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Talking With Zev

With the mayoral election less than three weeks away, the Jewish vote is ready for its closeup.
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May 17, 2001

With the mayoral election less than three weeks away, the Jewish vote is ready for its closeup. Pollster Paul Goodwin tells me that as of 10 days ago, Jewish voters — one-third of likely voters in the 5th City Council district, which stretches from Pico-Robertson to the Valley — are leaning toward the first Latino candidate in modern times, Antonio Villaraigosa, with 41 percent supporting the former Assembly Speaker, compared with 35 percent for his rival, City Attorney James Hahn.

The 5th, home to City Councilman Michael Feuer — now battling for city attorney — former City Councilwoman Roz Wyman and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, is the district that created and sustained the black-Jewish coalition. Goodwin says that Villaraigosa’s strongest support is 3-1 among liberals and 55-41 among voters under 35 as voters attempt to forge a similar Latino-Jewish link. Seventy-nine percent of Jews in the district are Democrats.

The 5th District’s Jewish vote split 50-50 eight years ago when Richard Riorden defeated Mike Woo. Goodwin’s poll shows Hahn leading among conservatives 3-1 and moderates 2-1, but among liberal voters — 45 percent of the Jewish vote in the district — Villaraigosa leads 3-1.

First-time voters under 35 lean heavily toward Villaraigosa, while voters older than 75 favor Hahn.

"It’s an odd race," Goodwin said. "There’s no center, but the left in the district is huge."

The multicultural contours of the mayoral race became more obvious this week when 8th District City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas put together a blacks-for-Antonio coalition comprised of young leaders who knew not Hahn’s dad. And it continued Monday when Yaroslavsky made headlines in the Los Angeles Times by endorsing Villaraigosa with these key words: "I feel comfortable with him."

I spoke with Yaroslavsky at his request on Tuesday, the day after he gave Villaraigosa his nod. More than elaborating on Villaraigosa’s professional talents, Zev wanted to set the present moment in its Jewish context, since he believes that this race will put Los Angeles and its varying populations on a set course whether Villaraigosa wins or not. Though Bradley was defeated in 1969, by 1973 his coalition was strong enough to rule Los Angeles for more than two decades.

Moreover, the moderate political style of that coalition, whose members include Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and the late Julian Dixon, established a tone of decency and openness that Jews, among others, have come to take for granted. The ramifications of the June 5 election for the Latino-Jewish coalition could not be more obvious.

"This election is all about Antonio," Yaroslavsky told me. "Hahn is fine, a good man. But he’s not the issue. The issue is Antonio and whether we in our community understand what motivates him. He is not one who says ‘We’ll go it alone,’ to get his 35-40 percent and forget everyone else."

To prove his point, Yaroslavsky recalled the heat he received in the Latino community over the decision to end subway construction in favor of more buses. "Antonio resisted the pressure to criticize me. He said, this isn’t an ethnic issue, it’s a fiscal issue, a transportation issue. As a result he endured no little ridicule from some in his own community. Antonio’s critics today are in defeat, but who knows what the future will bring.

"No, Antonio is making a case that to govern Los Angeles you have to be a bridge-builder and to reach out not out of necessity but out of conviction."

Is it too much to lay responsibility for coalition at the chads of the Jewish voter? Maybe it’s just doing what comes naturally.

"Coalition has great importance to the Jewish community," Yaroslavsky said. "As a member of one of L.A.’s smallest and most distinct minorities, I believe we as Jews have a vested interest in supporting this idea of governance, which reaches out from its own base. It’s not only that we’re becoming a smaller percentage of the population and our influence will inevitably decline unless we build coalitions. It’s that we actually fare best in a society that encourages collaboration, coalition and inclusion."

There was poignancy in our conversation, the end of an era. Less than a year before, we’d had lunch during which he attempted to articulate just why he himself wasn’t jumping into the mayoral race. Could he have gotten to 51 percent?

"There were three Jewish candidates already in the race," he laughed. "Steve Soboroff, Joel Wachs and Antonio. I’d be number four. How many Jewish coalition-building liberals are there in this city?"

But more seriously, Yaroslavsky seemed to accept his strengths as a self-described "warrior" who made enemies for a cause.

"I’m content with who I am," said the supervisor whose career path, representing 2 million residents in the Westside and Valley, is no longer in doubt.

Maybe instead of a new frontier, we’re coming full circle. After a gap of nearly a decade, the unfinished coalition of blacks, Jews and Latinos — the coalition begun by Bradley, Henry Waxman and Howard Berman and Ed Roybal — is together again at last.

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