Inside Politics

Hahn survives

Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn survived a close call, making it into a May runoff against a Hispanic city council member after the third-place mayoral candidate conceded defeat yesterday.

The outcome of Tuesday’s primary election sets up a rematch of the 2001 runoff, pitting Mr. Hahn, who has been weakened by corruption charges and other problems, against council member Antonio Villaraigosa, who is seeking to become the first Hispanic to win the mayoralty in the nation’s second-largest city in more than a century.

Nearly 24,000 absentee and other ballots remained to be counted, but candidate Bob Hertzberg trailed second-place Mr. Hahn by about 5,800 votes, a margin his campaign concluded was too great.

“I called Mayor Hahn this morning and congratulated him on his victory,” Mr. Hertzberg said during a morning press conference.

Delayed because of foggy weather, the vote tally continued into early yesterday.

In 2001, Mr. Villaraigosa, a high school dropout who went on to become speaker of the California Assembly, was also the top vote-getter in the primary, but he lost the runoff to Mr. Hahn, 53 percent to 46 percent.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Mr. Villaraigosa led with 124,561 votes, or 33 percent.

The mayor tallied 89,189 votes, or 24 percent, while Mr. Hertzberg, also a former Assembly speaker, had 83,420 votes, or 22 percent.

Mr. Villaraigosa would have had to get more than 50 percent to have won the election outright.

Not worried

A relaxedformer President Bill Clinton hit the golf course yesterday for a charity event for tsunami victims, joking about his game and saying he was not worried about his impending surgery.

Mr. Clinton went golfing in Hobe Sound, Fla., with former President George Bush a day before he was to check himself into a hospital for a low-risk operation to remove a buildup of fluid and scar tissue pressing on his left lung — a rare complication from his heart-bypass surgery six months ago.

“I’ve had an unusual life. If something happens — if I get struck by lightning on the golf course today — I’d wind up ahead of where 99.99 percent of the people that ever lived,” he said. “I’m just grateful for every day when the sun comes up. But it is not a dangerous procedure, unless something totally unpredictable happens.”

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