E-mail a friendMayor Antonio Villaraigosa
airdate February 11, 2008
Antonio Villaraigosa went from an unstable childhood to becoming the first Latino mayor of his native Los Angeles in over a century. A former labor organizer, he's defied stereotypes and won praise for building bipartisan coalitions. He previously served on the L.A. city council and as speaker of the state assembly and was a distinguished fellow at UCLA and USC, where he helped write a policy blueprint for addressing the issues facing many urban centers. He's a founding member of the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation.
Los Angeles Mayor challenges the notion that Latinos don’t vote for African Americans. (2:11)
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa back to this program. He is serving his first term as mayor here in L.A., the first Latino to hold the post in more than a hundred years. His endorsement of Senator Hillary Clinton was no doubt a factor in her victory here in California on Super Tuesday. Mr. Mayor, as always, good to see you, mayor.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa: Good to see you, Tavis.
Tavis: You been all right, man?
Villaraigosa: I've been great.
Tavis: Nice to see you.
Villaraigosa: Haven't been here for a while.
Tavis: It's been a while, but we're always glad to welcome you back to the studio.
Villaraigosa: I'm glad to be here.
Tavis: You have been everywhere - every time I see Hillary Clinton somewhere, no matter where she is, you're always standing right behind her. They obviously worked hard, and as the evidence suggests, appreciate your endorsement.
Villaraigosa: We go way back. I've had a relationship with the Clintons since the mid '90s when I was in the state assembly. They were very helpful when we were putting together a majority. If you remember, we had lost the majority for a while there in the state legislature. We go way back, have a long relationship, and a good friend.
Tavis: What do you make of the fact that she is doing so well with Hispanic voters? And I say that with this in mind - that outside of California, the contest since then where there are large Hispanic populations, he has done better with Hispanics outside of California. So there are two questions, really, there: Why is she doing so well and what do you make of, shall I say, his creep where the Hispanic vote is concerned?
Villaraigosa: They know her here in California, just like I knew her since the mid-'90s. Californians know her, and particularly Latinos. They remember the Clinton years when deficits were down and surpluses were up, when we created 22 million new jobs, the economy was doing well for working people. They remember her efforts around healthcare and particularly around the children's health care program.
Some 800,000 kids have health care, many of them disproportionately of color, Latino and African American. So they remember their efforts that cut the citizenship backlog, if you remember, in the mid '90s. So I think all of those things had a lot to do with her really groundswell of support among Latinos here in this state.
Tavis: And what do you make of his creep - I use that word because he is, again, doing better, has done better in these states since California that have Hispanic populations, and of course we all know that March 4th is the big one where Hispanic voters are concerned - we're going to Texas.
Villaraigosa: Well I've said this is the most talented group of presidential candidates in my memory, and I can tell you one of the big reasons why it's so talented is Barack Obama. The fact of the matter is his creep probably has a lot to do with people are getting to know him better. They're realizing that he, too, has something to offer.
When I endorsed Hillary Clinton, it wasn't an indication of opposition to anyone. What it was was a demonstration of my commitment to her, her leadership, her experience. But Barack's a great candidate and I think we're all seeing that, not just here in Los Angeles but across the nation.
Tavis: I can predict your answer on this but I want to ask anyway. There are some who think maybe they endorsed her too soon, before he really started to come on. I assume you don't put yourself in that camp, though.
Villaraigosa: Well, I'm a progressive, and I love his message. It's a message of hope, it's about bringing a movement together, and that's a very positive message. It certainly resonates with me and you remember my campaign. We did a lot of that, putting a coalition together. But I'll tell you something - I go way back with her, and I believe in her.
I think she offers experience to get America moving in a new direction on the first day on the job. I think she really has the strength of leadership that America needs right now. But if she were not the nominee, you'd see me working as hard for Barack as I have for her. I was in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, on more than one occasion a number of times throughout those states, and I'll be everywhere I need to be for whoever the Democratic nominee is.
Tavis: Your last comment raises an interesting question for me, at least, and that is Barack's wife, Michelle Obama, I think roundly taken to task for her suggestion in an interview that she would have to think about whether or not she would support Hillary if Hillary were the nominee. Very different than what you've said.
You said, "I support Hillary, but if Obama's the nominee I'm going to be behind him" - a lot of folk have said that. But Michelle Obama got in some trouble when she suggested she'd have to think about that. But that comment also kind of echoes something I've heard Obama say, which is that he feels strongly that he can pull her base of support if he's the nominee.
But he's not so certain that she can pull his young, energized, new to the process base if she is the nominee. Does that concern you?
Villaraigosa: Well, time will only tell. But I think that either nominee is going to be able to unite the party when it's all said and done. People are looking for a new direction. Both candidates offer change, they offer substance, but have differences as well. I can tell you that I believe strongly that both candidates will be able to unite our party and energize our party to chart a new beginning for America.
We've had eight years of an administration that's brought us to war, that's failed to take on the challenge of healthcare, the economic crisis on working families, with an overdependence on foreign oil. And I think people are looking for a change and either candidate would do that, and the party would unite around either candidate.
Tavis: Unity, as you know, Mayor, is a whole lot easier said than done on two fronts. Let's take one at a time. On the first front, there's some who believe that by the time you get to unity that the price that will have been paid may be too high. Is this process going to be so truncated, so dragged out, that by the time you get to the point where you have a nominee - some even suggested a brokered convention - how do you get to that place where unity is possible when you need it to be the reality?
Villaraigosa: Well, I am hoping that we don't have a brokered convention. I want the people to decide this election, not the superdelegates. I think it's very, very important that we have as much in the way of transparency and as much in the way of really letting this play out with the people. Having said that, this may be so close that we may not have that luxury.
My hope is no matter what happens that both the key supporters of Senator Clinton and the key supporters of Senator Obama are united on one thing: we've got to come together at the end of this election. I would be proud to endorse and support Senator Obama as much as I am proud to endorse Senator Clinton at this moment.
Tavis: The other area of unity that needs to be, I think, excavated here, and we'll do it now, is this Black and Hispanic divide. And when I say divide, I mean to suggest only that she clearly at the moment is winning the Hispanic vote, he clearly at the moment is winning the African American vote. You, more than any other politician in the country right now, have had your hands full here in L.A., done a wonderful job here in L.A. you have, certainly with the schools, trying to keep these Black and Brown conflicts with the students from exploding.
But you know of what I speak here. I'm wondering on the political front whether or not you see that same kind of explosion about to happen. What about this notion of coalition politics when both of them are dividing Black and Brown voters?
Villaraigosa: Again, I think we'll all come together no matter who the nominee is. I like to remind people when they talk about that about a couple of things. In four out of five mayoral elections, Latinos voted overwhelmingly in support of Tom Bradley. In his two gubernatorial elections, they voted overwhelmingly for Tom Bradley. In Washington, in Chicago, Latinos and African Americans in broad coalition voted overwhelmingly for Mayor Washington, for Mayor Dinkins in New York.
Tavis: And for Villaraigosa in Los Angeles.
Villaraigosa: And for Villaraigosa in Los Angeles. And in the first election, if you remember, Tavis, when I lost 80-20 among African Americans, people said that African Americans wouldn't support a Latino and I said, "Hold it - they supported the other candidate because they knew him better." And the second time around, when they knew me better, I won a majority of that support.
In fact, right now my strongest support is among African Americans, Latinos, and liberal Democrats. So the fact of the matter is people will vote, I believe, in this country, and particularly Latinos and African Americans, they'll vote for a candidate of another color, including one from the two groups that I just mentioned, to the extent that they know them, to the extent they've worked with them over the years.
Tavis: The last thing here where the Hispanic vote is concerned, for me at least, is the complicated equation that John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, presents. He has been so aggressive, almost wrecked his campaign because of his support - his fastidious support of immigration reform. He might pull, in a Democratic-Republican contest, a significant number of the Hispanic vote because they appreciate him being courageous on immigration reform, yes?
Villaraigosa: Well, he was courageous on immigration reform, but in the course of stumping around the country since then he's repudiated all of that. (Laughter) So I don't think - the question is going to be which John McCain are we talking about, the one that supported immigration reform or the one who's completely denied that that kind of comprehensive reform makes sense any longer. Everywhere I've seen him, he seems to have rejected that which he proposed and worked hard for early on last year.
Tavis: Mayor, I'm always glad to see you. Thanks for sharing your insight.
Villaraigosa: Good to see you, Tavis. It's good to see you.
Tavis: Take care of yourself.
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