When Jim Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa faced each other this weekend for a second pre-runoff debate we hoped to get down to a discussion of what each of them really hopes to do in the next four years if elected mayor, yes?
Perhaps Hahn has would explain his precipitous election-season, feel-good plans to clamp down on gangs and save Hollywood. Maybe Villaraigosa could tell us a bit more about the actual nuts and bolts of his lofty, short-on-details Vision for L.A. so that we could make a learned decision about whether he's the better man for the job rather than the lesser of two evils, right?
Nope. Basically, they pissed on each other Saturday with all the old vintage-2001 rancor they could muster, the Times reports ...
The debate sponsored by the Los Angeles Sentinel at the California African American Museum was your basic race-tinged slugfest, that raised the specters of ex-LAPD Chief Bernie Parks, racially thickheaded Mayor Sam Yorty and - shades of the 2001 slur campaign that sank Villaraigosa - coke-dealer Carlos Vignali:
Villaraigosa fought injunctions barring certain activities by gang members when he was a board member and president of the ACLU's Southern California chapter but now supports them.
In response to Hahn's attacks, Villaraigosa said: "Jim, you have a lot — you have unmitigated gall. You fired Bernard Parks and then want to blame me."
Painting Hahn as inconsistent, Villaraigosa said that when his rival was courting black voters in 2001, Hahn portrayed Parks as "the best thing since sliced butter."
As for charter schools, Villaraigosa recalled supporting them when he was state Assembly speaker. "If Jim Hahn did his homework, he would know that I negotiated lifting the cap on the number of charter schools in California," he said.
Hahn snapped: "That was after you'd voted against it about four or five times before that."
Villaraigosa, in turn, tried to raise doubts about the mayor's trustworthiness. He asked Hahn to explain what was in the mayor's e-mails that were subpoenaed by a federal grand jury that is investigating alleged contracting abuses at City Hall.
"Rumor and innuendo aren't the way to conduct campaigns," Hahn shot back. He rebuffed any suggestion "that there's something corrupt about my administration" and cited Villaraigosa's letter to the White House seeking the early release of convicted cocaine trafficker Carlos Vignali, a move for which the councilman has expressed regret.
"Ouch," a debate sound technician muttered to himself. "It's getting thick."
Thick, indeed. When it comes right down to it, we may all wish for a learned discussion of the issues facing Los Angeles and crisp proposals for addressing them. But we're going to get what Billy Bragg once sang was "the sound of old men grinding axes."
While Hahn's "performance" as mayor has been by all accounts (save those of his campaign) anemic and allegedly criminal, Villaraigosa isn't exactly selling me on his ability to lead by simply returning mudball for mudball. At times, the guy looks like just another careerist politician - one who managed to completely alienate his own constituents by breaking his promise to stay on for a full term in CD-14 because he hungered so strongly for advancement (and revenge). His AWOL-from-L.A. status on behalf of the Kerry campaign convinces me that he's as much interested in the idea of a higher office as he is in the responsibilities.
I realize he's got to do a better job in 2005 answering fire with fire, considering he let Hahn mop the floor with him four years ago.
But if the good councilman's going to do that, least let's hear him also present a solid, consistent and practical plan for tackling real problems in Los Angeles for as long as he's in town - traffic congestion, housing costs, illiteracy, homelessness, gang violence, runaway production - rather than just prove he can swing just as big, heavy and foul-smelling a sock full of sh*t as the mayor can.
Or am I just being naive about the true aim of runoff politicking?
UPDATE: Probably so. As Harold Meyerson points out in the Weekly, Hahn's just stealing moves from the Lee Atwater/Karl Rove playbook as he did in '01 and smothering Villaraigosa with accusation and innuendo. Not much room on that turf for a careful discussion of ideology and governance.
Posted by: mack_reed on Sunday, April 10, 2005 - 11:59 PM
