Tucker Rolls With Punches : Politics: Compton mayor appears headed for Congress despite tumultuous past and allegations he is power hungry. Supporters say he is a man with a vision.

By the time he wrapped up his winning primary campaign for Congress last month, this is what was known about the career of Walter Rayford Tucker III:

He was an honor student at USC, had become a lawyer, a Baptist minister and then followed in his father’s footsteps to become Compton’s youngest mayor.

These things were also known: He was fired by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office and pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges after he was caught altering an official document and lying to a judge about it. During the Democratic primary, he was repeatedly portrayed as a power-hungry opportunist by his critics, including three fellow council members who took his city car away because they said he was abusing the privileges and perks of office.

Few in political circles gave him a chance of winning, and today, some still find it hard to believe he has pulled it off. This November, the only thing that stands between him and the House of Representatives is B. Kwaku Duren, a Peace and Freedom candidate who got fewer than 200 votes in the 37th District primary.

Through it all, Tucker has emerged as an extraordinary symbol of success for Compton--and say his supporters--for blacks in general.

Quick-witted, handsome and tireless, with the power to electrify people with a few fiery words, the 35-year-old Tucker is widely viewed as a role model for youth in a time when there are too few role models.

“I always thought that I have no reason not to succeed,” said Tucker, who comes from a prominent Compton family. “I was brought up in a family where we were not taught limitations. Where the sky was not the limit. I was one of those snotty-nosed kids who said he was going to be the first black President of the United States.”

Yet there are those who shudder to think Tucker is likely to be their next congressman. When they speak of him they use words like “charmed life” and ask: “How does he do it?” In Compton, where the religious currents run deep and conversations are peppered with references to the Lord, there are some who say that Tucker, with his rakish looks, sharp suits and sugar-coated speeches, may be the devil himself.

“People don’t see how he won it, but it is not for us to understand. Right or wrong, where God puts a period, I don’t put a question mark,” said Compton Councilwoman Bernice Woods, a Tucker critic. “All I know is that the devil does reign sometime.”

But Tucker supporters, who tend to speak of him with the ardor of star-struck fans, scowl at such talk.

“He represents a new breed of African-American men,” said Danny Bakewell, a prominent community leader from the Brother Crusade and a businessman. “He’s bright, he’s well-educated. He comes from a family that has done very well. He’s a come-get-it kind of guy.”

These widely disparate views of Tucker have led to contradictory predictions about his future in Congress: Either he will be the best representative this part of the country has ever seen, or he will succumb to the temptations of power.

Tucker, a friendly, talkative man, is not sure whether to be amused or offended by the notion that he is evil incarnate and on the fast track to trouble. He has succeeded, he said, because he is disciplined, determined and convinced that God meant for it to be.

“To those people who say I have a charmed life, I would say take my place in the last election and see how charmed that was,” he said, suddenly serious. “I would say my life has been blessed. God has smiled upon me. The self-confidence I have comes from the fact that I have made mistakes and that God has allowed me to rebound from those mistakes. I’ve been through a lot at a young age. How many times was I bashed about the district attorney’s office? How many times did I have to relive that mistake I made six years ago? Experience has taught me that no matter how zealous you are, you cannot do things at the expense of the rules.”

Tucker, fresh from vacation, is on his way to a Long Beach elementary school to speak about his career. As is typical, he is doing several things at once: jumping amiably from topic to topic, checking his pager, calling his law office and wondering how he is going to get all his work done.

“You never know what tomorrow will bring,” Tucker mused. “And the key is, when tomorrow comes will you be in position to take advantage of those opportunities?”

Tucker is not one to sit around and wait for opportunity. He burst upon the political scene in April, 1991, when he won a bruising election battle for his late father’s mayoral seat. He is one of the few local elected officials who pays a publicist. It is Kris R. Bailey’s job to ensure that the mayor is at center stage.

She calls Tucker a “publicist’s dream.” During the congressional campaign and the riots, she made sure Tucker was in the limelight. As mayor of a city that was hard hit by the disturbances, that was not hard to do. Compton suffered an estimated $100 million in damage and was visited by President Bush, Jesse Jackson and several top governmental officials--each of whom appeared on virtually every TV and radio station with a tired, somber but always dapper Mayor Tucker.

The constant exposure, which Tucker readily acknowledges helped him in his congressional campaign, brought him accolades as an eloquent spokesman against social injustice. It also prompted the retiring Rep. Mervyn Dymally, whose daughter ran against Tucker, to label him a “television whore” and three council members to try to strip him of his powers to speak to the press.

“I see a man racing too fast,” Compton Councilwoman Jane Robbins said after the primary. “If he really believes in this city, he wouldn’t be running for another office so fast.”

But Tucker said his victory proves that few people “bought the fallacious statement that I am abandoning the city for my own aggrandizement.

“The voters said: ‘Look, we want our own to move up. We want our own to do better and not only that, we believe (Tucker) will be able to help us more in higher office.’ ”

His mother, Martha Tucker, put it this way: “My husband felt we had waited 300 years for someone to change things (for blacks) and no one was doing it, so he decided to go into politics. My son is the same way.”

The Tuckers are a tightly knit, fiercely loyal family. To this day, Martha Tucker and three of her four adult children, including Walter Tucker and his family, share the same sprawling, elegant house not far from City Hall.

Wealthy, well-educated, glamorous and connected, the Tuckers have been described as the “Kennedys of Compton.” Tucker’s father was a dentist who stayed in Compton during the mid-70s when many successful blacks were leaving the city. A friendly, generous man, Walt Tucker was involved in civic affairs and politics for 30 years, serving twice as mayor before he died of cancer during his third term.

Martha Tucker is a former teacher and entrepreneur who runs a foundation designed to help black youths. Walter Tucker’s three siblings are success stories in their own right.

Tucker’s family and friends describe him as a “person of mastery,” who even as a boy knew what he wanted. Robin, his wife of seven years, said: “He is a man who just will not give up.”

After graduating as class valedictorian from high school, Tucker spent two years at Princeton University before transferring to USC, where he graduated with honors. He received his law degree from Georgetown Law School and came back to Compton, where he worked as a substitute teacher until he passed the Bar and went to work as a prosecutor for the district attorney.

Like the Kennedys, however, the family has not been without its problems. In 1988, the younger Tucker was charged with tampering with the date on photographs he was using as evidence in a narcotics case in an attempt to cover up the fact that he had withheld the evidence from the defense. That same year, Martha Tucker pleaded no contest to charges of real estate fraud and was ordered to pay a fine.

Martha Tucker, who is writing a book about their experiences, said she and her son were trying to help the black community--she, by encouraging property ownership, and he, by keeping drug dealers off the streets.

“Walter made a mistake, he did it wrong. . . . In my case, everything fell apart and I was left holding the bag, but the heartbeat of the community knew why we did it,” she said. “People basically knew what our intentions were and they forgave us.”

Councilwoman Patricia Moore, who was once one of Tucker’s harshest critics, now has only praise for the family and Tucker.

“That kid went through hell and back,” she said. “He went through embarrassment, disgrace, but he stayed in the community, rebuilt relations, restored his family’s name. He should be applauded for his courage. How many of us would have run and hide? To me he deserves to be congressman because he has shown such depth, strength and courage.”

Indeed, whatever political pundits may make of the man, it is evident that the voters have hopes for Walter Tucker.

He beat the odds when he won his late father’s mayoral seat in April, 1991. Three of his opponents were older, on the council, and more than willing to bring the problems of the Tucker family to the public’s attention.

His primary victory last month was a major upset given that he was running against Compton Unified School District board member Lynn Dymally for the seat long held by her father. Outspent about 4 to 1, endorsed by only two of the city’s 12 elected officials and stung again and again by hard-hitting campaign mail that rehashed his trials in the district attorney’s office, Tucker won by more than 1,000 votes.

Since he became mayor, Tucker has brought together leaders of the city’s various ethnic groups for a “unity summit.” He has established a youth commission and a youth services center, and lobbied hard to see that longstanding negotiations for a job training center would come to fruition.

Tucker, who is insatiably curious about what other people have said about him, attributes some of the criticism to jealously and says that some people may see him as snobbish because he refuses to “kiss the butt” of people he sees as “dangerous or otherwise loathsome.”

Running late, he pulls up to the elementary school, slips the portable phone in his pocket and once again takes his place at center stage.

“In life you have a lot of challenges before you and people will tell you that you can’t do things,” he tells the children.

“Some people are mean and they’ll say to you: ‘You can’t do that you’re too black.’ Some people are mean and they’ll say to you: ‘You can’t do that, you’re too white.’ Some people will say ‘you can’t do that--you’re a girl or you’re a boy.’ But you know what, you gotta know within yourself that you can. You gotta believe you can do it even when people are telling you that you can’t.”