Positioning for mayor

Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa's people were successful last week at getting the media to bite on a labor-sponsored poll showing that he would begin the mayor's race (if he gets in) slightly ahead of Jim Hahn. It should be noted that the poll was done for the California Teachers Association, which Villaraigosa used to work for. The numbers for rival Bob Hertzberg, who is in the race, varied by story: "single digits" in the Times, 16% in the Daily News (I had heard the lesser number). Today's Times brings Hertzberg some better news. Among challengers, he leads in fundraising with $200,000 since he joined the race in April. Caveats, however, are that Bernard Parks has not yet said if he's a candidate so has raised nothing, Villaraigosa also hasn't gone after money for a second campaign for mayor, and it's still way early. The biggest caveat of all is that Hahn is already the mayor and has $1.3 million in the bank, swamping all the challengers.