Campaign Ending on Sour Note for Voters
Kathleen Hoskanian sat at an outdoor cafe at the Grove shopping center Sunday morning and sighed as she collected her thoughts about Tuesday's election for mayor of Los Angeles.
"It's too bad we don't have more of a choice," she said, lamenting that the two contenders have devoted the last weeks of the campaign to attacks on each other. "You don't know who to believe anymore."
Whether incumbent James K. Hahn or challenger Antonio Villaraigosa becomes the next mayor depends, in large part, on what swing voters, such as Hoskanian, do when they go to the polls.
On Sunday, The Times interviewed voters in the two most hotly contested areas -- the San Fernando Valley and South Los Angeles -- as well as at the Grove, an upscale mall that is a frequent campaign stop.
With turnout expected to be low Tuesday, the candidates are trying to reach every voter in these areas. Precinct walkers descend on their homes. Campaigns mailers flood their mailboxes. Their phones trill with calls urging them to vote for one or the other.
Hahn visited five black churches in South Los Angeles on Sunday, Villaraigosa went to seven, and then both drove up to the San Fernando Valley. Over the weekend, both also dropped by the Grove or the adjacent Farmers Market in the Mid-City area.
But despite the attention, some voters in these areas expressed disappointment Sunday that the campaign is ending without an inspiring discussion of how to heal the city's ills: traffic, crime and failing public schools.
Many complained that the candidates have relentlessly torn into each other, leaving voters to choose, as Hoskanian said, "between the lesser of two evils."
The Hancock Park resident, who works for American Airlines, ticked off a list of issues she thinks the next mayor needs to confront, including gangs and after-school programs.
She is leaning toward Villaraigosa, she said, "not because of anything he said" but because former presidential candidate John F. Kerry endorsed him.
In southwestern Los Angeles, meanwhile, the city's landscape has been transformed by the heated campaign battle. Dozens of campaign signs crowd the median on Manchester Avenue, overshadowing the daisies.
The political drama is not readily apparent on the wide residential side streets that run between Manchester and Century Boulevard. These are neighborhoods that once were Hahn strongholds. But resentment over how Hahn pushed out Bernard C. Parks, who is black, as police chief means this middle-class African American area is up for grabs.
