Hahn Campaign Loses Magic

In another sign that the next Mayor of Los Angeles will be able to pronounce the original full name of the city without gagging, Magic Johnson announced he was endorsing Antonio Villaraigosa. This makes the him the fourth prominent African American opinion leader (following Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, Congressmember Maxine Waters and City Councilperson Bernard Parks) to switch from Hahn in 2001 to Villaraigosa in 2005. The only chance Hahn now has of winning the May 17th run-off is overwhelmingly high turnout in the Valley and underwhelmingly low turnout in South and East L.A. But that's not going to happen, and Hahn is going to lose his first citywide election.