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Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who is definitely not laying the groundwork for a potential presidential campaign in 2020, hit another swing state on Friday, attending a conference of city leaders from around the country in Florida.
Garcetti won a landslide reelection victory in March, but that hasn't kept his name out of frenzied speculation for a number of higher offices (the is-he-or-isn't-he conjecture about a potential gubernatorial 2018 bid has been going on for years). Back in June 2016, Garcetti's name was leaked as potentially being on a Hillary Clinton shortlist for VP, and since it became clear that Clinton won't, uh, be running for reelection in 2020, Garcetti's name has also entered the presidential fray.
In May, the New York Times put our Instagram-loving mayor on a list of potentials for 2020, quoting some unnamed "allies" of the mayor who "acknowledged that national donors had broached the subject of 2020 but said that was the extent of his attention to the race."
That speculation kicked up another notch earlier this month when Garcetti headed to Wisconsin, a state that definitely wasn't pivotal to the outcome of the 2016 election, to keynote a democratic convention. Yusef Robb, a spokesperson for the mayor, told LAist at the time that Garcetti had been initially invited to the event by a former staffer on his 2013 mayoral campaign who now works in Wisconsin politics.
"He's not running for anything," Robb said. "During these crazy political and rapidly-changing economic times, Mayor Garcetti wants to help his party and share ideas to make people's lives better."
See you in Iowa!
