Bradley Stands, Yaroslavsky Falls, and Issues Seem Not to Matter at All

So Zev Yaroslavsky has decided not to challenge Mayor Tom Bradley after all. No one doubts the immediate reason. Yaroslavsky sat down with his advisers and read the polls, which showed that he would lose, and so badly that it would likely even damage future plans.

The question is why would the polls be so bad that the candidate who was thought to have the best chance of challenging Bradley, and who had already raised $1.5 million for that effort, could not even get his campaign off the ground?

For at least part of the answer, one need only look back to the last time Yaroslavsky received this much publicity--when certain memos written by Berman & D’Agostino Campaigns (BAD) advising him exactly how he could beat Tom Bradley were disclosed. Assuming the plans outlined in the memos were in fact the guiding light for the Yaroslavsky effort, important clues are evident. The fact that the advice did not work offers substantial insight into what makes this city tick and moves its people.

Of course, it may be that the biggest problem for the “campaign” was the disclosure of the memos themselves. BAD obviously violated the first rule that campaign workers follow--don’t become an issue yourself. But the release of the memoranda was probably not decisive. Politicians have overcome worse.

The first flawed premise in the memos is that a candidate can shed his old image like a cocoon, can emerge as a new and improved politician, and that all of this can be accomplished in short order. BAD recommended that Yaroslavsky adopt an unwavering “slow-growth” position. He was, in short, to become a “tree hugger.” Indeed, he had to “hug every tree, moon every mountain and stop every building . . . between now and June, 1989.”

That was true even though the perception up to then was that he had not been a “tree hugger” by any means. They acknowledged that Yaroslavsky was probably better classified as “pro-development.” BAD recommended that all he need do is plead that he has learned from his mistakes. The transformation could be completed between May, 1988, and June, 1989.

This would be a difficult task under any scenario. While the voters may not be keenly interested in the campaign process, they are not so stupid as to passively accept that the change is genuine. Pulling it off in the year building up to the election is just that much more difficult.

To the extent that the candidate is looking for the right issue to run with, there is little evidence that the proposed “Vision for the 21st Century” was the right vision. They recommended that Yaroslavsky adopt the vision that:

“Los Angeles has too much traffic, too much smog and too many people. Our parents (or we) came to L.A. to live in the best place on Earth. Our children have a right to enjoy Los Angeles, too. Enough is enough.”

The points are correct as a quantitative matter. But they are not the kind of issues that would sweep Yaroslavsky in. Los Angeles has in large part put up with smog and traffic all through Bradley’s tenure. The fact that smog and public-transit deficiencies have remained so long is evidence that they are not driving issues.

As for pulling up the ladder from those who seek to move here, not only does it fail as a policy matter, it probably would not sell. Los Angeles has been the land of opportunity for so many. It also has been built on free-market forces. This policy would be well out of the mainstream. And for a candidate trying to follow the trend, out of the mainstream is a bad place to be.

Further, the displaced nature of the population works against a slow-growth philosophy. People moving into Los Angeles and seeing mini-malls for the first time might think that they are ugly and peculiar, but they would assume that it’s simply the way things are done here. By the time they figure out that they are experiencing a process that is still unfolding and could be stopped, it’s too late.

What Yaroslavsky needed to complete his vision was an idea of where we are going. Only the most strident anti-growth advocates support no growth. The goal should not to be to stop but to plan.

Moreover, if issues matter, there are bigger issues out there. Quality-of-life issues such as slow growth, for better or worse, typically are ones that people consider critical only after other more fundamental concerns are resolved. Unless they become a crisis, worrying about them is the luxury of a very affluent society. It presumably matters little to parents of children killed by gangs in South-Central Los Angeles that Westside BMWs are stuck in traffic in front of the Beverly Center or whether there are shops on the bridge at the Westside Pavilion. The BAD memos do not address fundamental issues like housing or crime.

A similarly false assumption might be that issues mattered at all. Another statement in the BAD memoranda is that the person who is right on the issues would win.

Again, there is little evidence that this was an issue-driven campaign. Indeed, people here seem to subscribe to the same political attitudes that have swept the nation. These are selfish times, where self-interest has been elevated to an acceptable political philosophy. The focus is on the short term. If something requires personal sacrifice, forget it. If it involves the future, let’s think about it then.

The leaders people prefer these days do not speak with great clarity about the big issues that face this city. Rather, successful politicians are those who voters can feel good about, who seem to be healers, sympathetic, kind, and, within the confines of politics, who can be trusted.

With that attitude, it is no surprise that Tom Bradley virtually is invincible. There have been accomplishments. The city has boomed, perhaps despite itself. He has revitalized downtown, brought us the Olympics and rebuilt the airport. More important, he has held the many factions of the city together.

But 50 years from now, the history books may write this about the Bradley era: Los Angeles prospered, achieved bigness and probably greatness, and reached its apex during those years; it was as though it was blind to the major problems that were just around the corner.

Given a choice though between a soothing leader and a person with a vision for the future that involves facing important realities and making tough decisions, most people, at least right now, would choose the former. Particularly if the candidate’s vision is not much of a vision to start with. The BAD memos did not see that either.