A Quick Change From Candidate to Mayor-Elect

At 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, not 15 minutes after he delivered his victory speech to the tune of “Accentuate the Positive,” Richard Riordan got started on his first day as mayor-elect of Los Angeles.

First he gave interviews to all the morning news shows on major TV networks. Then he went to bed at 1:30 a.m. in his Biltmore Hotel suite, only to get up at 6:30 a.m. to a breakfast of oatmeal and bananas. He read the morning papers, then he took a congratulatory call from the White House. After that, he arranged a meeting with the governor and held a news conference, promising to heal the city.

About noon, a reporter asked him if he had expected this to be such a hectic day.

“Oh, this isn’t busy. I’ve had much busier days,” he said at City Hall, his Ford Explorer waiting outside on Spring Street--parked in a red zone.

All in all, this looked like a different Dick Riordan than the candidate on the campaign trail. As he stepped into the national spotlight to become one of the most visible figures in American politics, gone was the cautious, halting speech. Gone were the pregnant pauses while he consulted his handlers before answering a question. Gone was the exaggerated, punched-up delivery of a man talking in sound bites. Gone, it seemed, was his cosmetic obsession on the campaign trail: pancake makeup.

He seemed ebullient, focused, Mr. Take Charge as he took the podium at the Biltmore at 10 a.m. and addressed the city as mayor-elect, promising to take steps immediately to unite Los Angeles.

The city may have gone to sleep Tuesday night disgusted by one of the nastiest municipal campaigns in memory, but it woke to a clean slate, a new leader who is virtually unknown, full of mystery and possibility, a wildly successful businessman who had never before sought elected office and hit the jackpot his first time out.

“It’s the end of something, but we don’t know what it’s the beginning of,” said Raphael Sonenshein, professor of political science at Cal State Fullerton and an expert on Los Angeles politics. “That’s filled with possibilities, but it’s also filled with problems. He could be a breath of fresh air. He could be full of hot air.”

Riordan spent $6 million of his own money to win this office and he accepted it with engines revving.

He promptly realigned himself with President Bill Clinton, whom he had bashed after Clinton gave his tepid endorsement to Michael Woo. “The President is getting too many knocks,” Riordan told “Good Morning America.” “He’s the only President we’re going to have for the next four years, so we ought to get behind him.”

He mended fences with Woo: “Mike Woo . . . offered to help me unite the city, and I am going to take him up on that,” he told “Good Morning America.”

And he renewed his promise on “The Today Show” to get out of City Hall if he breaks his promise to put 3,000 more police officers on the street.

Then he went to bed.

When he woke up five hours later, he was still mayor-elect. His dream was no dream. He dressed in a crisp blue suit and headed out to get the morning paper. He wondered if someone would recognize him as he passed a crowd wandering the Biltmore’s halls. They ignored him. Closer inspection revealed that they were Japanese tourists. He bought his paper, and the man behind the counter asked for his autograph.

“That made my day,” he happily confided.

Then he was off to City Hall to meet with the man he will replace in 22 days.

Riordan and Tom Bradley chatted for half an hour, mapping out transition plans. Bradley endorsed neither Riordan nor Woo and refused to disclose his vote. But he seemed clearly comfortable with his successor, promising to personally pass the baton when Riordan takes office July 1.

“This is an exciting experience for anyone taking over the office of mayor, and in these times, it will be even more difficult than in the past,” Bradley told reporters.

Most of Bradley’s sage words were imparted in private. “Not for public consumption.”

The day’s agenda was ticked off, stop by stop. Lunch with rank-and-file police officers at Parker Center. Back to the office to work on the transition team. A stolen catnap or two in the Explorer. Back to Parker Center for a late-afternoon meeting with officials.

“Congratulations,” Police Chief Willie L. Williams said, ushering him into his sixth-floor suite. The chief, the mayor-elect and the head of Riordan’s transition team talked for an hour and a half about stretching money and deployment and about Riordan’s meeting today with the governor and legislative leadership in Sacramento.

“I’m very impressed with the chief,” Riordan said afterward, leaning against the Formica counter of the Original Pantry, his downtown diner, where campaign staffers had gathered.

“He’s got a lot of good ideas,” Riordan said. But before he could enumerate them, he was surrounded by a crush of red-eyed campaign employees. Riordan glanced at the door. In just a few minutes, he said, he was going home to let out the dogs and go to sleep.

As Riordan puts together an Administration, the nation will be trying to understand why a city full of Democrats and people of color is sending a white Republican millionaire to City Hall.

But as far as the political analysts are concerned, there is something exciting in the air in this troubled town. “They wanted a change in Los Angeles,” Joe Cerrell said of voters. “There is a lot of excitement and a lot of hope.”

Times staff writer Shawn Hubler contributed to this story.