Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn, locked in an increasingly acrimonious race for reelection, sharpened his attacks Saturday on Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa in their final scheduled debate and for the first time cast himself as the candidate who will upend the status quo.
"We can't afford to go back to ... policies of the past. Let's go forward into the future," Hahn said, linking his opponent to policies he said have failed at the city's Police Department and its public schools.
The mayor also took a new swipe at Villaraigosa's past, injecting into the campaign a 28-year-old misdemeanor assault charge that was ultimately dismissed.
The tenacious attacks by Hahn hewed to a reelection strategy that has tarred Villaraigosa for his work for the American Civil Liberties Union, his lackluster record on the City Council and his ties to former Police Chief Bernard C. Parks.
But in another indication of Hahn's search for a winning message, the mayor also took the unusual step of arguing at Saturday's debate that he is the candidate of change despite being the incumbent.
Villaraigosa countered that Hahn had his chance to change Los Angeles.
"For four years, you sat by and refused to make a real difference. How can people trust you to make education a priority when you've only begun to talk about education?" the former Assembly speaker said.
Villaraigosa, who led Hahn by 18 points in the most recent Times Poll, also continued to criticize him for presiding over an administration that has been under criminal investigation for more than a year.
The two men, who also faced off in a nasty 2001 race for mayor, have tangled in four rancorous debates.
Saturday's debate -- held before a small audience at Univision's West Los Angeles studios and co-sponsored by La Opinion newspaper -- was the first to be broadcast in Spanish. Villaraigosa took advantage of that to address a few comments in Spanish directly to viewers.
Hahn repeated his call Saturday for at least two more debates. Villaraigosa, who has often found himself on the defensive at the events, has declined further matchups.
"I'm not interested in mud fights," the councilman said after the debate, echoing a line that Hahn frequently used when he skipped most of the debates before the March 8 election. "I'm not a little boy anymore."
The debate featured a few light moments. The moderator at one point asked the candidates for change for an onstage coin toss. Neither had any.
