the sinner who sins just a little less.
TONY CASTRO, the former award-winning Los Angeles columnist and author, is a writer-at-large and the national political writer for LAMonthly. org. He is the author of the forthcoming novel The Book of Marilyn He can be reached at tony@tonycastro.com.
