61.   Mayors have a tough job.

62.   Mayors have budgets to balance and ceremonies to attend and election campaigns to win.

63.   Mayors have to represent all the people, no matter their politics, while sitting in an office where petty political types constantly arrive wanting something.

64.   Mrs. Gresser is wrong when she suggests that the mayor has no right to meet with the potential board candidates.

65.   More than any mayor has for decades, Riordan has used that bully pulpit -- and piles of private cash -- to influence education in Los Angeles.

66.   No matter that Messinger, an actual Democrat, has more than three times as many Democratic officeholders endorsing her as the mayor has.

67.   Nor did the mayor have a lot of cash to make things better.

68.   On housing issues, the next mayor will have to balance the concerns of younger white newcomers, older black residents and ambitious Latino immigrants.

69.   One of the most surprising races is in Boston, where crime is down, the economy has recovered and the mayor has no opponent.

70.   Or the mayor would have to risk taking on the governor in a fight he might not win.