Talking Tough : Politics: Riordan is using GOP tactics and hitting GOP targets in the officially nonpartisan mayor’s race. Observers say the strategy may win him a crucial segment of the April 20 vote, but it could work against him in a runoff.

Mayoral candidate Richard Riordan was bashing all the right people the other day, and the sixtysomething members of the North Hollywood Republican Women’s club were eating it up.

When he knocked “brain-dead bureaucrats,” they smiled. When he promised to go after criminals, their heads bobbed in approval. When he called for deporting illegal immigrants arrested for serious crimes, they applauded.

“I definitely think he’d make a great mayor,” said Lorrie Spratt, a Sherman Oaks homemaker and part-time accountant who heard the multimillionaire lawyer and venture capitalist at a luncheon this week sponsored by the women’s group.

“I like that he’s a businessman and I think he’d be tough in L.A. And I think we’ve needed that for a long time.”

The only major GOP candidate in the officially nonpartisan mayoral race, Riordan downplayed the significance to his campaign of attracting Republicans, who make up 25% of the city’s 1.3 million registered voters. He said he is reaching out to Democrats and Perot-minded independents as well.

But political observers said Riordan clearly is courting Republicans, who could propel him into the June 8 runoff election if they back him in large enough numbers. With 24 candidates in the race, some analysts say as little as 17% of the vote may be enough to make it past the April 20 primary.

“He’s playing the Republican card for all it’s worth,” said GOP political consultant Paul Clarke of Northridge.

Indeed, Riordan’s campaign seems straight out of the GOP election playbook, emphasizing tough anti-crime measures, knocking down bureaucratic obstacles to business and holding the line on taxes. His campaign slogan: “Tough Enough to Turn L.A. Around.”

At coffee klatches with supporters this week, Riordan aides warmed up the audience with a fast-paced video carrying frightening images of helmeted police taking cover from a suspected sniper and firefighters struggling to control blazes during last year’s rioting.

“L.A. is a city in turmoil,” intoned the narrator. “Our city has sadly become a violent and bloody town, no longer a civic dream factory of one’s imagination.” After the tape finished, Riordan promised to put 3,000 more police officers on the streets, in part by leasing LAX to a private operator--a move some complain could diminish the city’s control over the airport’s impact on the surrounding community.

Riordan also has been spending two hours each day walking door to door to talk with voters, often in precincts in the San Fernando Valley and San Pedro areas, home to many of the city’s 339,000 Republicans. He touches on the specter of crime often.

“You get any crime here?” he asked a retiree outside her home in Tujunga this week in a comfortable, hillside neighborhood heavy with Republican voters. “The main thing is making L.A. safe.”

In a recent mailing to GOP voters, Riordan included an endorsement from Tirso Del Junco, the new chairman of the California Republican Party, hailing Riordan as a man who is “tough enough to stand up for public safety, economic growth and fiscal responsibility.”

After speaking to voters at a Canoga Park house meeting, Riordan said: “What I think people are looking for is a tough problem-solver. They’re not looking for a consensus builder.”

He said he was referring to Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo, a Democrat who many observers think may be Riordan’s runoff opponent. Woo has cultivated liberals, African-Americans and Asian-Americans, and early polls have shown him leading the race.

Riordan likes to depict himself as a champion of the middle class.

“I can’t help poor people by disenfranchising the middle class,” Riordan said. “Because you’ll destroy the city and you’ll have nothing left to help the poor people.”

But some observers believe Riordan faces a serious dilemma: While GOP votes could help boost him into the runoff, his party affiliation could become good ammunition for a Democratic opponent in a city as heavily Democratic as Los Angeles. Almost 62% of the city’s voters are registered Democrats.

“I think it’s the kiss of death for Dick Riordan to become the Republican in this race,” said Democratic political consultant Rick Taylor.

On the stump this week, Riordan--whose corporate ventures have left him with an estimated $100 million in assets--often emphasized his business prowess, citing his efforts to return the Mattel toy company and Adohr Farms dairy firm to financial soundness.

But sometimes he got the biggest reaction when he mentioned his ownership of the Original Pantry, an all-night diner downtown.

“Oh, gosh, I love that place!” gushed Gretchen Boyd, a retired hospital receptionist who met Riordan outside her Tujunga home.

Fueled by Riordan’s enormous personal wealth, his campaign moves with brisk efficiency. He recently signed over a $1-million personal check to his campaign and, earlier this week, mailed thousands of copies of a 64-page, full-color booklet outlining his positions to voters across the city.

As he marched from door to door in Tujunga, Riordan was accompanied by three aides, including one who called voters to their front doors before Riordan arrived and another who jotted down their ideas about reforming government after he moved on.

A number of voters--Republicans and Democrats alike--seemed receptive to him as he moved quickly among their neatly tended homes, cooing at a baby and driving neighborhood dogs insane.

“I read your booklet yesterday and I was very impressed,” said Jacqueline Magnie, a self-described conservative Democrat who chatted with Riordan as she stood in her driveway feeding her newborn daughter.

Other Democrats gave him a cooler reception.

“I’m turning against Riordan,” said Hanna Sonnabend, a retired social worker, who engaged in a polite tiff with the candidate over whether Los Angeles’ high unemployment rate was caused more by crime or the poor economy.

A Riordan aide said the candidate also is aiming for many of the 143,000 Angelenos who voted for Ross Perot last November.

Riordan bankrolled a City Hall term-limits initiative, and more than 300,000 voters signed petitions to put it on the April 20 ballot. Although he has been a city commissioner and his law firm has held numerous contracts for government legal work, Riordan hopes to use the measure to cast himself as an incumbent-bashing outsider.

But it was something else that impressed the one Perot voter Riordan met in Tujunga, a short, ponytailed man named Willie Huffman who makes his living washing windows and doing other odd jobs.

“If he’s worth $100 million, he could probably get a limousine. But he’s out burning shoe leather,” said Huffman. “I think that’s pretty dang cool.”