Ken Garcia, The Examiner
2007-07-12 16:10:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

SAN FRANCISCO -

When will politicians ever learn that if they want to toss a grenade, they shouldn’t be standing in a mine field?

That’s pretty much where Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa found himself last week, publicly acknowledging that he was having an affair with a TV reporter who was knee-deep in her own ethical quagmire, since she was the on-air commentator who announced that the mayor was splitting with his longtime wife Corina last month (though not for whom).

This story has political overtones for voters here in the Bay Area and throughout California since Villaraigosa and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom are considered rising stars in the Democratic Party and are widely rumored to be possible future candidates for governor. And that has made them somewhat natural rivals — more in Villaraigosa’s mind than in Newsom’s — since they are both considered smart, charismatic and media-genic and fight for attention at party confabs and other political gatherings.

And now, of course, there are new comparisons being made because of the affairs. Newsom admitted to his with an aide’s wife earlier this year, an announcement that was quickly followed by his admission that he was seeking treatment for problems related to alcohol. The back-to-back revelations seemed to provide some sympathy for Newsom, allowing him to quickly return to the voters’ favor — at least according to the polls.

Judging by the scores of stories that have greeted Villaraigosa’s public admission last week, he is, to say the least, not there yet. He has been blistered in editorials and subject to daily news stories in the nation’s second largest media market. Indeed, even the austere Los Angeles Times is having a field day with the story, referring to it as City Hall’s steamy “Summer of Love.”

“He’s being introduced statewide as a serial philanderer who dumped on his wife years ago, sweet-talked her back into the house, used her as a political prop and returned to the pattern of womanizing,’’ wrote the Times’ normally noncombative political columnist George Skelton.

As they say down at the local whipping post, ouch.

A lot of other political observers have weighed in as well, some suggesting that Villaraigosa’s personal peccadilloes may have cost him any chance for statewide office, despite his standing as one of the country’s best-known Latino politicians. The ever-slick Los Angeles mayor went into seclusion after his announcement — a first for the camera-hungry official — only emerging a few days ago to provide the startling news that he’s “not perfect.’’

Newsom was fly-fishing in Montana when news of Villaraigosa’s affair broke (it was first published in a blog) and when I caught up with our mayor this week, he said he’d barely been following it. But he said he had been thinking of calling his Los Angeles counterpart to offer his support.

That would not include offering any advice.

“I have no advice to give him except to get back to work,’’ Newsom said. “At the end of the day, people just want to know that you’re trying hard to do the job for which you were elected.’’

Villaraigosa’s handlers, of which there are many, have apparently been telling him the same thing. Newspapers are reporting that the mayor plans a “blitzkrieg’’ of public appearances in the coming weeks to show that the mayor is focused on the unenviable task of trying to make Los Angeles more liveable.

But so far, the only thing people are asking the 54-year-old Villaraigosa is when the affair started and whether he had others in the prior 18 months. He has denied that he has — and that better prove to be true because nearly every political expert called on the subject has said the mayor could probably survive the scandal (see Rudy Giuliani, Bill Clinton, Newsom, etc.) as long as there aren’t more sundresses in his closet.

For now, however, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. The Telemundo news anchor with whom Villaraigosa was having an affair, Mirthala Salinas, was recently placed on leave while the television station investigates whether her relationship with the mayor breached journalistic ethics. That has not only kept the story alive — it has allowed several journalists to liken the political scene to a telenovela.

It will be interesting to see how Villaraigosa weathers the storm and the impact it will have on his previously unbridled ambition. Los Angeles is not nearly the morals-free zone that San Francisco is, but the mayor has two years to try to help voters forget that he’s not perfect before he’s up for re-election.

Yet it does remind us that if all goes as planned, the 2010 gubernatorial race should be one memorable affair.

Ken Garcia’s column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and weekends in The Examiner. E-mail him at kgarcia@examiner.com or call him at (415) 359-2663.