Obama's leadership sets the tone

[n2doc]

Unfortunately, it is a teacher's union-bashing, billionaire-tax cutting, pension slashing tone. And the underlings have taken notice:

By Cathleen Decker, Los Angeles Times
December 12, 2010



For Antonio Villaraigosa, last week loomed like one big reset button.

On Tuesday, he delivered a speech lambasting the Los Angeles teachers union as a major impediment to school reform. On Wednesday, he defended President Obama's controversial tax compromise, even as other Democrats bayed in opposition. Later that day, he joined other big-city mayors in Chicago to call for the reform of public employee pensions that have hamstrung city budgets.

The three events may be unrelated, accidents of timing. But in politics almost nothing is accidental, so it was hard to believe that the week was not meant to accomplish something for the Los Angeles mayor. The question is what.

It was all about results, according to Villaraigosa. He said he chose to criticize the union in order to "set a marker" in the debate over school reform. He signed on to the Obama tax deal because it helped the unemployed. He renewed his call for pension reform to help cities like Los Angeles ease the grievous deficits that have defined much of his tenure.


To those more Machiavellian in nature — say, the entire political establishment — other possibilities came to mind: Villaraigosa was angling for an Obama administration job. He was declaring independence from party positions and powers in preparation for a future statewide run. Or he was trying to redefine his mayoralty in a way that could reap benefits down the line, were he to decide to exercise options one or two.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-theweek-20101212,0,3751460.story