Opinion: Political sex scandals? California is strictly minor league

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California may be one of the world’s biggest economies, and Los Angeles may be the global city of the future, but compared with the rest of the country this place is second class in political sex scandals. Move over, Gavin Newsom. Sit down, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Back of the line, Antonio Villaraigosa.

Check out Detroit. Now, that’s a town that knows how to have a scandal. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former aide, Christine Beatty, are both out on bail after entering not guilty pleas yesterday on perjury, obstruction of justice and other charges. They allegedly lied under oath about having an affair, in a lawsuit brought by police officers who claimed they were being punished for trying to investigate Kilpatrick’s misdeeds. Go beyond the confines of the charges to the broader scandal, and you’ve got everything: sexually explicit text messages (on city equipment, no less), a supposedly ‘lewd party’ at the mayor’s mansion, strippers, even a murdered stripper, claims of racial bigotry. But the bottom line: not just sex, but up to 90 years in prison.

In New York, of course, they know what they’re doing; Eliot Spitzer resigned in disgrace not just for an extramarital affair, but for allegedly paying call girls for sex -- in other words, for breaking the law.

How tame we seem in comparison. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s political career supposedly was at an end a year ago when he admitted having an affair with an underling who just happened to be the wife of his good friend and political aide. But no laws were broken, and yesterday hardly anyone batted an eye when Newsom said that, yes, he’s interested in running for governor in 2010. The affair rated a low mention in the San Francisco Chronicle story, taking a backseat to Newsom’s proclamation honoring a gay porn studio.

And Villaraigosa? Please. So he had an affair and his marriage broke up. Ho hum. Last summer it was common knowledge that his relationship with newscaster Mirthala Salinas meant the end of his political ambitions. That now seems quaint. If Newsom is still a potential candidate for governor, so is Villaraigosa.

And the Los Angeles Times stories on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s on-set groping of women seem almost child’s play. Not only no crime, but no actual sex.

There are plenty who argue that it’s all our fault here at the Times. If we were looking for political sex scandals, we’d find them. Don’t forget the whole Bonaventure episode of 2006, for example. Surely there is plenty more of that kind of thing out there. It could be that we just don’t have the hunger for dirt, so we don’t go after it. Well, Kilpatrick and Spitzer -- and the example set by persistent journalists at the New York Times and in Detroit -- should provide some inspiration. But it’s also entirely possible that California’s politicians are just not as cutting-edge as we’d like to believe.