‘Ethnic Politicking’: Cool It, Please

No one who closely follows politics--and that includes us--is so naive as to expect a major political campaign to be conducted in a city as ethnically diverse as Los Angeles without some appeals for votes being made on the basis of ethnicity. But at the same time, we would hope in an election year when ethnic tensions are simmering just below the surface that candidates for mayor--an important office symbolically as well as in fact--would try to temper any discussion of ethnicity.

Recently, three major candidates found out the hard way just how volatile the issue of ethnicity, and ethnic appeals for support, has become in a city that is still very much on edge as a result of last year’s riots. All three--City Councilmen Michael Woo and Joel Wachs and businessman Richard Riordan, had explanations for what was said either by them or on behalf of their campaigns. And while their explanations help provide some context, the actual words surely left many voters in this city distinctly uncomfortable.

Wachs, who is Jewish, has been criticized for a campaign mailer sent to Jewish voters in the form of a letter from his mother. The mailer poses the rhetorical questions: “ . . . is Los Angeles ready for our first Jewish mayor? Is it good for the Jews?”

Woo, who is of Chinese descent, found himself trying to explain the remarks of a top campaign aide who was quoted in an out-of-town newspaper story as dismissing Riordan’s candidacy by saying, “Los Angeles isn’t about to elect an old, rich, white Republican.”

And Riordan found his campaign doing damage control as a result of the same news story, which described his encounter with a would-be voter who said: “Black people are just awful. Don’t you think so?” To which the candidate feebly replied, “Some of them.” Although Riordan denies he made the remark, a tape recording seems to indicate he did.

Our point here is not to argue over what was or was not said, or even to join in the criticism of any of these incidents. Rather we want to express the wistful hope that every candidate in this historic race for mayor stop for just a moment to ponder the negative public reaction to the emergence of overt ethnic and racial appeals in the campaign.

Feelings are so raw in Los Angeles these days that any ethnic appeal is likely to be a no-win action for any candidate who tries it. For every voter you win over, you are likely to alienate another. And even if, as some hard-nosed political veterans surely will point out, such appeals can sometimes help a candidate win, in the end they could also make the really important job--being mayor of all Angelenos--that much more difficult.