Schmoozing the Moms

Stepping up their public events with less than a month to go before election day, Los Angeles’ two mayoral candidates spent Mother’s Day weekend showcasing their endorsements and trumpeting their efforts to thwart crime as they wooed voters in South Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.

After attending services at different African American churches Sunday morning, former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa and City Atty. James K. Hahn took advantage of the self-proclaimed “Largest Mother’s Day Celebration in the World” at the Jewish Home for the Aging in Reseda, which drew a crowd of about 1,500 seniors and family members.

On stage in front of a band, Hahn recounted his mother’s support of his father, the late county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, by saying she “did a lot for L.A.” in standing by him. But his largest applause came when Hahn proclaimed: “You are the most beautiful group of mothers I’ve ever seen.”

A few minutes later, Villaraigosa created a stir of his own. The former assemblyman danced energetically to Jewish folk music in a circle with a collection of mothers, grandmothers, husbands, clowns, and a person in a life-size beagle outfit.

Earlier Sunday morning, Villaraigosa received the backing of City Councilwoman Rita Walters and Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, who both praised his legislative experience and ability to unite people across ethnic lines.

“If this city is going to continue to be successful and to become the dream that we all have for Los Angeles, it is going to take all factions of our city to gain a better understanding of each other,” Roybal-Allard said during a morning visit with seniors at the Angeles Plaza downtown.

Roybal-Allard, who supported her colleague Rep. Xavier Becerra in the first round of the mayoral race, is on the host committee of a Washington, D.C., fund-raiser for Villaraigosa scheduled for Tuesday. The support of Walters adds to the list of African American officials backing the former assemblyman, who is hoping to chip away at Hahn’s overwhelmingly dominant base in Los Angeles’ black community, where nearly three quarters of those who cast ballots in the April election did so for Hahn.

Still, Villaraigosa has refused to concede that slice of the electorate. On Sunday, he said the barriers broken by Walters, the first African American woman on the City Council, and Roybal-Allard, the first Mexican American woman elected to Congress, “are a big reason why I am standing on the threshold of being the next mayor of Los Angeles.”

After the news conference, Villaraigosa returned to a common theme of recent days, arguing that Hahn’s support for a three-day workweek for some police officers would “jeopardize public safety” and defending his new television commercial that attacks the city attorney’s stance on that issue.

Most of the weekend’s campaigning was packed into a busy Sunday, but the candidates also were on the stump Saturday, when Hahn appeared at his Crenshaw District headquarters to energize precinct walkers, painting himself as a local public servant fighting for people against a Sacramento powerhouse funded by some of the city’s wealthiest men.

“It’s about making this city work, making it work for all of us, making sure that the billionaires and lobbyists aren’t in control at City Hall,” Hahn said as a crowd of about 100 people cheered, many of them from the city’s employees union and other labor groups. Joining Hahn were basketball great Magic Johnson, City Councilman Nate Holden and Celes King of the Congress for Racial Equality.

The city attorney called Villaraigosa “a Sacramento politician” and predicted a Hahn victory in much the way that the Los Angeles Lakers have been beating the Sacramento Kings.

The city attorney also renewed his attacks on Villaraigosa’s record on crime legislation. He had opened the week telling a radio interviewer that the former legislator and ACLU board president “is more likely to . . . be sympathetic to the criminal rather than to be sympathetic to the victim.”

On Saturday, Hahn referred to the ACLU’s efforts to block gang injunctions that he has promoted. “My opponent says it’s wrong to go after gangs,” Hahn said. “He says we have to worry about the gang members’ constitutional rights. I think it’s about time we worried about the regular people’s constitutional rights.”

Laker legend Johnson, in particular, energized the gathering. He described Villaraigosa as a late-comer to the African American community and used a series of basketball analogies to suggest that Hahn was on the way to victory.

“He’s got the power of Shaq and he’s beautiful like Kobe,” said Johnson, as Hahn stood by his side, smiling. “You put those two together and you’ve got a champion.”

“He has been a friend of ours for many many years,” Johnson added. “Most of the time, his opponent had never come down in our community. Now he is here.”

*

Times staff writer James Rainey contributed to this report.