L.A. MAYOR’S RACE : Riordan Camp Plays Its Dirtiest Trick

Political dirty tricks have never offended me much.

I’m often surprised at the outrage from reformers and some of my more fastidious colleagues when one candidate hits another below the belt. I learned to appreciate this side of politics from a trickster named Dick Tuck, who worked for former Gov. Pat Brown and the Kennedys. Tuck delivered a sneak punch with panache.

Tuck’s most famous tricks were directed at Richard Nixon when he ran against Brown in 1962. When Nixon’s train stopped in San Luis Obispo during a whistle-stop tour, Tuck put on a conductor’s uniform. Acting as if he were in charge, Tuck ordered the train to pull out of the station while Nixon stood on the observation car platform delivering his speech.

Nixon didn’t forget. Years after losing to Brown, he recruited his own dirty tricks crew. But they lacked Tuck’s style and humor, and the result of their heavy-handed tactics was Watergate.

And so, when I encountered the dirtiest trick so far of the mayoral campaign Thursday night, I viewed it not with outrage, but with the critical and amused appreciation of a student of the genre.

It took place in the unlikely setting of a synagogue, Congregation Shaarei Tefila, a few blocks west of Fairfax Avenue, where candidates Richard Riordan and Michael Woo met in a debate.

The synagogue was full. The Fairfax district is highly political and the crowd showed none of the apathy toward the campaign that is seen in other parts of the city.

Things got suspicious when the moderator, City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, asked for questions from the audience.

People rushed toward the microphones and lined up, waiting for Yaroslavsky to call on them. It looked like a typical neighborhood political meeting.

Only later was I told by a longtime member of Shaarei Tefila that the overwhelming number of these men and women were neither members of the congregation nor residents of the neighborhood. Outsiders had taken over the microphones, making it all but impossible for others to speak.

Only later did those seated nearby recall that the strangers were passing notes among themselves. To those of us in the business of tracking down dirty tricks, this was prima facie evidence of a conspiracy.

With one exception, the “questioners” hurled insults at Woo. Rarely have I heard such hostility from the audience at an election debate.

A woman who said she was from Studio City decried the way Woo represented the community when it was in his district. “Thank God Zev Yaroslavsky took over,” she said, referring to her new councilman. Woo replied that when he ran for reelection in the district four years ago, he got 90% of the vote. “Try it now,” the woman said. “You wouldn’t get two votes.”

A man said that the city has been run by a Democratic mayor and a Democratic City Council and is a mess. “Don’t you think we ought to give a Republican a chance?” he asked. Riordan is a Republican.

Parenthetically, the man noted that he “had driven in from the Valley and I was afraid to go through Hollywood,” the heart of Woo’s council district.

Another questioner asked Woo: “Are you going to be an absentee mayor as you were an absentee council member?” Woo had the last word on that one. He replied that Riordan, when a Recreation and Parks commission member, had the worst attendance of any member of that body.

One woman insisted on reading a letter from the Mattel toy company criticizing Woo. The letter denied Woo’s charge that Riordan had wiped out hundreds of jobs when he helped reorganize the firm. Yaroslavsky demanded that she ask a question. She ignored him. Finally, she concluded by saying: “Mr. Riordan, you ought to let people know about this letter.”

Yaroslavsky, recognizing that the question period had been taken over by the Riordan camp, remarked sarcastically, “He just did.”

Afterward, the press congratulated one of the Riordan aides for a job well done. Brilliant advance work. One of the great dirty tricks. Where did you find those people?

Outraged, he denied that the Riordan campaign had anything to do with it. The questioners, he said, were neighbors, Shaarei Tefila congregants. It was pointed out to him that nobody had seen them around the synagogue before. In the tradition of all dirty tricksters, he stuck to his story.

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I mentioned earlier that only one questioner seemed as if she was not part of the pro-Riordan contingent. She asked Riordan why there aren’t more mayoral debates on commercial television. Woo has accused Riordan of ducking such encounters. Riordan sidestepped the question, saying he was afraid the public would get sick of him and Woo before the election.

I doubt that. Certainly, Thursday night’s debate at Shaarei Tefila should have been on TV. The worst trick you can play on dirty tricksters is to expose their antics to the public.