Trump dominated politics on L.A. TV news. A ‘sobering’ City Hall scandal changed that, as we see now
This article was written by Steve Beckner with reporting by Jonathan Bachman
Steve Beckner is a reporter for The Times’ Los Angeles Bureau. He has covered business, entertainment, and local politics. He has written for The Times’ Metro desk. He can be reached at (310) 458-8201, [email protected], or twitter.com/stevebeckernyt.
Steve Beckner is a reporter for The Times’ Los Angeles Bureau. He has covered business, entertainment, and local politics. He has written for The Times’ Metro desk. He can be reached at (310) 458-8201, [email protected], or twitter.com/stevebeckernyt.
A’sobering’ City Hall scandal changed that, as we see now
On election night 2008, in a campaign filled with wild claims and counteraccusations that would soon end up on news shows all across America—Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee against Hillary Clinton—a little-known L.A. political consultant named Ed Rollins was in a hotel room in New Jersey watching the returns come in from Washington. “We had a real downpour, and we were sitting in the middle of the room and all of a sudden we felt the rain stop,” Rollins remembered. “And I turned, and I looked at my guest, and I said: ‘I don’t know what happened, but that looked like rain.’ And he said: ‘No, no, that was election night. The sky went dark.’ ”
But Rollins had no idea what that dark sky meant. A storm had just hit the nation.
At the time, Rollins was a small-time political consultant working on behalf of a small-time candidate. He had no idea, though, that he had just been handed the most important news story of his career.
In a moment that would change the political culture in America, Trump had swept his way to victory by an improbable but stunning margin of just 1.5 percentage points over Hillary