Band-Aiding a smile over the numbers. Nothing gets herds of voters to stampede in another direction like the specter of the thug at the door of your own little piece of R-1 paradise. Voters have paid attention. Cut to Hahn's latest ad. Someone chops cocaine with a razor blade.
Someone smokes a crack pipe.
His signature is there on a letter asking the White House to pardon a cocaine dealer Villaraigosa believed was wrongly convicted. In 1969, there was another runoff election for mayor of Los Angeles. Tom Bradley, an African American city councilman, had beaten the mayor, Sam Yorty, in the primary. If Hahn were running against Polanco instead of Villaraigosa, he could air almost the same commercial. Polanco too wrote a letter to the White House on his Legislature letterhead on behalf of Carlos Vignali.