Dills, 84, Mines Old Gold of Humor in Primary Race

Decked in white slacks, a sport coat and bow tie, state Sen. Ralph Dills (D-Gardena), whose district includes Venice, Westchester and Marina del Rey, plays a saxophone in a black-and-white billboard photo.

The slogan: “Too Old to Quit.”

This is the 84-year-old lawmaker’s opening salvo in his June 7 primary campaign. It could be the toughest race in his Sacramento career, which dates to the 1930s. Two of his opponents, Torrance Councilman George Nakano and Venice attorney Mike Sidley, say he has been in Sacramento so long that he has lost touch with voters.

“Instead of ducking the issue, we made it a positive,” said Tim Mock, Dills’ local campaign manager and coordinator. “We’ve had a very good response.”

The same ad is featured in campaign mailers, which outlines Dills’ record and includes quotes such as “I’ve played sax a lot longer than Bill Clinton’s been alive.”

The ad “is an opening line, a ‘Hi, how are you?’ ” said Richard Ross, Dills’ campaign consultant. “People smile. That’s all it’s intended to do.”

For many voters, Dills is a brand-new candidate. Because of redistricting, his Gardena-area 30th District was carved up, forcing him to run in the newly formed 28th District, which also includes Torrance, Carson, Compton and Wilmington.

The ad “is a preemptive strike,” said Rick Rosenthal, Sidley’s campaign manager. “But I’m really wondering if he plays better or worse than Bill Clinton.”

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GLENN ANDERSON, WATCH WHAT YOU DO: Former President Richard Nixon may have resuscitated his reputation and emerged as an elder statesman before his death last week, but he never got his freeway back.

In 1971, state lawmakers named Route 90, running from the San Diego Freeway west into Marina del Rey, in honor of their favorite son. The 2.5-mile Richard M. Nixon Freeway was to have been much longer, stretching from Marina del Rey to Yorba Linda, Nixon’s birthplace. But the project never got off the ground.

And by 1976, with Nixon in political exile and tarnished by Watergate, state lawmakers voted to take his name off the route and simply call it the Marina Freeway.

State lawmakers “quietly eased it out,” said Caltrans spokeswoman Patricia Reid. According to news clippings from that period, local Chamber of Commerce officials requested the name change, and state lawmakers complied.

Nixon’s name still is associated with the roadway, however, but far from the Westside. Locals in Yorba Linda still call a very short stretch of Route 90 through town the Nixon Freeway. Even so, most maps refer to it by its official name: Imperial Highway.

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NESSIE SURFS MALIBU: Malibu environmental activist Mary Frampton has received hundreds of calls from marine enthusiasts in the three years since establishing the Dolphin Watch telephone hot line. But none like one this week.

“Uh, I’m out here at Zuma (Beach) and I’m seeing something really strange,” reported a caller named Bob. “It’s got a long eel-like neck and bows its head up. It looks like . . . the Loch Ness Monster.”

Whoa, dude! Like, it really could be Nessy. Last month, researchers in Britain debunked that famous picture of the whatever-it-is poking its serpentine neck out of a lake in Scotland. Turned out to be a 12-inch-high model made of plastic wood and a toy submarine purchased in a Woolworth’s. So, we hereby christen the legend of the Loch Pacific Monster. Anyone got a number for the National Enquirer?