L.A. mayor Villaraigosa gets his call from Barack Obama

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former cochair for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, joins a list of some heavyweight economists and other politicians on President-elect  Barack Obama’s economic transition team, the Obama campaign announced Thursday. Villaraigosa campaigned for Obama after the Illinois senator locked up the Democratic nomination, and last weekend traveled to New Mexico to help rally the Latino vote for Obama on election day.

Villaraigosa, a former California Assembly Speaker and L.A. City Councilman, joins some of the nation’s top financial minds and wealthiest financiers, including Warren Buffet, Chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway; Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under President Bill Clinton and now a professor at UC Berkeley; and Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, among others. The group’s first meeting is scheduled for Friday in Chicago.

-- Phil Willon

Comments

[susan]

Whatever one thinks of the Mayor, it's good for LA to be among the first in line when the feds are thinking of where to spend money for things like public safety/ homeland security, infrastructure, above all mass transit, that ties into environmental issues/ programs (instead of battling us, etc. We've been stiffed in recent years in favor of much less significant, small cities and even towns that have supported Republicans.

Even the Republicans amongst us should want LA to get our fair share -- it could mean better services and quality of life, and less money we have to make up at a local level. Now, let's demand the same from the State.

I'm not even a Democrat, but an independent who's critical that Obama-Clause can deliver on many of his promises once he realizes what moderate economists and common sense people have been telling him: the money just isn't there, with our wars, the recent bailouts and lingering financial and property crises, etc., unless he's willing to raise taxes way, way, down the line to the middle class. In other words, break every promise he's made. BUT to the extent that LA is among the first in line as befits the second-biggest city in America, it can only be a good thing.

(And IF this Mayor gets some PR from it, so what -- I wouldn't want his job, with all the tomatoes he's had thrown at him, and seems to me, he's looking kind of bewildered and lost at how quickly the sentiments turned from Idolatry to Venom after Mirthala came to light -- the media only hurt the city by playing it up that big, let's think about L.A. now! Leave the tabloid stuff to the tabloid, let Tony run around and get money and PR for OUR city.)

[susan]

Whatever one thinks of the Mayor, it's good for LA to be among the first in line when the feds are thinking of where to spend money for things like public safety/ homeland security, infrastructure, above all mass transit, that ties into environmental issues/ programs (instead of battling us, etc. We've been stiffed in recent years in favor of much less significant, small cities and even towns that have supported Republicans.

Even the Republicans amongst us should want LA to get our fair share -- it could mean better services and quality of life, and less money we have to make up at a local level. Now, let's demand the same from the State.

I'm not even a Democrat, but an independent who's critical that Obama-Clause can deliver on many of his promises once he realizes what moderate economists and common sense people have been telling him: the money just isn't there, with our wars, the recent bailouts and lingering financial and property crises, etc., unless he's willing to raise taxes way, way, down the line to the middle class. In other words, break every promise he's made. BUT to the extent that LA is among the first in line as befits the second-biggest city in America, it can only be a good thing.

(And IF this Mayor gets some PR from it, so what -- I wouldn't want his job, with all the tomatoes he's had thrown at him, and seems to me, he's looking kind of bewildered and lost at how quickly the sentiments turned from Idolatry to Venom after Mirthala came to light -- the media only hurt the city by playing it up that big, let's think about L.A. now! Leave the tabloid stuff to the tabloid, let Tony run around and get money and PR for OUR city.)