Political Candidates

Police questioned a Los Angeles mayoral candidate Thursday on whether he made a death threat against a another candidate. David "Zuma Dogg" Saltsburg -- one of nine contenders trying to unseat Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa -- was met by officers from the Los Angeles Police Department when he arrived for a debate at Claude Pepper Senior Center on La Cienega Boulevard.

When four of the candidates running for Los Angeles city attorney recently debated on the home turf of their chief opponent, City Councilman Jack Weiss, there was no question about whom they were targeting -- or the level of animosity that simmers among some of Weiss' Westside constituents.

If any section of Los Angeles knows how to confound the political establishment, it's the City Council's 5th District, a string of affluent Westside neighborhoods that has been electing newcomers and outsiders for decades. In 1953, voters picked 22-year-old Roz Wyman, now known for helping to woo the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles. Twelve years later, they threw out Wyman in favor of Ed Edelman, a 34-year-old political newcomer.

As recently as two months ago, David R. Hernandez said, he didn't even know what Facebook was. Today, he uses the popular Internet social-networking site to help spread the word about his steeply uphill campaign for Los Angeles mayor in Tuesday's municipal primary.

For much of the 16 months he's been campaigning to become El Salvador's first leftist president, Mauricio Funes seemed headed for a landslide victory. But three days before Salvadorans vote, there are signs that the outcome is far from certain as tensions rise throughout this violent, polarized country. Funes, a former television reporter, is the widely popular candidate of the onetime guerrilla movement that fought U.S.

For nearly three decades, Nestor Bonilla was a loyal soldier in the Salvadoran army. Trained by U.S. military advisors, he rose to the rank of colonel. He fought in the civil war as a commander of El Salvador's elite and feared special forces. Today he is stomping the campaign trail in behalf of the guerrilla movement he once battled. "It is time for a change," he says in what can only be called an understatement.

A moderate held Iran's presidency for eight years before the 2005 election of conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and reformist ideas -- among them a belief in liberty, rule of law and government accountability -- remain lodged deep in the psyche of many Iranians. Now reformists are attempting a comeback, with two from their ranks competing against Ahmadinejad in the June 12 presidential election. One of those candidates is a former speaker of parliament, Mehdi Karroubi, who came in third in 2005.

Illustrating Sen. Arlen Specter's uncertain political future, two new surveys suggest that Pennsylvania voters are ready to reject him, with a majority of Republicans saying he doesn't deserve reelection. The polls by Quinnipiac University in Connecticut and by Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania show conflicting head-to-head results in hypothetical matchups between Specter and possible GOP challenger Pat Toomey -- with each holding a double-digit lead over the other.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom made official Tuesday what Californians who have watched him traverse the state for months already suspected -- he is running for governor in 2010. As might be expected for a campaign that has tried to maximize its presence on social networking websites, Newsom made the announcement electronically: "Today, I am announcing, via Tweet, my candidacy for governor," the Democrat's website declared. "It's official -- running for Gov of CA.

The race for Los Angeles city attorney has involved an increasingly bitter exchange of charges between the two candidates. City Councilman Jack Weiss has hammered at his opponent, defense lawyer Carmen "Nuch" Trutanich, for refusing to disclose the names of his law firm's clients. Trutanich has fired back by repeatedly questioning Weiss' ethics.