Mayoral Candidates Yam It Up at Meal for the Homeless

What’s worse than enduring Thanksgiving dinner with an annoying relative? How about having cranberry sauce pushed on you by not one but three candidates for Los Angeles mayor?

That was the situation at the Los Angeles Mission on Wednesday and it was enough to fill an etiquette expert with dread.

Mayor James K. Hahn was due to start serving food to the assembled homeless. But the prime photo-op location -- near starlet Jennifer Love Hewitt, whose every gesture was recorded by photographers, and near platters heaped with turkey and mashed potatoes -- was already occupied. Two of Hahn’s most threatening opponents, Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa and former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, had gotten there first.

Coordinators in headsets, who were shepherding 3,200 homeless people and the dozens of celebrities who had come to help serve them, were a bit worried.

They shouldn’t have been.

The three men took a break from what is shaping up as a bitter mayoral contest to lavish turkey, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes, and even to trade embraces and cheer one another on.

“We all have to take time from campaigning once in a while,” said the mayor, sporting a bright red apron and masterfully spooning out dollops of green beans.

A few feet away, Villaraigosa diligently served slabs of turkey, while Hertzberg passed out paper plates.

Briefly, Hertzberg convinced Hewitt, who is famous for her role on the television show “Party of Five,” to dance along with him in a little Thanksgiving jig.

“How many political events draw this many lenses?” he asked as paparazzi snapped dozens of shots of Hewitt, along with other stars, such as Kevin Nealon of “Saturday Night Live” fame and Henry Winkler, who played the Fonz on the television show “Happy Days.”

“If I was running for mayor, I would be here too,” said Winkler, who came with his son for what he said is a Thanksgiving tradition.

Many of the thousands of people who waited in line to be served a Thanksgiving meal seemed delighted to be waited on by the politicians. “Hey, it’s the mayor,” one man said as Hahn gingerly served him a plate brimming with food.

A few moments later, the mayor was going through the line again to fill up another plate.

And there was Villaraigosa, still serving turkey.

With a smile, the councilman placed a healthy portion on the plate held by the mayor.

“You’re doing an excellent job,” Hahn told his rival.

Villaraigosa thanked the mayor, told him the admiration was mutual, and then all three candidates posed for a photograph.

Later on Wednesday evening, Hahn and Villaraigosa crossed paths with another mayoral candidate, Councilman Bernard C. Parks, when all three served food at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Meanwhile, Hahn and Villaraigosa were both expected to dish out turkey at another Thanksgiving meal today.

And who knows how often the candidates will encounter one another at Christmas festivities.