Ever since Karen Bass announced that she was running for mayor of Los Angeles, she has mostly downplayed the historic implications of her candidacy.
If she beats developer Rick Caruso, she will become the first woman and only the second Black person to lead the nation's second-largest city. And yet, as diverse as L.A. is, the longtime congresswoman has resisted being pigeonholed as the "Black candidate" or the "woman candidate."
When I asked Bass in May about the importance of her appeal to Black voters, she told me that she was more concerned with having "a very diverse coalition — racially diverse, ideologically diverse, geographically diverse ... because it's consistent with how I have led my life."
