Mayor Riordan

* “GOP Activists Disillusioned With Riordan” (May 16) gives too much credence to a few right-wing kooks with access to a button-making machine. Republicans know that the election of Mayor Richard Riordan is the best thing to happen to Los Angeles since they removed the diamond lane!

Riordan’s victory, along with Rudy Giuliani’s in New York City, has breathed life back into campaigns in urban areas for our Grand Old Party. For Republicans to concede urban America to the Democrats would be suicide for our party--yet it is a strategy that some narrow-minded Neanderthals seem bent on pursuing.

When right-wing extremist Celeste Grieg criticizes Riordan (along with other Republicans she disagrees with) for failing to meet her self-anointed litmus test, doesn’t Grieg truly become the one who is “Republican in Name Only”?

TED GREEN

Los Angeles

* GOP activist Grieg, who claims Mayor Riordan is a Republican in name only, is quoted as saying, “Either you are a Republican or a Democrat, but you can’t be in between.” Why not?

JOHN WILCOCK

Topanga

* I have noticed that conservative Republicans always seem to be dissatisfied with the elected officials from their own party. Please recall the hostility toward Gov. Pete Wilson and how they attacked President Bush before they realized he was going to lose.

Perhaps one day they will realize, as I did, that many of their ideas just do not work. Life is hard work; it’s time for these people to get a grip on reality.

RICHARD MARCHER

La Mirada