With Riordan and Woo, You Get Too Little or Too Much

What attracts me to political writing is the drama of the campaign and the certainty of its ending.

I found that true of the just-concluded mayoral primary campaign, even though it was derided by some of my fellow pundits and a number of politicians as dull, confusing and meaningless.

Tuesday night, the misery of loss descended upon Richard Katz, Joel Wachs, Linda Griego, Nate Holden, Stan Sanders and the others who didn’t make it to the runoff.

Being a devoted follower of public opinion polls, I wasted no time visiting the election night parties of those predicted to be the losers. Instead, I went to the celebrations of the two the polls had correctly predicted would triumph, Richard Riordan and Michael Woo.

Woo and his followers partied at the Palace, a Hollywood club, their enthusiasm reduced a bit by Riordan’s strong showing. My colleague Jeff Rabin and I discussed how we had been to political parties at the Palace before. Ominously for Woo, we couldn’t recall having been there with a winner. But the crowd, not burdened with our memories, partied away.

The Riordan celebration was in a ballroom on the fourth floor of the Radisson in Sherman Oaks. As soon as I walked in, I was carried back to my early days as a political reporter covering Republican politics. Older Republican types sat around cocktail tables covered with drinks. The celebrants were from the ‘50s and ‘60s, when people ordered martinis--then called “martis”--before dinner and stingers on the rocks afterward. It all looked very early Reagan.

Just as Riordan’s party is a throwback to another era, so is the man himself.

Riordan is an old-fashioned pol who likes to wheel and deal behind the scenes. To him, things should be worked out at the highest level of politics--in the back room, one big shot to another.

If Riordan is mad at a reporter, he’ll complain to the publisher. If Riordan, an attorney, has a big case in court, he probably not only knows the judge but has been at the same parties with him.

Much of this activity takes place in the predominantly male world of corporate and legal power. Inhabitants usually don’t make speeches about what goes on there. As a result, Riordan is a comparatively inarticulate politician, and one not completely comfortable with a campaign in a city where diversity has become a guiding principle.

This was apparent the day after the primary, when Riordan spoke to African-American, Latino and Anglo supporters at the Boulevard Cafe on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in South-Central Los Angeles. Someone asked him if his Administration would be as diverse as the city.

Certainly, said Riordan, trying to turn what has been perceived as a conservative campaign into something more broad-based. His Administration will include Anglos, African-Americans, Latinos and people of every “sexual pers . . . “ At this point he stumbled, almost choking at a concept that appeared to be out of his experience. But he kept going, and by the time he had finished his answer, he got it out, promising to include people of all sexual orientations.

Woo reminds me of the people who spend New Year’s with the Clintons at Hilton Head attending policy seminars.

This is a man who loves to settle back in a wooden rocking chair and discuss the many policy alternatives confronting city government. He is entranced with process--with research, study groups, committees, meetings, well-thought-out arguments, every one of the steps that must be climbed before government reaches that exalted level so beloved by policy wonks, consensus.

Thursday, for example, he proposed dealing with L.A.’s weak economy by appointing an economic czar. The czar would reorganize city government. The reorganized city government would “send a message that we want to create more jobs.” Each step of the way, I’m sure, would produce many discussions, if not jobs.

So we’re guaranteed one ending or another to our political drama.

If Riordan is mayor, we may not know what’s going on until long after it happens.

In a Woo Administration, on the other hand, we may know too much.