Mic check! Finally, someone has dragged (finally, someone has dragged…) Occupy L.A. into the race for mayor. In a web-only video released today, the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce attacked Eric Garcetti for inviting the Occupy movement to “stay as long as you need to” on the City Hall lawn back in the revolutionary days of 2011.

“Eric Garcetti is the last guy we need occupying City Hall,” the narrator says.

A couple of new videos came out today. First up, though, the Chamber video:

Bit of a mixed message here, because the ad also uses footage of Garcetti at a polo match. So which is it? Is he Che Guevara or Thurston Howell III? 
We're told this cost less than $5,000 to produce, which shows that even the capitalists are struggling in this economy.
“This is about fiscal priorities and fiscal judgment,” says Ruben Gonzalez, a Chamber vice president. “When you're making decisions to be supportive of something like this, and wasting millions of dollars, that concerning… Wendy Greuel is the business candidate in the race. We will be putting resources behind her.”
Jeff Millman, Garcetti's spokesman, said that the Chamber was positioning Greuel as the Republican in the race, “which is only natural because she was a Republican all through the Reagan years.”
“When it comes to occupying City Hall, it's really no contest,” Millman said. “Wendy Greuel has been occupying City Hall for more than 25 years, including as a City Hall lobbyist.”
Also out today is an ad from Lots of People Who Support Eric Garcetti for Mayor, which alleges that Wendy Greuel “turned her office over to political operatives.”
This one's airing on cable.
“It looks increasingly like Wendy was very busy doing everything but being controller,” says Rick Jacobs, co-chair of the independent group.
John Shallman, Greuel's strategist, made a sort of veiled threat to sue over the ad.
“This will be the easiest cease and desist letter our lawyer has ever written,” Shallman said. “They will soon find out that you actually have to have facts when you make a TV ad.”
The Greuel campaign takes issue with the idea that she has been running her campaign out of her City Hall office. The campaign also took on the Los Cerritos Community News, the source for the ad, saying that the paper is an arm of the Garcetti campaign and is not a credible source.

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