L.A. Mayoral Hopefuls Vie for Key Groups
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD

The Associated Press
03/12/05 14:17 EST

LOS ANGELES (AP) – Mayor James Hahn is limping toward a May runoff
with no clear path to a second term, mostly deserted by his fragile
political coalition in one of the nation’s most diverse cities.

Hahn squeaked into a rematch against city Councilman Antonio
Villaraigosa with a paltry 24 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s primary,
having squandered his good will with the two constituencies credited
with vaulting him into office four years ago: South Los Angeles blacks
and the moderate-to-conservative voters in the San Fernando Valley.

Hahn’s support among black voters in the 12-candidate primary shrank
drastically from 2001 – when the two Democrats also faced each other
in a runoff – and the more liberal Villaraigosa beat him in the valley,
according to an exit poll.

Even union members, whose leaders switched allegiances and endorsed
Hahn this year, threw more of their support to Villaraigosa, helping
him reach 33 percent overall.

The primary showed Hahn “has no identifiable group in the city that
is the base of his support,” said Raphael Sonenshein, a political
scientist at California State University, Fullerton. He “has to
reconstruct something that isn’t there anymore.”

Will Hahn, a white former city attorney with long-standing familial
ties to the black community, be able to reclaim his base in largely
black South Los Angeles, where some voters feel he hasn’t lived up
to promises? Or will Villaraigosa, the son of a Mexican immigrant,
overcome historic rivalries between blacks and Hispanics?

The Jewish vote also is in play for the May 17 election, now that
third-place finisher Bob Hertzberg is out. So are Republicans, who
also gravitated to Hertzberg, along with the valley and the largely
white, liberal-tilting west side.

“If the black vote sits at home, the Jewish vote becomes very
important,” said Frank Gilliam, a political scientist at the University
of California, Los Angeles. “There is a social justice vote in the
Jewish community, in particular, and they may decide it’s time for
a Latino mayor.”

The question now is whether Hertzberg will endorse anyone.

Hertzberg supporters “voted for change, they voted for big ideas,”
said his consultant, John Shallman. “When you say change, when you
say big ideas, you don’t say Jim Hahn.”

There’s also an untapped pool of more than 1 million registered voters
who ignored the primary.

Unlike 2001, Villaraigosa is muting references to his Hispanic heritage
and focusing on inclusiveness, an apparent attempt to make himself
more attractive to blacks and others dissatisfied with Hahn.

“Can he reach out, particularly to black and west side voters, and keep
his (Hispanic) base at the same time?” asked Gilliam. “As a uniter,
you can stand for everyone and stand for nothing.”

Hahn still has the advantage of being the incumbent. What’s more,
he bears a gilded political name in city politics – his father was a
county supervisor who represented black neighborhoods for decades –
and has won six citywide elections dating to his days as controller
in the early 1980s.

And he did manage to beat 10 other candidates to make the runoff
with Villaraigosa, despite a flood of bad publicity over a corruption
investigation at City Hall.

Polls before the election found the mayor was damaged by two decisions
he defends as a sign of leadership – his support for the ouster of the
city’s black police chief in 2002 and his opposition to a secession
movement that would have split the valley from Los Angeles.

Many blacks recoiled at his treatment of then-Chief Bernard Parks,
and San Fernando Valley voters sympathetic to secession were riled
when Hahn raised millions of dollars to fight off the proposed split.

The majority of the black vote in the primary went to Parks, now a
councilman, a Los Angeles Times exit poll found.

Four years ago, Hahn was elected with about three of four black votes,
the bloc once faithful to his father. But in this primary, the mayor
could only muster 23 percent of the black vote.

Both candidates have already started campaigning, with Hahn planning
to walk South Los Angeles streets during the weekend.

Villaraigosa rushed to campaign in the valley the day after the
primary. And on Friday he was in South Los Angeles, where he was
endorsed by a black county supervisor who backed Hahn four years ago.

“Today is a different day,” said the supervisor, Yvonne B. Burke.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress