candidacy

Aping the famous Army recruitment commercials, the mayoral candidates have all urged Los Angeles to \”be all you can be.\” But City Attorney James Hahn, ostensibly the one shoo-in for the run-off election in June, has come up with a novel approach to realizing his own mayoral ambitions — by being the people\’s second choice. Hahn knows that outside of his base constituency within the African American community, few people are genuinely fired up about his candidacy. But that\’s okay, he says, because only one of his rivals is going to win the primary in April. And the people who supported the others, often with great passion and fervor, will most likely transfer their allegiance to their second-choice candidate — himself. It\’s a strange race, to be sure, and its Aesopian undertones may well inspire future tales of \”The Tortoise and the Hahn.\” Still, at press time Hahn\’s lead over Steve Soboroff and Antonio Villaraigosa had narrowed — and while Hahn shares the endorsement of the Los Angeles Times with Villaraigosa, the Valley-based Daily News has endorsed Soboroff.