Sanders Walking to Get in the Running in Mayoral Race

What do you do when there are 78 days until Election Day and nobody seems to know your name?

Mayoral candidate Stan Sanders, known by few of those responding to recent polls, took to the streets Tuesday in a walking tour he dubbed “Around L.A. in 80 Days.”

The former All-American football star and Rhodes scholar, who is attempting to jump-start a campaign that has little time and a lot of rivals, started where his life story began--in Watts.

Rolling up the sleeves of his monogrammed shirt, the downtown attorney who grew up in Watts gave high fives to homeboys at the Jordan Downs housing project, encouraged a young girl to stay in school and tried to announce in broken Spanish to a group of Latinos that he was running for mayor--although the word mayor escaped him.

“The only public officials we get here is police,” said a young man who called himself Melo J. He was one of many who shook Sanders’ hand, posed for a photograph and chatted approvingly of the candidate passing through.

Sanders, a member of the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission, also met skeptics while navigating the project’s 50 acres, a place that has seen politicians come and go--usually for quick news conferences and photo opportunities.

“Nobody really cares about us here,” said Dorothy Toliver, who has lived in Jordan Downs since the mid-1960s. “They say, ‘I’m going to do this and that,’ but once they’re elected they forget about you.”

Sanders said the tour--which will move on to the San Fernando Valley, East Los Angeles, the Westside and other areas--will highlight his campaign theme of healing the ailing city by crossing its imaginary lines.

“I have Establishment credentials but I also have homeboy credentials,” said Sanders, 50, who grew up a few miles from the projects. “Somebody told me that being from Watts and being a Rhodes scholar is an oxymoron. Well, that’s my background.”

That background is what Sanders is hoping will give his campaign life. Short on cash and widely considered a promising second-tier candidate, Sanders is relying on his life story--along with planned fund-raisers sponsored by notables such as comedian Bill Cosby and singer Natalie Cole--to carry him past April’s primary to the runoff in June.

His polling data indicates that voters respond favorably when told of his background, education and campaign theme. But the polls also show that few people have heard of Sanders.

Even in the African-American community, Sanders is largely an enigma who has yet to win wide support. Many leaders are waiting to sign on with a winner and privately question Sanders’ viability against better-known rivals in the field of 52--such as Councilmen Michael Woo, Joel Wachs, and Nate Holden, Assemblyman Richard Katz and businessman Richard Riordan.

Kerman Maddox, a black political consultant, said that although Sanders has a lot of catching up to do, the April 20 primary is still a long way off in the minds of most voters.

“Other than political junkies and the insiders, nobody is really paying attention to the mayor’s race,” said Maddox, who is not affiliated with any mayoral campaign. “Most people are paying attention to the Rodney King case, not the mayor’s race. That’s an advantage to people like Stan Sanders.”

As Sanders sought to increase his visibility Tuesday, he challenged his rivals to come out of their candidates’ forums and into some of the city’s neediest neighborhoods.

With a population that is 75% black and 25% Latino, Jordan Downs struggles with gang activity (which has dropped since a post-riot truce), drug dealing and poverty. Its residents complain of high crime, police harassment and a lack of job opportunities.

Although they are eager for resources, they do not necessarily look forward to a horde of mayoral candidates suddenly discovering Watts.

“The thing with the residents is they don’t want to be talked down to,” said Cynthia Leggs-Jones, a 20-year resident who gave Sanders his tour. “They want to be treated like everyone else. We don’t need politicians that are going to come in and make promises. We need some who will stick to their promises.”