Horace Greeley may have suggested at one point that going west might be a good idea, but he probably wouldn't be happy to see what's going on with Los Angeles as of late. The Dodgers are in last place in the National League West, the Angels are hovering near the bottom of the American League West, and the Lakers' appearance in the playoffs was brutally short. Even Jimmy Fallon and NBC are bringing The Tonight Show back to Manhattan, deserting some place called Burbank after 40 years.
Four years later, with Yorty's act wearing thin, Bradley led Yorty in the initial election and beat him in the runoff by 100,000 votes, including a majority of white voters, becoming the city's first African-American mayor.
Bradley is the longest-serving mayor in L.A. history, winning a total of five terms (including a rout of Yorty in 1981). In 1989, Bradley got a majority in the first round and didn't need to go into a runoff, and that hadn't happened with any L.A. mayor in decades. Like Yorty, Bradley sought the governorship twice, but Yorty never managed to win his party's nomination. Bradley was the Democratic nominee in both 1982 and 1986, losing each time to George Deukmejian (R); in '82 he was within an eyelash of becoming governor.
But his fifth term, which was marred by charges of police brutality and a worsening of race relations, all but collapsed in the riots that followed the 1992 trial in which L.A. police officers were acquitted of the beating of Rodney King, riots that led to deaths and massive property damage ... and a great loss to Bradley's leadership and legacy. He retired a broken man in 1993.
Then came Richard Riordan, a Republican who stressed his business experience and his promise to crack down on crime, a clear reference to what had happened to the city in the latter years of Bradley's tenure. Riordan became the first GOP mayor since Norris Poulson was ousted by Yorty in '61, and was re-elected in a 1997 landslide.
2001 brought James Hahn to city hall. Hahn was a long time government insider, serving as city controller as well as city attorney. Perhaps equally important was that he was the son of the legendary Kenneth Hahn, a longtime county supervisor who was well known as a civil rights champion and beloved in the black community. Jimmy Hahn was elected by some 40,000 votes, defeating Villaraigosa, who had been the speaker of the state Assembly. But Hahn made the controversial decision to replace Police Chief Bernard Parks, an African-American, and that cost him dearly with black voters. Villaraigosa, with the kind of charisma Hahn never had, walloped him in the 2005 rematch. He became the city's first Latino mayor since Cristobal Aguilar, who served from 1871-72.