Tom Hayden

* Oh, terrific. Tom Hayden has decided on an eleventh-hour whim to run for governor as a “messenger” of political reform (Feb. 10). What nonsense. Hayden, who has spent the past 12 years in Sacramento, is part of the problem, not part of the solution. Hayden is a classic “pol” of the old school; anyone who thinks he is a “political reformer” should talk to state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal or Cathy O’Neill, Hayden’s opponents in the 1992 Democratic state senatorial primary, who were the victims of one of the most vicious negative campaigns in recent memory.

Hayden’s quixotic decision to run for governor has much less to do with “reform” than it does with grandstanding. Those with acute political memories may recall Hayden pulling the same stunt in 1976 by waging a sleazy and negative campaign against then-U.S. Sen. John V. Tunney. Then, as now, Hayden had no realistic chance of winning, but by crippling Tunney in the Democratic primary, Hayden paved the way for S.I. Hayakawa to doze through six years in the Senate. This time, Hayden’s ego trip threatens to turn what already was shaping up as a slugfest between state Treasurer Kathleen Brown and Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi into yet another example of ritualistic Democratic Party political suicide.

JAMES P. CLARK

Los Angeles

* If Tom Hayden is running for governor on a campaign reform platform, I’ll vote for him. I’d vote for him anyway. He’s a spoiler? What’s to spoil? All the other candidates would run their office according to the sources that filled their campaign war chests; probably the same sources.

V. JEAN CLELLAND

Santa Monica