Bradley Stays on Top, Hahn Aims to Get There : City Atty.-Elect Takes 2nd Sucessful Step in His Political Career

Two days before his 35th birthday, James Kenneth Hahn will become Los Angeles city attorney in a rite of passage that his supporters hope someday will see him become influential politician the man who once cradled him in his arms

Elected city attorney Tuesday, Hahn on July 1 will be sworn into a visible and potentially powerful post, his second step on a path that started with his election as city controller in a runoff in 1981.

In both cases, Hahn owes a political debt to his father, veteran Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn. He acknowledges that his father was responsible for his victory in the first but, during a post-election press conference Wednesday, said his own record swayed voters in the second.

“Four years ago I said that the reason I got elected city controller was because my middle name was Kenneth and my last name was Hahn,” Hahn said. “That’s not true anymore.

“I was running (for city attorney) on my record. People knew the difference between Supervisor Hahn and Jim Hahn.”

Yet he acknowledged his father’s extensive and valuable help in this campaign. And it was clear that the elder Hahn played a key role in his son’s race, a dramatic contest that narrowed from five to two contenders in the last week of the campaign and pitted James Hahn against politically well-connected attorney Lisa Specht. The crucial question for Hahn, always seen as the front-runner, was whether he could pull the more than 50% of the primary vote needed to avoid a June runoff.

Final returns gave Hahn a 53%-42% victory.

Fund-Raising Efforts

Supervisor Hahn’s political clout, built throughout a career that has spanned five decades, included lining up hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions and loans for his son’s effort, and helping persuade one of the dropouts to endorse the younger Hahn.

He also provided campaign assistance, a factor reflected in a vote analysis that showed the younger Hahn beating Specht most strongly--2 to 1--in South-Central Los Angeles--the supervisor’s power base. Specht’s campaign was concerned about Hahn’s name identification and sent out mailers to households there cautioning voters that Hahn was not the supervisor that had represented the area for nearly 40 years.

Yet the younger Hahn indicated Wednesday that he hopes Tuesday’s victory will help him establish his own identity in the minds of voters.

That will be possible, supporters say, only if the younger Hahn changes his low-key approach in office and develops a sense of news-making actions and statements that are a Kenneth Hahn trademark.

Seen Making a Mark

But one James Hahn supporter, who asked not to be identified, said that with Tuesday’s election, the younger Hahn has begun to make his own mark on the political scene, much as the offspring of other well-known politicians have in the past. And he expects that Hahn will be more comfortable, as city attorney, with promoting his achievements and, in turn, his political future.

“The evolution of James Kenneth Hahn into Jim Hahn is continuing,” said Dan Wolf, one of Supervisor Hahn’s key aides, who pointed out that the fact that the younger Hahn won this time around without a runoff proves he “has some of his own credentials.”

Returns showed Hahn was able to capitalize on the last-minute dropout of three lesser candidates, all of whom ended up endorsing the controller. In Tuesday’s voting, the three--Charles Zinger, Betsy Mogul and Murray Kane--together attracted only 5% of the precinct votes compared with more than 20% of the absentee ballots, many of which were cast before the withdrawals.

Word Gets to Voters

The fact that the word got to voters that the race had narrowed to only two candidates was cited most often Wednesday for Hahn’s primary election victory. Specht had hoped the others would draw enough votes to force Hahn into a runoff. Her supporters, based in the Westside, believed they could enhance her vote-pulling abilities in a runoff.

Initial vote analyses indicated that despite Kane’s endorsement of Hahn, Specht probably received most of the support that would have gone to Kane had he stayed in the race. But strategists on both sides said Hahn received enough of the Kane support to keep the office out of Specht’s reach.