New Frontiers: Latino Vote in L.A., America
L O S A N G E L E S, June 3 -- Antonio Villaraigosa doesn't hide who he is.
"I'm a third generation Angeleno on my mother's side," he says. "I'm an American."
But what Antonio Villaraigosa doesn't say in the campaign trail is that a victory here on Tuesday would make him the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles in more than a century. But the one-time high school dropout from the barrio who rose to become Speaker of the California Assembly, does acknowledge that winning would send a powerful message.
"The message that Joe Lieberman said and articulated when he was nominated to be the democratic nominee for vice president," Villaraigosa said. "He said 'every time we open the door for one of us, we open the door for all of us.'"
Ad Campaign Takes Nasty Turn
Villaraigosa's opponent is James Hahn, an elected official here for 20 years whose father was an L.A. county supervisor. Hahn concedes the emotional appeal of a Latino candidate in a city that's more than 40 percent Hispanic, but says he's ahead because voters value his experience.
"But I also see over and over again people telling me 'My heart tells me to vote for Antonio. My head tells me that you're ready to lead this city and I'm going to be with you,'" he said.
In the final weekend, the race is still too close to call, and it's taken a nasty turn. Hahn is airing an attack ad that Villaraigosa compares to coded racial appeals made in the past by Republicans.
The ad explains that Villaraigosa wrote a letter to President Clinton asking for a pardon for a convicted cocaine dealer. A fact Villaraigosa doesn't dispute. He does question the inflammatory imagery used of a crack pipe and lines of cocaine, trying to link him to drug use. Villaraigosa calls it "Willie Horton politics, Sam Yorty politics, the politics of fear and smear, the politics that tries to demonize the other."
But, Hahn suggests it's Villaraigosa who's playing the race card when he compares Hahn to Sam Yorty, the man LA's first black mayor, Tom Bradley, defeated in 1973.
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