Villaraigosa, Parks Emerge as Strong Hahn Challengers

0

With two months to go before the March 8 primary election, the race for Los Angeles mayor is beginning to take shape, as Antonio Villaraigosa and Bernard Parks now appear as the leading challengers to incumbent James Hahn.


Despite his administration being dogged for the past year by local and federal investigations into allegations of improper contracting practices, Hahn is widely seen as gathering enough votes to get into a runoff.


Polling thus far virtually all of it internal to the individual campaigns shows Hahn and L.A. City Councilmen Villaraigosa and Parks each getting at least 20 percent. Hahn generally gets the highest percentage between 25 percent and 30 percent followed by Villaraigosa and then Parks in the low 20 percent range.


Both former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg and state Sen. Richard Alarc & #243;n trail significantly, either in the high single-digits or in the teens, depending on the poll.


However, those following the race stress that despite months of jockeying for funds and endorsements, plus two debates, the election remains up for grabs. And at this point the placement of Hahn, Villaraigosa and Parks could still be more a function of name recognition than anything else.


“No one has opened up an insurmountable lead yet, not even Mayor Hahn,” said Raphael Sonenshein, professor of political science at California State University Fullerton who has closely followed L.A. city politics.


One wild card remains the investigations into so-called pay-to-play activity in which three key officials in the mayor’s administration have resigned and thousands of e-mails have been subpoenaed. Any resolution of that investigation before the March primary could play a huge role in the race.


District Attorney Steve Cooley would not comment on the status of the investigation, other than to say “We are careful about our facts and we make sure the law will support whatever charges we may bring.” As of last week, there was no indication any decision had been made regarding indictments.


To varying degrees, Hahn’s challengers have tried to use these inquiries as a referendum on the mayor’s performance. But the candidates are also each trying to make their own case and their effectiveness has been all over the map.


“The paid media strategy is going to be the most interesting of any recent mayoral campaign,” said Richard Lichtenstein, a political and public affairs consultant not affiliated with any of the campaigns.


For now, Hahn officials dismiss the effect of the “pay-to-play” allegations on the campaign. “There’s no proof of any ‘pay-to-play’ in the Hahn administration and there hasn’t been any ‘pay-to-play.’ This is more empty political rhetoric,” said Hahn campaign consultant Kam Kuwata.


Hahn’s campaign did not respond to requests to speak with the mayor directly.



Reviving 2001 coalition


Villaraigosa’s solid showing in the early polls comes despite what many City Hall watchers consider to be lackluster performances in the two debates. More importantly, he has lost most of the union support he had in his 2001 campaign against Hahn namely, the County Federation of Labor, whose political committee supported Hahn on a voice vote last month.


The County Federation will be pouring at least $1 million into a “get-out-the-vote” effort on behalf of the mayor, who is now indisputably the labor candidate.


Villaraigosa campaign officials said they still have a “very solid base of voters” and plan to revive the coalition that gave him a first-place finish in the 2001 mayoral primary. “In all the polling that we and others have done, the two people at the top are Hahn and Villaraigosa,” said Ace Smith, a Villaraigosa spokesman. “We intend to build on that base to get us to 50 percent plus one.”


Smith would not elaborate, saying did not want to disclose any strategy to others in the race. He also refused to disclose how much the campaign had raised beyond the $643,000 reported through Sept. 30.


The campaign did not respond to a request for comments from Villaraigosa himself.


Parks has surprised some pundits who regarded the police chief-turned-councilmember as a long-shot candidate looking for revenge after the mayor’s decision not to renew his contract as head of the LAPD. “Parks has demonstrated himself as a real thinker who is not just an attack dog,” said Coby King, a public affairs consultant not affiliated with any of the campaigns.


Parks said he wants to expand his base beyond his council district by going after Republicans in the Valley and trying to peel off conservative voters in some of the city’s many ethnic communities. “I’m defining a different approach on how city government should be run: it should be business-friendly and also fiscally conservative,” he said.


Parks said the campaign’s goal was to close in on the $1 million fundraising mark by the end of the fourth quarter. “We’ve made some headway,” he said, though he did not offer specifics.


Parks is encountering another problem that could hurt his standing among conservative voters: his mixed record as police chief. “Parks’ term was not widely seen as successful,” Sonenshein said. “Whatever the merits of that perception, Hahn is making political hay out of this,” referring to the mayor’s repeated jabs at Parks during the last debate as a “failed police chief.”


Hahn is riding on the still-high public perception of current Police Chief William Bratton, using Bratton in his campaign speeches and noting that crime overall in the city has been on the decline.



Late surge?


With limited name recognition from the start, Hertzberg has struggled to gain traction among voters, especially those outside the candidate’s San Fernando Valley base. But he still has a formidable war chest: Within weeks of entering the race last April, he raised nearly $1 million and is widely expected to report upwards of $2 million when year-end figures are released later this month.


In the past, well-financed candidates with low initial name identification have mounted late surges, including Richard Riordan in 1993 and Republican businessman Steve Soboroff in 2001. Soboroff came close to knocking Hahn out of the runoff, ultimately pulling in 21 percent of the vote.


Aiming his sights on Valley voters, Hertzberg called for the breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District (even though the L.A. mayor has no jurisdiction over the schools). Dissatisfaction with the quality of education the LAUSD has provided has long fueled separatist feelings in the Valley, which comprises about 40 percent of the city’s electorate.


Hertzberg faces a potential threat from one of the minor candidates, Republican Walter Moore, who last month loaned his campaign $100,000. That, in turn, prompted an invitation to this week’s mayoral debate sponsored by the Valley Glen Neighborhood Council. (Alarcon, Hertzberg and Parks have agreed to attend; Villaraigosa and Hahn have not.)


Hertzberg’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for interviews for this report.


With more media exposure, Moore can go after some of the same conservative Valley votes that Hertzberg is chasing with his LAUSD breakup plan.


Also vying for Valley votes is Alarc & #243;n, who so far has the least money and is either fourth or fifth in polls of the major candidates.


Alarc & #243;n relishes his underdog role, pointing to come-from-behind victories in his 1993 race for City Council and his 1998 race for the state Senate. “I’ve never been in first place early on,” he said. “But in those races, I mobilized thousands of (occasional) voters that threw off all the pundits and pollsters. And that’s what I intend to do here, mount a massive registration drive that gets lots of new voters to the polls.”


Alarc & #243;n was widely seen to have made the best showing at the first two mayoral debates last month, even though few Angelenos saw them.


He said he will report raising “well over” $600,000 through last month. Counting another $667,000 in matching funds he expects to receive, that would give him at least $1.3 million.


Alarc & #243;n’s internal polling showed him doubling his initial support, which would put him in the mid-teens. The other campaigns refused to disclose polling information they had on Alarc & #243;n, making this claim hard to document. The first independent polling is due out later this month.


Even in the event of a runoff, Hahn is likely to pick up votes from candidates who didn’t make it.


“The hope of any challenger who makes it into the runoff is to coalesce all the anti-Hahn votes,” Lichtenstein said. “But that’s not likely to happen.”

No posts to display