Eric Garcetti

I have an incredible compass. You can put me back in a country I haven't been in 20 years and say, 'Get me from point A to point B,' and I'll take you there. ”

The travel that I've spent around the country, I always come back with ideas for L.A. and vice versa: My experiences in L.A. give me an immediacy to issues that sometimes people in Washington think about but aren't experiencing every day. ”

I think I bring a perspective that local communities are what make this country great, and they are the laboratories of democracy. ”

Cities are those laboratories of democracy that states used to be. ”

When it comes to public safety, I listen to police chiefs and cops, not to a cable-news station. ”

I've worked closely with presidents, especially with President Obama, and I realized that what good leaders do at the national level is no different than what we do at the local level. ”

Withdrawing federal funds to prevent radiological or biological terrorist attack - that doesn't just hurt Los Angeles: that hurts America. ”

Ninety-five percent of my work is being mayor. But that 5% that nags at all of us - of what's going wrong in this country - I think is best thought out not in your own head but by getting out there, being out there, and listening to Americans. ”

I'm an average American. As I joke, I'm the average Mexican American Jewish Italian mayor of the most diverse city in the world. ”

I won't be a perfect mayor, but I will be the mayor of a great city. ”