Hi Everyone,
Well, if there were shady dealings going on yesterday in LA's mayoral election, they failed. Hahn lost despite trucks full of ballots breaking down at fictitious intersections near the airport. Rosendahl won in the 11th council district despite precincts being poorly served by untrained polling people. These two elections are defeats for two entrenched interests: white conservatives in the Valley and real estate developers (a group of developers who want to pave a local coastal wetland backed Rosendahl's opponent). I'd paste in a bunch of links but the LA Times website is just over there on the right and the news is being updated frequently.
Now in the grand tradition of burying the lead...Antonio Villaraigosa is the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles since the 1800s! But don't fear you English First types! Villaraigosa speaks English at home and made a number of embarrassing mistakes with his Spanish during the campaign. Sure, he makes a big show of over pronouncing Spanish words and names but I think that's mostly affectation.
Villaraigosa's campaign built a broad multi-ethnic coalition in a diverse but surprisingly segregated city. Hahn's Anglophone only coalition shattered when he alienated Black voters by firing the Black police chief (Bernard Parks). Villaraigosa had the support not only of Latinos but Persians, White liberals, Asians and many Black voters. I'm tempted to reference exit polls from the LA Times but Law Talking Guy's report of the poll methods is good reason not to.
So, LTG, did you ever get to vote?
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
A Latino Mayor In Los Angeles
Posted by Raised By Republicans at 7:27 AM
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4 comments:
It seems like vote tampering and interference is becoming the rule rather than the exception. Wonderful that despite all of the problems you experienced yesterday, the people of Los Angeles had their voices heard -- loud and clear!
// posted by AMM
I think the lesson might be one of two things or both:
a) people running the election in LA are just incapable of doing the job correctly and all these problems were unintentional
b) cheating on elections in the USA is just hard enough to get away with that it only works when the race is really close. When one guy is going to get 60% of the votes (as was the case in LA), it is nearly impossible to change the outcome through cheating...at least without getting caught.
// posted by Raised By Republicans
Yes, I actually drove back to the polling place at about 1pm and voted. I got angrier all morning thinking of Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. Dammit, I was not going to be refused my right to vote.
Of course, given Villaraigosa's landslide, my vote (for him) was irrelevant. Why did I vote for Villaraigosa? In filling out the exit poll questionnaire, I realized that I didn't like squirrelly Villaraigosa very much and approved of Hahn's quiet style. But, Villaraigosa has the backing of a unified (!) Democratic party now, and would (I thought) bring a new majority and mandate to Getting Things Done. In the end I realized that I was a Hertzberg supporter and he lost, so if Hertzberg and Kerry were both endorsing Villaraigosa, why not do the same with my vote? After all, endorsements show you to whom a man is indebted.
// posted by LTG
I voted for Villaraigosa because he had the endorsement of the Democratic leadership. Also, he's got the charisma to be a Congressman or Senator or something. Hahn is a total no hoper.
Also, I really think that LA needed a non-nativist Mayor to represent its immigrant majority!
Finally, I think that LA is suffering from a bad case of duldrums and a boring as paint drying life time civil servant like Hahn is not the guy the city needed. LA has three big problems: trafic, education and crime. Hahn established himself very much as the status quo man on everything except the police chief. Everyone seems to know what sollutions should be considered by Hahn didn't even start the debate. Villaraigosa isn't perfect but the one thing he ain't is boring. He'll get people excited about something soon.
// posted by Raised By Republicans
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