LOCAL ELECTIONS / L.A. MAYOR : Candidates Cultivate Fine Art of the Spiel

Joel Wachs says it again and again--usually to audiences that nod in rapt agreement: “There is something fundamentally wrong in a society that gives a ballplayer $12 million and asks a teacher to take a 10% cut.”

Richard Katz goes on and on about the “downtown crowd”--except when he is downtown.

And Richard Riordan serves up generous helpings of his personal business history--with emphasis on his ownership of the popular Original Pantry restaurant.

More than a sound bite, less than a speech, the shortcut sales pitch is the bread and butter of the Los Angeles mayor’s race.

Some candidates have honed their spiels to a high art at the forums that are proliferating across the city as the April 20 primary approaches.

Listen to Katz:

“If I were to ask ‘How many of you . . . have thought about leaving Los Angeles? ‘ virtually every hand in this room would go up. Because the downtown crowd has failed us. . . . The City Council recently took $5 million from the general fund to put statues in front of public buildings. . . . Most people would rather have live cops on the street than statues of cops in front of public buildings.”

Others can’t quite seem to get the knack. Here’s Julian Nava:

“I will levy new taxes. (Groans from audience.) Hear me out. Everyone earning wages in Los Angeles would pay a tax--one-half to one percent--on their gross wages. What this would do is begin to require that the hundreds of thousands of commuters . . . help pay the cost of maintaining the infrastructure of the city of Los Angeles. This would result in tax reduction to city dwellers.”

Invariably, the pitches oversimplify. Katz, a state assemblyman, does not mention that most of the $5 million--raised by a 1% tax on major construction to pay for arts projects--pays for community arts programs, not statues.

But the spiels represent a crucial point of salesmanship in a race with too many candidates, not enough time. They also offer a crash course in who the contenders are and what they stand for.

Councilman Michael Woo bills himself as a child of immigrants who can bring the diverse and trouble city together.

“You have to be an optimist to want to be mayor of this city at this time. The middle class wants to move out. The economy is sputtering and ethnic groups are pitted against each other. But . . . I want to be the leader who turns this city around.

“I am a native of Los Angeles. I am the first member of my (family) to be born in this country. My parents and grandparents came to this city because they thought L.A. was a city of hope and a city of opportunity. After I am finished in my time as mayor, I want to be remember e d as the mayor who made this city a city of hope and opportunity again.”

Political consultant Richard Lichtenstein said a spiel can carry a double whammy if it helps a candidate while hurting his rivals. “It’s an attempt to identify yourself and pigeonhole one of your opponents into a particular arena,” Lichtenstein said. “When Richard Katz talks about the downtown crowd, he can encompass not only the City Council but Riordan.”

Jay Severin, Wachs’ campaign strategist, added: “In a multicandidate field, you can’t afford to be out there with 15 messages. There is a central theme to every campaign.

“You repeat it. You repeat it. You repeat it. If you want to talk about more police, you talk about more police. If the question is about migratory water fowl, you answer by saying, ‘I’m glad you asked that question because it reminds me of the need for more police.’ ”

In that respect, Councilman Ernani Bernardi may be the most focused of the lot. Known as tight-fisted naysayer on the council, Bernardi places all of his emphasis on a single target: the Community Redevelopment Agency.

“The CRA was intended to remove blight. Instead, it’s turned out to be a community tax rip-off.

“In the Bunker Hill and Central City projects alone, they’re taking away $400 million. Every one of those dollars that the CRA takes away means the city doesn’t get the property taxes, the Board of Education doesn’t get those property taxes and the county doesn’t get those property taxes.”

Tom Houston, a former deputy mayor who has drawn notice with provocative statements on illegal immigration, fights to break out of the pack of 24 by casting himself as the one candidate bold enough to tell it like it really is.

“I am the candidate in this campaign who’s taking concerns and issues that we talk about in the privacy of our dining room and putting them right in the middle of a political campaign.

“I opened the campaign by pointing out the burden on our schools, health care facilities, police protection and competition for jobs that’s caused by the presence of 700,000 illegal immigrants that the federal government has allowed and encouraged to locate in Los Angeles County. What I have said to federal government is you can give us our taxpayer dollars back here.

“I have spoken out on gangs and taken a lot of criticism on that. I have said that when we know a person who is both a gang member and an illegal alien, what in the world is wrong with picking them up and putting them through deportation proceedings? “

A number of the candidates focus on rags to riches stories as a lead-in to key portions of their mayoral platforms.

Linda Griego, a former deputy mayor:

“I used to climb telephone poles for a living. . . . I’ve spent my career in business. I know the problems because I have been on the other side of the counter, struggling with the city bureaucracy. “

Nick Patsaouras, who came to the United States from Greece and became a millionaire businessman:

“I’ve confronted adversity all my life. I came here as a young boy. I raised a family. I am a homeowner. I am a businessman who understands that technology is our future. Technology is going to lead us to economic recovery.”

Stan Sanders, attorney:

“I was born in this city in Watts and am a product of the public schools. I went to Oxford as a Rhodes scholar . . . . I think I am the best example of what the unified school district attempts to do.”

Councilman Nate Holden--sometimes referring to himself in the third person--depicts himself as an experienced governmental insider.

“No one (else) has served in the (state) Senate. No one has ever been a consultant to the U.S. Commission on Government Procurement as I have. No one’s spent 13 years on the staff of Supervisor Kenneth Hahn . . . . Nate Holden had the courage--unlike all the other candidates running--to run four years ago and tell the people in the city of Los Angeles what was wrong then and what is wrong now.”

Riordan, a multimillionaire attorney and former city commissioner, takes the opposite tack, trying to showcase himself as a can-do outsider.

“I’m a successful person. I think there’s nothing wrong in this country with being successful . That’s who you want to run your city . . . . Ask the politicians: Where have they been the last 10 years?”