How would you vote in the Los Angeles Mayor's Race?

Hey Tin Canners:

I confess, I've been bad. I haven't been paying much attention to the LA Mayor's race. So this morning when I went to vote, I put the black dot via the Ink-a-vote device on the basis of the one interview I heard on the radio.

Of course, I've seen the TV ads as the last few weeks you couldn't turn on a TV without seeing them.

If I picked based on TV ads, I would have voted for Bob Hertzberg. Check out his ads as they are pretty good.

If I picked based on who left messages on my answering machine, I would vote for Hertzberg. Although, I probably got as many phone messages saying, don't vote for Hertzberg. Of course, those messages didn't say who paid for the calls nor suggested who I should vote for!

If I picked based on the mailers I got, it would be a close choice between James Hahn and Bernard Parks as both candidates got a couple of full color big post-card type things to me.

Oddly enough, the candidate who is leading in the polls, Antonio Villaraigosa didn't auto call my answering machine or send me a post-card.

In the effort, to be "fair and balanced" the fifth candidate believed by the mainstream media to be a "viable" candidate is Richard Alarcon.

One blogger covering the race is LA Observed.

Last night as I was drifiting off to sleep, KABC-7 TV claimed Villaraigosa had a big lead. However, LA Observed thinks that poll might be flawed. The LA Times poll cited by LAO has it as a three-way race.

We shall see. I'll blog back more as events warrent. We return you now to your regularly scheduled life...

Rene

P.S. I opted for a protest vote and didn't ink-a-vote a top-five candidate.

UPDATE: Its about 9 pm here in LA, KCAL-9 TV reports that some of the absentee ballots have been counted with Hahn getting 30% and Hertzberg with 26%. The reporter said these two campaigns ran agressive absentee ballot efforts while Villaraigosa didn't.

UPDATE: KCAL-9 says Villaraigosa did get 23% of the absentee ballots.

UPDATE: It is 11pm and in typical LA city inefficiency, ballot counting has been "slow" and so it appears to be a long night ahead. KABC-7 is reporting 29-25-25 with Hahn ahead of Villaraigosa and Hertzberg. I'm calling it a night.

UPDATE: Its Wednesday morning and the news reports say that Villaraigosa took first place with 33%, Hahn with 24% and Hertzberg at 22%. They estimate about 24,000 remain to be counted. It is theoretically possible that Hertzberg could overcome Hahn's slight edge and thus advance to the general election; however, it is unlikely. It appears a rematch of the 2001 Hahn-Villaraigosa race is ahead.