Rivals Take Campaign to Key Blocs

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn and his challenger, Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, campaigned in disparate pockets of the city Saturday to woo two crucial voting blocs in the May election.

Except for a joint appearance at the annual blessing of the animals on Olvera Street, the candidates headed in different directions. Hahn went door-to-door in Watts meeting residents and business owners, many of them African American, while Villaraigosa attended a get-out-the-vote rally in predominantly Latino Boyle Heights.

“This is the best part about campaigning,” Hahn said, taking a quick break from shaking hands and urging people to vote during a stop at the Martin Luther King Jr. Shopping Center. “People have to see you. They need to talk to you. They need to know you are real.”

Villaraigosa, addressing about 150 supporters at his campaign headquarters on East 1st Street, also stressed the importance of voting on May 17.

“In Iraq, 68% of the voters went out to vote,” braving bullets and bombs in the process, Villaraigosa said, first in English and then in Spanish. “Here in Los Angeles, just 26% of the electorate voted” in the March 8 election.”

African Americans made up 16% of those who cast ballots, and Latinos represented 22% of the voters, according to a Times exit poll. Both groups are viewed by the campaigns as important constituencies in the runoff.

Hahn began his day walking near the Jordan Downs housing project. Many of the residents, such as Betty Day, thanked Hahn for, they said, having made the area safer in the last few years.

Day pointed to a small park with grass and flowers across from her home on Grape Street as evidence of improvement. Two years ago, she said, the park was a weed-strewn lot with gang graffiti splashed across the walls.

“This man is a helluva man,” Day said of Hahn. “He’s been good to us.”

Others, however, reminded Hahn that gangs and crime are still a part of the neighborhood and said that Watts needs more economic development projects to help create good jobs and keep youths away from gangs.

Steve Myrick, 38, a lifelong resident of the Imperial Courts housing projects, told Hahn that he and his friends helped forge a treaty between two warring gangs in Watts. “Thank you for getting this truce going,” Hahn said.

At Villaraigosa headquarters, dozens of supporters sat around tables calling Latinos in the San Fernando Valley and urging them to support the councilman. Other volunteers walked precincts in Boyle Heights and Eagle Rock, two areas represented by the councilman.

Villaraigosa was coming off a week marked by two significant political gains. On Tuesday, he received the endorsement of the county Democratic Party, which could translate into financial support. Two days later Villaraigosa was endorsed by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), a Democrat who supported Hahn four years ago. Waters, an influential African American political leader, has a well-oiled political apparatus that could be instrumental in rallying voters for Villaraigosa in South L.A.

On Saturday, Villaraigosa told his supporters that Hahn was trying to slow the councilman’s momentum by engaging in negative campaigning.

“Yesterday, Hahn went on the attack, having a breakdown moment on TV, moving his hands around, saliva flying at the cameras, engaging in the negative tactics” he’s used before, Villaraigosa said. He was referring to a Hahn news conference Friday in which the mayor accused the councilman of giving contradictory statements to white and black audiences in 2001 on whether he would keep former Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, now a City Council member.

On Saturday, Hahn said voters had a right to know that Villaraigosa had flip-flopped on the issue. “I don’t think that’s what leadership is all about,” Hahn said.