Antonio Villaraigosa is charismatic and intelligent. He's won a series of critical endorsements. And recent polls suggest that he's running several points ahead of the wounded incumbent in the race for mayor of Los Angeles.
But if he wins, it won't be due to charisma or intelligence alone, or even to the quality of his campaign. The reality is that the stars have lined up this year -- not just in L.A. but across the country -- for Latino office-seekers.
After generations of virtual invisibility in electoral politics, Latinos are serving as mayors in Miami-Dade County, Fla., San Antonio and San Jose, to name just a few places. Latinos were also recent general election candidates in New York, Houston, Denver and San Francisco (as well as in Los Angeles, where Villaraigosa ran against James K. Hahn for the first time in 2001).
Latinos in politics -- A biographical note in a commentary Tuesday about Latinos in politics described the author, Fernando J. Guerra, as director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles and an associate professor at Loyola Marymount University. It should also have noted that his firm, Guerra & Associates, does strategic planning for clients including real estate developer Richard Meruelo, who is a large contributor to the mayoral campaign of Antonio Villaraigosa.
Polls in New York suggest that former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer is likely to be selected as the Democratic candidate to challenge Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2006 (although his chief competition at the moment is an African American woman); polls suggest that Ferrer, if selected, has a good shot at winning.
A giant demographic shift -- the much discussed "browning" of America -- has often been cited to explain the emergence of these Latino candidates. Latinos now outnumber blacks in the United States and constitute the largest minority group in the nation; in each of the 10 largest U.S. cities, Latinos make up more than a fifth of the population, and in some cases close to half, which helps account for the new political realities.
But the idea that cities are becoming more and more Latino, so therefore Latino voters will be able to elect Latino mayors, is a little simplistic. In none of the cities mentioned above do Latinos make up the majority of voters. So if candidates such as Villaraigosa are to win, they must build coalitions. After that, (and this is often much harder) they must maintain those coalitions if they are to govern effectively.
Over a quarter of a century ago, the nation saw a similar wave of political change when numerous big cities elected African American mayors for the first time. At that time, demographics and coalition-building also played significant roles. There is no better example of coalition-building than the election in 1973 of Tom Bradley as mayor of Los Angeles; he won with the support not just of the black community but with substantial white votes as well (especially from the Jewish community). African Americans went on to win the mayoralty in Detroit; Cleveland; Newark, N.J.; Atlanta; New York; Chicago and other cities.
