What if this election brings real change?

June in LA is a gloomy month, as the marine layer rolls in for several weeks. But this June feels a little different.I won’t call it “Hope” just yet. Let’s just call it “What if?”What if Spencer Pratt has a chance to win? What if LA doesn’t just have to live with squalor, and fear, and drugs? What if communities who lost everything in the first start to rebuild?What if?What if LA bucks the national trend of big cities moving further left — Brandon Johnson replacing Lori Lightfoot in Chicago, Zohran Mamdani replacing Eric Adams in New York?What if we have a real race for governor in California that isn’t just a census of political party membership, but instead a real contest of values and policies? What if we get a fair fight?There’s more.What if voters run out in November to pass voter ID, so that we finally have confidence in our elections? What if voters reject the “billionaire tax” and save our state from economic collapse?What if?I had a thought this winter, as I walked through charred wooden debris on the Santa Monica shore, still washing up a year later. That thought was: California is heading toward so much trouble.

But even if we just take a few steps in the right direction, everything can turn around.Look at San Francisco.The city was the slowest to recover from the pandemic.Market Street was full of homeless people and junkies.

SoMa was empty at lunchtime.Union Square crouched in fear of looting.And then, last year, they chose a new mayor.And people started to ask: What If?What might be possible if we elected people with a mandate to fix our problems?“What If” could be real.

June 2.Today.Joel Pollak is Opinion editor of the California Post....