Mayor’s Race Focuses Intently on Latino Vote

As Mayor Richard Riordan and state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) stump for the right to lead Los Angeles for the next four years, each moves with assurance and confidence in the city’s Latino community, a constituency whose political clout is growing with each election.

Hayden campaigns vigorously in the city’s barrios, combining fluent Spanish with Irish charm. Riordan, meanwhile, enjoys strong relationships with many Latino leaders and has a long history of personal generosity in the city’s predominantly Latino Eastside neighborhoods. The Riordan Foundation, a philanthropic group started by the mayor in 1981, has helped a number of schools, winning Riordan the deep gratitude of some residents.

On Tuesday, that sentiment was evident when Riordan toured Monte Vista Street Elementary School, a tidy school whose student body is nearly 80% Latino. As Riordan chatted with children and examined their computer work, the mother of a fourth-grader clutched his hand and told him in Spanish: “May God bless you. You are a good man.”

The campaign for Latino votes in the upcoming mayoral election is being waged with special intensity this time, in part because Latino voters are showing signs of new political energy, in part because both candidates see those voters as an important source of support and in part because--on a personal level--both men long for validation from the city’s diverse Latino constituencies.

Riordan and Hayden--and their campaign staffs--each claim strong emotional ties to the city’s Latino voters: Hayden, a Democrat, recalls his long association with labor leader Cesar Chavez and his lifelong determination to improve the lot of workers; Riordan, a Republican, cites his support for programs assisting children and his strong backing of tougher law enforcement, positions he believes put him in tune with many Latino voters.

Bill Wardlaw, Riordan’s best friend and a canny political advisor, says Riordan will run stronger on the Eastside than in almost any other area of the city. In fact, some Riordan advisors believe he may actually do better among Latino voters than among whites.

“The concerns he has emphasized are concerns of the Latino community,” Wardlaw said. “Public safety, growth, jobs--those are key to his campaign and important to the city’s Latinos. Hayden is on the elitist side of the growth issue. He says: ‘We’re happy with what we have, let’s keep it.’ That’s not the way to create jobs.”

Hayden responds by saying that although Riordan may have strong ties to some of the Latino community’s leaders, he does not have the grass-roots support to win. Moreover, Hayden believes Riordan’s failure to take a strong stand against Proposition 187, the anti-illegal immigration initiative, left a bad taste in the mouths of many Latino voters and demonstrated that the mayor is allied with Gov. Pete Wilson, who is deeply disliked by many Latinos.

Riordan “has a relationship with an organization here and an organization there, but I’ll win the election in East L.A. because of his relationship to Pete Wilson,” Hayden said. “It’s a sad case of a disconnect [with the community], of a deal maker who’s a private deal maker, who meets with people and says, ‘What can I do for you? How can I open my checkbook to you? How can I be helpful?’ And if you don’t play the game, he then puts you on a list of people who will be excluded.”

Riordan declines to respond to Hayden’s criticism, on that as well as other issues. Indeed, for the most part, Riordan had gone about his business in recent weeks with barely a mention of his mayoral opponent.

But Riordan clearly is paying attention to the city’s Latino voters, wooing them with a message that weaves together his campaign themes--support for children, determined belief in tough law enforcement and unabashed faith in business growth to provide jobs and prosperity.

Those themes were evident Tuesday as Riordan toured Los Angeles’ Eastside. Between working on an economic address for this morning and holding a news conference to announce an expanded summer youth jobs program, Riordan visited a Lincoln Heights aerospace firm, showed off new Fire Department technology at a nearby fire station and charmed the young students of Monte Vista Elementary in Highland Park.

At each stop, he was greeted respectfully, even enthusiastically. Workers in blue overalls at Stadco, a 240-employee aerospace company, lined up to shake his hand while their boss, Neil Kadisha, applauded Riordan’s efforts to help local businesses.

“I think the economy makes communities successful,” Kadisha said. “Politicians who do not have business backgrounds cannot understand what it takes to make jobs. Mayor Riordan understands.”

But City Councilman Mike Hernandez, who joined Riordan for the tour and who represents the area, said the mayor is not well-liked by all Latinos.

“I talk more to an activist crowd,” the councilman said. “They tend not to favor Riordan because they tend to be Democratic.”

Nevertheless, Hernandez added that he would not be offering an endorsement to either candidate in the mayor’s race: “I’m going to stay out of it.”

At the same time, Hernandez’s council colleague, Richard Alatorre, strongly supports Riordan and believes the mayor will win handily among Latino voters. Among other things, Alatorre believes Hayden’s antiwar activism during the Vietnam War will come back to haunt him in this election.

“We got some patriotic people,” Alatorre said of the city’s Latinos. “How do you tell a Vietnam veteran or the parents of a Vietnam veteran that they should vote for Hayden? They hate him.”

Arnold Steinberg, a Calabasas-based political strategist who is handling polling for Riordan in the campaign, said no candidate can expect to please all elements of the Latino community because it is so large and diverse. Mexican American voters may have little in common with Cuban Americans or Salvadorans, Steinberg said.

But Steinberg argued that Latino voters in Los Angeles generally are not as liberal or activist as African American voters and their leadership.

“It has never been movement liberal, Tom Hayden-like,” Steinberg said. “Riordan has always felt comfortable in the Latino community.”

A recent Times poll suggests that Riordan’s efforts in his first term seem to have strengthened his standing among the city’s Latino voters.

In 1993, Riordan swept into office largely as a result of his strong showing among whites. City Councilman Mike Woo won the majority of African American, Latino and Asian American votes, but Riordan overwhelmed him among white voters, providing his margin of victory.

Latinos accounted for 10% in that election. Riordan took 43% of their votes.

A Times poll conducted last month, however, showed that 58% of the Latinos polled had a favorable impression of the mayor, compared with 26% who had an unfavorable impression. Hayden generated a favorable impression among 23% of those polled, compared with 15% who viewed him unfavorably.

Larry Remer, the San Diego-based political consultant who is advising Hayden’s campaign, acknowledged that those numbers are tough ones for Hayden, but said he is convinced that Latino voters will come around to the state senator between now and election day.

Remer--who contrasted what he called Hayden’s belief in “true economic justice” with what he described as Riordan’s “benign neglect” of low-income workers--said he believes aggressive campaigning will reverse Latino voters’ impressions in the coming weeks.

“Our job is to educate people about Tom, his history and his politics,” Remer said. “When we go door to door and we talk to people . . . they move to us.”