Taking the Plunge for ‘86? : Bradley Goes River Rafting to Show His New Action-Oriented Politics

Incongruous? Perhaps. Believable? You’d better. Tom Bradley, the ever reserved and always collected mayor of Los Angeles, strapped on a life jacket this weekend and plunged down 11 miles of Kern River white water--seeking to show off his “new” action-oriented political presence.

“I didn’t think he would have done this a few years ago, but he feels very young, very robust now,” said Deputy Mayor Tom Houston of the 67-year-old Bradley.

Making good on a wager, rafting excitement, weekend fun and rewards for his mayoral campaign staff all were on the official agenda for the weekend outing northeast of Bakersfield. But so, too, was politics and the opening moves of an anticipated Bradley quest for the governorship, a race in which both environmental issues and political vigor are likely to be factors.

The event, heavily covered by reporters at the mayor’s invitation, was so unusual, that even Bradley’s close aides said beforehand they couldn’t picture him out of his tailored suits, roughing it in a sleeping bag or in the front of a nine-person paddle raft playing in the cool, foamy waters of the Kern.

With bubbly good humor, Bradley poked fun at himself, laughed at ribald jokes and even indulged in some ever-so-slightly salty comments of his own. When it came to work, he paddled the entire six-hour journey, and it took only an encouraging wink from an aide to get him to join the much younger group in carrying the 130-pound rafts and equipment around one impassable white-water rapid.

The trip was the payoff of a winning mayoral reelection campaign this spring managed by Mike Gage, a former professional rafting guide and state legislator.

“I was foolish enough in one of my weaker moments,” Bradley said, “to say if we won I would have to go on a river raft trip with him. I forgot it. But he didn’t.” Bradley wore green knit walking shorts, mesh shoes and a Navy USS Bradley baseball cap. For most of the day he was shirtless.

The 6-foot-4 mayor confessed he does not swim. “I sink like one of those rocks.”

Question: “Will you be available to talk after the trip?”

Answer: “I hope so.”

Bradley and his nearly 50 followers suffered no mishaps, but were delayed an hour while his river guide assisted five other rafters marooned on a boulder in the middle of a rapid called “Pinball.” The five had rammed their raft into the rock, where the current held it fast until ropes and pulleys from the mayor’s party were employed to pull it free.

“Environmentalist Mayor Rescues Five!” Houston proclaimed later.

By nightfall, with the day’s adrenaline replaced by magnums of champagne, Bradley joined in embellishing his own legend.

“He pulled off the greatest rescue of all time. With a flick of his finger, he lifted that 298-pound man into our boat--our mayor, the mayor,” Bradley deadpanned.

He then handed out to each rafter a T-shirt inscribed “Bradley Raft Riders.”

Although he is unwilling yet to discuss directly his plans for the 1986 governor’s race, Bradley’s weekend sojourn to the southern San Joaquin Valley foothills was heavy with implication.

“Mayor Bradley, Mayor Bradley, it’s Gov. Bradley, right?” came one greeting from the shore. Bradley answered, “Right,” and gave the thumbs-up sign.

River trips by public officials have been used as symbolic overtures to environmentalists. In this case, Bradley’s relations with environmentalists needed attention after the damage earlier this year that resulted from his controversial approval of oil drilling in Pacific Palisades.

“If it demonstrates anything,” Houston said about the trip, “it demonstrates that the people around the mayor are concerned about these kind of (environmental) issues.”

Another Political Move

The raft trip, Bradley’s first ever, was the latest in an increasing sequence of political moves that point toward 1986 and another chance to run against incumbent Republican Gov. George Deukmejian.

Since his reelection to a fourth term as mayor, Bradley has hired several young, well-connected and politically minded new staffers. They include as the mayor’s new Westside coordinator, Donna Bojarksy, 26, vice president of New Democratic Channel, a group of activist young professionals; new environmental coordinator Bob Hartzell, 36, former aide to the late San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and a former Bradley campaign aide, and new special assistant Kerman Maddox, 30, a former aide to Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and the man largely responsible for a significant black voter turnout for the mayor’s reelection.

More recently, Bradley took it upon himself to be spokesman for California in opposition to President Reagan’s pending tax reform plan.

“Somebody in this state needs to point out the inequities,” Bradley said. “If the governor won’t do it, I and others will.”