Recent press regarding the office of District Attorney and the sudden discharge of Assistant DA Todd Spitzer by current DA Tony Rackaukas discloses a lot about the internal politics of Orange County.
Sure, the conflict between Rackaukus and Spitzer is interesting theater, but look behind the barrage of accusations and you will see that what is really being reported here is how our elected leaders are so often put in place. In this case, the incumbent, and presumably his backers, were agreeable to grooming Spitzer, a former County Supervisor and Assemblyman, to become the next DA. Spitzer would become the next DA with this backing by default because the political elite in Orange County would back only him when the time was right and no one else. At least no other Republican would dare run against such a formidable force.
What we have here is the all too typical smoke filled room type of politics in which the public is served up with a candidate that the political elite have selected as the heir apparent. Only this time the powerful egos in that smoke filled room deal could not keep it together, and it has apparently blown up.
As you watch this story unfold further stop to ponder each development and consider what may be going on in the next smoke filled room as deals are cut to deliver the next DA candidate to a breathlessly waiting public. It is not the theater of battling press conferences that is important, it is what goes on in those smoke filled rooms. The public press conference battles are but a diversion from the real story of how public policy is so often made.
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