Ben Savage, aka Cory Matthews from the seminal ABC classic sitcom Boy Meets World, has filed and qualified as a candidate to run for West Hollywood City Council in the election this November, according to a West Hollywood City Clerk.
Savage registered the campaign website benforweho.com, which lists on its community safety platform that WeHo needs to support its law enforcement officers, providing them with all the resources they need to keep businesses, tourists and residents safe.” Savage, who got a degree in political science at Stanford University, has not been shy about his interest in the race. We spotted him at a West Hollywood City Council meeting in June, and he also attended a candidate BBQ for local blog WEHOville, where he spoke how West Hollywood is the best city on earth and opined that West Hollywood Mayor Lauren Meister needed some “back-up.” Savage continued to say that WeHo needs a “clear set of eyes” and “someone with no attachments.”
Savage previously interned with former U.S. Senator Arlen Specter when Specter was a republican in Pennsylvania. He told Rolling Stone in a 2014 interview that he was interested in “government and structure” and that an internship in D.C. is “really all about connections.” When asked if he had a career in politics ahead, he responded that “acting and politics are almost too similar…you have to be a very specific breed to do that.” According to OpenSecrets, Savage has donated to three Democratic candidates since 2006.
Just a few weeks ago, Savage posted an Instagram story of him hanging out with Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies at the LASD West Hollywood Station. WeHo contracts with the LASD for law enforcement services, and recently West Hollywood City Council voted to replace the cost of five wildly expensive deputies with 30 unarmed public safety ambassadors (to the chagrin of passionate public safety advocate O.J. Simpson). Mayor Meister voted against the proposal.
Three of the five WeHo City Council seats will be up for grabs in the nonpartisan race, which will coincide with the midterm elections on Nov. 8, 2022. Savage joins a crowded field, which includes at least seven other candidates like social impact strategist Chelsea Byers and labor and employment litigator Zekiah Wright, and the three top vote-getters will fill the seats.
Despite his political aspirations, Savage remains involved in the arts. In 2020, he played a younger version of Mandy Patinkin’s character in Homeland. He starred in a TV Movie called “Love, Lights, Hanukkah!” — the plot of which is that Mia Kirshner has taken a DNA test and discovered that she is, indeed, Jewish — that same year. Savage then starred in a Lifetime Original Movie about a girl being kidnapped and psychologically and sexually tortured. Deadline reported that Savage will be part of an upcoming film project called “The Matzah Ball” that is being partly produced by Lance Bass Productions. Bass is also the co-owner of West Hollywood Club Rocco’s WeHo.
We reached out to Savage for comment, but he did not respond by press time. Time will tell if Mr. Feeney will serve the campaign in any sort of advisory role, or if oafish brother Eric Matthews will be responsible for Savage’s homelessness policy. More importantly, it’s unclear how Savage feels about West Hollywood’s competitive pickleball community.
Jonathan Peltz is a journalist in L.A.
