I've spent years in the tunnels under Los Angeles. I've seen alligator rumors, abandoned subway platforms and a homeless encampment with better Wi-Fi than City Hall. Nothing prepared me for Friday.

That's when Los Angeles mayoral candidate and City Councilmember Nithya Raman told CNN's Elex Michaelson that she is a capitalist and a democratic socialist. Both. At the same time. Like a vegan who works the grill at In-N-Out.

I logged the evidence. According to NBC Los Angeles, Raman said democratic socialism is "a big tent" and she's "part of that tent." She said she wants capitalism to work "without harm to workers." She also said she does not support abolishing the police, prisons or the U.S. Senate.

Now I've read the Democratic Socialists of America's own website. It says the group wants to replace capitalism. It calls capitalism a system "designed by the owning class to exploit the rest of us." The group also backs defunding the police.

So she's in the tent. She just disagrees with the tent, the stakes and the people who pitched it. That's not a big tent. That's a timeshare.

Then the case file got stranger. Michaelson asked her to name a police chief she respects. NBC LA reports she answered, "Oh, I don't, I don't know, um, I don't know, um." I have interrogated sewer pipes that gave more forthcoming answers. At least the pipes gurgle with conviction.

This comes after an NBC4 debate where Raman called former LAPD Chief Daryl Gates "the gold standard" on non-cooperation with immigration enforcement. Gates ran the department for 14 years and remains one of the most criticized figures in the city's history. Raman has since apologized and said it was a mistake to mention his name.

Recap for the evidence board. She's a socialist who likes capitalism. She'd fire the current chief but can't name a chief she admires. And the one chief she praised, she has now un-praised. Red string everywhere. My corkboard is just yarn at this point.

And she's leading. A September Berkeley IGS/LA Times poll had her at 39 percent to incumbent Karen Bass's 28 percent, with a third of voters undecided. Not one of her 14 council colleagues has endorsed her, according to Politico. The people who work with her every day are the hardest sell in town.

Here's what I've seen down here that nobody up top will say. Angelenos don't care what label goes on the tent. They care about the $2,800 one-bedroom, the $6 gallon of gas and the 45-minute wait for a bus that smells like a crime scene. They've been promised capitalism and socialism before. What they got was the bill.

So the front-runner for mayor of America's second-largest city is a capitalist, a socialist, a reformer and a fan of a chief she no longer mentions. I'll keep digging. Somewhere in these tunnels is the answer to which one shows up on Nov. 3. My money's on the tent.

This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.

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