Candidates Campaign in Strongholds

Los Angeles’ leading mayoral candidates stumped in their strongholds Saturday, with incumbent Richard Riordan presiding over a trio of community events in the San Fernando Valley and state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) cruising in a noisy caravan through inner-city neighborhoods.

The divergence was not just geographic. Hayden, the underdog, worked frenetically to inject a sense of urgency into the final three days of the campaign, while Riordan--20 points ahead in the latest Times poll--wore the incumbent’s mantle comfortably, hardly breaking a sweat as he eased toward Tuesday’s finish line.

The mayor followed a leisurely, low-stress schedule that took him to a Sylmar Little League game and a North Hills YMCA basketball contest, barely mentioning the balloting. Across town, Hayden was kinetic despite a severely hoarse voice, leading a mad dash to stuff leaflets into hands he hoped would soon be casting votes.

“We’re in the ninth inning,” he told a group of about 20 volunteers who had gathered in his Crenshaw district campaign office before heading out to walk precincts. “The media and Riordan are kind of like those people, the Dodger fans, [who] go home in the seventh inning because they think it’s over. . . . As an old ballplayer, I know games are won in the ninth inning.”

So Hayden stepped to the plate, and tried to start a rally.

He stopped by Crenshaw High School to speak at what he thought would be a forum on the school-bond measure on Tuesday’s ballot, but found just a few hands to shake. He joined a “unity” march against violence, then headed to Echo Park’s annual fishing derby, where children were measuring the trout and catfish they had lured from a freshly stocked lake.

“We are counting on you to make a victory--not only for me, but for all of the inner city, for all of the neighborhoods,” he said to a sparse crowd of mostly Latino families at the fishing festival. “We want to get rid of Mayor Riordan. He wants to get rid of you, so fair is fair.

“We start to change the world on Tuesday,” he added. “Vote for Hayden for mayor, and I’ll give you back the city on Wednesday morning.”

That said, the underdog was back on his school bus-turned “mobile headquarters,” leading a line of 10 cars plastered with chartreuse “Hayden for Mayor” signs through neighborhoods in Silver Lake, Chinatown and downtown’s Broadway corridor. With lights on and horns blaring, it was vintage Hayden, with the candidate’s bus stopping without warning whenever the senator felt the urge to meet one more voter.

“I’ll vote for him because I met him,” said Art Jackson, who was helping shoot a music video for the band Sluts for Hire--featuring a woman with hot pink hair who calls herself Miss Koko Puff--inside a darkened Silver Lake nightclub. “He hugged me. I need hugs.”

Sounded like a strategy to Jackson’s cohort Rich Coffee. “If he goes around and hugs everyone in L.A.,” Coffee said, “maybe he’ll win.”

Following Riordan on Saturday, it was difficult to detect signs that an election was just three days off.

At a breakfast honoring Neighborhood Watch groups and at two youth sporting events, the mayor made scant reference to his opponent and failed to even refer to election day. He quit campaigning about 2 p.m. (Hayden had an 11 p.m. radio interview scheduled and planned to leaflet in gay bars until well after midnight).

First on the agenda for Riordan’s brief tour of the northern reaches of the Valley was a joint appearance with City Councilman Richard Alarcon, in which both men heartily endorsed each other before a crowd of about 250.

At a Mission Hills restaurant, Riordan quickly ran through his record, citing the 2,200-officer growth of the Police Department and the addition of computers and a new Police Academy as keys to a decrease in crime. He also noted the near tripling in the frequency of tree trimming--trees now are shorn every seven years instead of every two decades--and a large increase in street paving.

If reelected, Riordan said, he would make education a high priority, offering no specific reforms but simply promising: “Failure is not an option.”

The alliance between Riordan, a Republican, and a mainstream Democrat such as Alarcon--as well as the mayor’s warm reception before largely middle-class, Democratic crowds--demonstrated Hayden’s challenge in overcoming the incumbent’s advantage, which stretches across party lines in the nonpartisan race.

“I feel the mayor has done a good job. He has shown compassion to the community. He has worked hard, and we needed more police. He got that done,” said Paula Rangel, a Democrat and community activist in poor communities around North Hills. And Hayden? “I don’t know anything about him,” she said.

At the 40th anniversary opening day of the Sylmar Independent Baseball League, the mayor sat side by side with another supportive Democrat, Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. Riordan posed for pictures, signed autographs and offered a short, apolitical sound bite to the assembled Little Leaguers and their parents.

“Just one bit of advice to you kids,” he said. “Don’t worry whether you are the star. Every minute of every day, do your best at school and at baseball and at life. You will be successful. So have a wonderful year. I’m proud to be your mayor.”

He concluded his public appearances with a visit to a YMCA basketball league at Sepulveda Junior High School in North Hills. Riordan shot a couple of baskets, posed for some more pictures, and left without making any formal comments to the families in attendance.