Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti joked about the Democratic Party’s experiment hosting the first virtual national convention.
Garcetti, a co-chairman of 2020 presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign, offered a frank assessment of the four-day program so far, the first night of which included actress Eva Longoria Baston interviewing Biden supporters across the country.
“This convention, which started kind of feeling like a public access cable show from the 1980s suddenly has become must-watch TV, from the calamari to the characters from the moving stories to the music,” Garcetti told reporters during a convention press briefing.
Garcetti, who also sat on Biden’s vice presidential selection committee, touted fellow Californian, Sen. Kamala Harris, after she accepted the Democratic nomination for the understudy role. Describing her as “a dear friend,” he said he got “chills” listening to her Wednesday night keynote address.
“Even though she was born in Oakland and represented San Francisco, [she] had the good sense to marry a Los Angeles boy and now is registered to vote here, so an Angeleno on the ticket and a Californian for the first time in nearly 40 years,” he added.
Despite speaking in jest, Garcetti appears to be a fan of the Democratic convention’s new roll call vote format. The vote this cycle showcased live and recorded segments from all the party’s state and territory delegations.
Garcetti’s comment Thursday was at least his second reference to Rhode Island Democratic state party chair Joseph McNamara tagging his home as the “Comeback Calamari State.” Garcetti joshed in a Democratic National Committee Hispanic Caucus meeting this week that seeing Rhode Island’s calamari during the vote made him hungry for a plate of tamales.
McNamara lobbied in 2014 to designate calamari as Rhode Island’s appetizer of choice.
“Rhode Island, the Ocean State, where our restaurant and fishing industry have been decimated by this pandemic, are lucky to have a governor, Gina Raimondo, whose program lets our fishermen sell their catches directly to the public and our state appetizer, calamari, is available in all 50 states,” McNamara said Tuesday night.
