In case you haven’t noticed, a quiet revolution of sorts has occured in Los Angeles, which has just elected its first Latino mayor with Mexican-American roots since 1872.
Is it one of those one-shot deals that pundits generalize into a trend — or a watershed event, the beginning of a REAL trend?
Over the years there has been a lot of lip service paid to the looming power of Hispanic voters in California. And Hispanic voter ire over former California Governor Pete Wilson’s stance over illegal aliens has been widely blamed for the state GOP’s problems in recent years. But Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa’s impressive ascension to power as Los Angeles mayor is a HUGE event in practical and symbolic terms.
US Politics notes:
Villaraigosa defeated Mayor James Hahn, 59 percent to 41 percent. Hahn became the first incumbent mayor not to win re-election since the Great Depression. Villaraigosa told the press – and citizens of LA – that “I’m an American of Mexican descent and I intend to be a mayor for all Los Angeles.”
The Washington Post notes that major cities are being shaped by a third wave of immigrants. The 2000 US Census showed that Latinos accounted for 47 percent of L.A. residents. This week, they flexed the muscle of a dominant minority: 25 percent of the city’s electorate.
This was Villaraigosa’s second try at the office; in 2001, he lost in the race against Hahn. In the intervening years, he put together an effective coalition. LA Times exit polling data suggest he took 48 percent of the black vote, 50 percent of the white vote, and 84 percent of the Latino vote.
In other words: he pieced together a winning INCLUSIVE coalition, by not writing key groups off. By carrying the Latino group he had a bit of an edge, but these results suggest it’ll be difficult for foes to imply that somehow he “only” had the vote of minority voters.
Other factors were at work, too. Such as Hahn’s tepid personality. Writes L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez:
Politics was all wrong for Jim Hahn. Even dear old dad knew it, pointing to Jim’s sister Janice as the natural. And yet the duty-bound Jim ended up in City Hall, trying to manage an impossible city of nearly 4 million people while his marriage came apart and he took custody of an adolescent and a teenager.
Hahn argued the city doesn’t need a celebrity mayor with a flashy smile, but a mayor who gets things done. What else could a hopeless introvert say?
In fact, a celebrity mayor with a flashy smile — and at least a little competence — can get more things done. Especially in an amorphous city desperate for a unifying force. You can’t lead if you can’t boost anyone’s spirit, least of all your own.
Being mayor, City Councilman Jack Weiss said during the campaign, is like having a public love affair with the city. For four years, Jim Hahn was the quiet kid in the corner, too shy to ask anyone to dance.
But in the end all of that personality analysis will fade into oblivion. The bottom line is that in political terms the new mayor pieced together an impressive coalition, coming into office showing he has a solid base of support to be mayor of all of the people. Yes, there are are Latinos at other levels of government in California. But the symbolism of being L.A.’s Mayor, and winning with huge chunks of votes from several segments of the city’s diverse population, makes him a fascinating, possibly pioneering politico to watch.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.