Antonio Villaraigosa

When I ran the first time in 2001, they called me 'The Latino Mayor.' By the time I left in 2013, with a 58 percent approval rating, half the people liked me, half the people didn't. I was everybody's mayor. There was never any criticism that I was just for one group.

Everybody knows that L.A. is known for its addiction to the single-passenger automobile, the gridlock, the congestion on the freeways.

I have decided not to run for the U.S. Senate and instead continue my efforts to make California a better place to live, work, and raise a family. We have come a long way, but our work is not done, and neither am I.

Actually, as president of the Conference of Mayors, we passed the Simpson-Bowles plan as a template, as a template, as a frame work for moving forward and the president has done the same.

The fact is, when you hear the Republican candidates on immigration, when you see them and hear them talk about contraception, mammograms, abortion, and not the economy, it's clear to me they're moving farther and farther away from the mainstream.

Because we believe that you got to build the economy from middle out and not from the top down.

I've always said that L.A. is the city of America's future. It is to the world what London was in the 19th century and New York in the 20th because of the growth of the Pacific Rim countries. We're the portal to the emerging world.