In the absence of major policy differences between the candidates in this year's mayoral race, character has moved to center stage. The campaigns of Mayor James K. Hahn and his rival, Antonio Villaraigosa, are both out to prove who is more corrupt. But Villaraigosa has an advantage. His ethnicity has shielded him from tough questions about his character.
Four years ago, the councilman ran a high-minded mayoral campaign that eschewed a boogeyman to get his Latino voters to the polls. He never invoked the name of former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, whose embrace of Proposition 187, the anti-illegal-immigrant initiative of 1994, helped win him reelection but sent the fast-growing Latino electorate into Democrats' waiting arms. Instead, Villaraigosa appealed to Latinos' ethnic aspirations and hopes. And he lost.
This year, however, Villaraigosa has relied on the ghost of another polarizing Anglo icon -- the late Mayor Sam Yorty. In doing so, he doesn't intend to scare his core supporters to the polls. Rather, Villaraigosa uses Yorty to shield himself against attacks such as Hahn's last-minute crack-pipe TV ad in the 2001 campaign. The tactic has made any critic think twice before taking on the councilman for fear of being labeled a racist.
The television ad slammed Villaraigosa for writing a letter to President Clinton urging him to pardon a convicted cocaine dealer, Carlos Vignali, whose father had given money to Villaraigosa's campaign. While the ad's message -- "Los Angeles can't trust Antonio Villaraigosa" -- was tough, it was the accompanying images of a crack cocaine pipe and a grainy picture of Villaraigosa that proved politically devastating.
In response, Villaraigosa accused Hahn of doing to him what Yorty had done to Tom Bradley in the 1969 mayoral race -- playing the racist card. There is little doubt that the crack-pipe ad tapped the anxieties of Anglos who feared a Mexican American as mayor. But the ad was a far cry from Yorty's racist tactics
Yorty characterized Bradley supporters as "radical Democrats and the bloc Negro vote." His campaign paid black activists to drive around the Valley in convertibles with fists raised and bumper stickers reading "Bradley for Mayor" and "Black is Beautiful." It placed ads in Valley newspapers that featured photos of Bradley with the caption, "Will Your City Be Safe With This Man?"
