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Martin Ludlow had been crisscrossing Los Angeles to get voters to the polls since 4:45 a.m. when he took the stage at a downtown ballroom late Tuesday.
But the leader of the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor held nothing back as he whipped up union members celebrating the election-day shellacking of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"Elections are won by the people who turn out to vote, and we turned out the people to vote!" Ludlow bellowed into the microphone, his voice cracking over cheers from the crowd.
It was a heady moment for the former Los Angeles city councilman who took the helm of the nation's largest local labor council in June after the death of its leader.
In less than six months on the job, Ludlow had helped hold local unions together in the face of a contentious split in the national labor movement. And he helped mobilize tens of thousands of voters to beat back the governor's frontal assault on the political muscle of California's unions.
Though more political battles loom next year, the labor federation that Ludlow's legendary predecessor, Miguel Contreras, built into a powerhouse had scored another victory.
And Ludlow emerged from Contreras' shadow to establish himself as a political force in his own right.
"Labor under Martin Ludlow is alive and well in L.A. County, and their political muscle is stronger than ever," said longtime local Democratic political strategist Kerman Maddox, who did not work on the November campaigns.
When Ludlow took the reins of the county federation last summer, there was much less to celebrate.
The local labor movement had split over the reelection effort of Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn, with the county federation and most unions backing Hahn and...