Bradley’s TV Speech Draws Mixed Reviews : NEWS ANALYSIS

It wasn’t a sound bite. It was a sound blob.

Mayor Tom Bradley on Wednesday did what all politicians want to do in times of political crisis:

He went directly to the people via live television in an attempt to put behind him questions about his leadership and judgment--in this case, the question of whether Bradley improperly mixed city business with his personal finances.

But even presidents try to hold such efforts to 30 minutes, and five minutes is considered by political consultants to be a test of the viewer’s patience.

Bradley, in remarks carried in their entirety on the three network affiliates, read from the TelePrompTer for 40 minutes.

“You won’t need No-Doz tonight, you already got it,” said a Democratic political consultant who watched the Bradley address.

Could that strategy have backfired on Bradley as he attempted--to use his own words--”to put this matter behind us”?

City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, a longtime Bradley critic, thought it might have.

“I think Joe Six-Pack switched to Channel 9,” Yaroslavsky said, referring to the fact that the independent stations chose to stick with their regular programming.

Still, Bradley got something that hasn’t been seen in Los Angeles for some time--if ever: a local politician getting to explain himself for as long as he wanted on the three stations with the most viewers as they opened their evening news shows.

“In one way, it was a brilliant move,” said the Democratic consultant, who requested anonymity. “Bradley has his say before anybody gets the interpretation from TV news or has it filtered for them in Thursday’s newspapers.”

But a different interpretation also emerged.

“A politician who spends 40 minutes on TV saying he doesn’t have a problem must look to the average TV viewer like a guy with a problem,” another Democrat said.

Financial Matters

For much of the day, the news was dominated by the announcement that City Atty. James K. Hahn would not charge Bradley with criminal conduct in a variety of potential conflicts of interest and other questions raised by the mayor’s personal financial dealings.

Hahn’s investigation of the mayor had placed his own political career in question.

Reared on politics by his father, longtime Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, James Hahn is seen almost universally in the political community as a potential hot property.

Tall and telegenic, the 39-year-old Hahn has been city attorney since 1985. His father thinks he’ll be governor or even President one day.

But James Hahn’s critics have sometimes called him a “lightweight riding on his old man’s name,” and they have questioned whether he has the toughness and resourcefulness to rise in politics--or to conduct a major investigation.

The probe of Bradley was an opportunity for Hahn to show something.

And some thought he did.

While choosing not to file criminal charges against the mayor, Hahn said in his report Wednesday that his conclusions were “no vindication of the mayor’s conduct.”

The afternoon newspaper headlines screamed, “Hahn Faults Bradley” and “Hahn Sues Bradley.”

Tough Report

A Democratic lawyer who does business with the city said: “The thing I love about Hahn’s report on Bradley is that it is so tough, so thorough and so well-reasoned in its language that there is no way Bradley’s critics can attack it. And that helps Jimmy as well.”

But there was another opinion on this too, as there always is in politics.

“Did you see it?” asked a city councilman who spoke on condition he not be named. “The whole Hahn report is nothing but a pile of newspaper clippings.”

Actually, there were some documents too, and Hahn conducted scores of interviews with the principals.

But he is bound to be criticized--if only privately--for not finding more than he did.

Some City Hall-watchers said they thought Hahn was under pressure to find something indictable on Bradley, given all of the revelations that have popped out over the months and all of Bradley’s attempts to explain himself.

Instead, Hahn simply filed a civil suit against Bradley for failing to report some personal investments, as required of all public officials by the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

That kind of negligence is not uncommon among state and federal officials, and sometimes it is a genuine oversight, as Bradley argued his was.

Hahn said he concluded that there was no evidence to persuade a jury that Bradley broke laws.

All political professionals interviewed Wednesday agreed that unless Bradley is indicted, he will not be forced to prematurely end his fifth term as mayor, which is up in 1993.

“I think there has been a broad and deep reservoir of support for Tom Bradley in this city, and I think his speech tonight was a way of starting to refill it,” City Councilman Michael Woo said.

No Chance

But as for the 71-year-old Bradley’s winning another term in 1993, no political professional thought there was a chance of that.

“The story now is not Bradley’s political future--he doesn’t have one,” Democratic consultant Paul Ambrosino said. “The question now is how effectively can he lead the city at a time when it faces so many problems. A politician in his situation almost needs some major crisis to solve so that the attention of the press and the voters can switch to that and he can demonstrate great leadership.”

In the press conference after his televised address, the mayor would brook no talk of being a lame duck.

He pointed out that two weeks ago he went to Sacramento and helped defeat an attempt to weaken local restrictions on truck traffic during rush hour.

“That’s a pretty good example of wielding power,” said Bradley with a big smile.

The mayor has acknowledged that his employment with Far East National Bank and Valley Federal Savings and Loan did not look proper and raised questions about his integrity, something he has prided himself on in 47 years as police officer, city councilman and mayor.

So it was not surprising that when the talk turned to integrity near the end of the press conference, Bradley became flustered for the first time in his hot hour under the TV lights.

And right after that, the press conference was over.