It’s in the hands of all of us to stop the political machine from doing more harm to the city and the quality of our lives — we can force them to the table to negotiate real solutions by voting down the Measure A sales tax hike and getting Kevin James or Jan Perry into the mayoral runoff.

We don’t have to accept a permanent sales tax increase that only rewards the failure of people like Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti with more money to give away to the unions and their political friends, the big money special interests that have poured millions of dollars into their campaigns and into passing the phony sales tax hike.

Gutless as always, the city’s elected officials have sent paid functionaries, the politicized Police and Fire chiefs and their fallguy CAO Miguel Santana to make the unmakeable case for the tax as you can see in the video in which Santana and me debate the tax issue on Sunday’s “News Conference” with Conan Nolan on KNBC.

According to Dan Schnur of USC, who was also on the show, the latest poll shows Measure A winning but beatable and show James and Perry could make the mayoral runoff with a surge in turnout, now expected to be the most dismal in modern L.A. history after a dismal campaign.

Ron Kaye  is the Former Editor of the Los Angeles Daily News