Image Is an Issue Mayor Can’t Skirt

We’d visited snooty little boutiques and big department stores. We’d been to Robinsons-May and Macy’s, to Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s. We’d even seen the softer side of Sears.

We traveled all over town, Deputy Mayor Barbie and I, searching for the perfect dress.

The perfect dress for Mayor Richard Riordan.

“Hell, it worked for Giuliani,” my diminutive plastic friend had explained. “People loved it when he did that drag number on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ Rudy didn’t just seem like a tough guy, but a fun guy too.”

It was easy to empathize with L.A.’s deputy mayor for damage control. Out in New York, Rudy Giuliani is riding high. Crime is way down and Times Square has been cleaned up. Not only are people calling Giuliani America’s best mayor, but Republicans are thinking, hmmm, Powell-Giuliani in 2000?

And here in Los Angeles, meanwhile, our well-meaning multimillionaire mayor plods along in relative obscurity. When Newsweek named America’s Top 25 mayors, Riordan didn’t make the cut. And though Time surely regrets the error, it’s not for nothing the magazine recently referred to him as Robert Riordan.

“Even if you find a something to die for,” I said, “do you really think Bob will wear it?”

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Barbie wouldn’t even dignify that with a smirk. She and Dick Riordan have been tight ever since he bought a big stake in Mattel Inc. It’s remarkable how we’ve bumped into each other Christmas shopping these last few Decembers. (Last year, she bought him a Tom Hayden voodoo doll. Worked like a charm.)

But now, after nearly five years in office, Mayor Riordan’s greatest problem is obvious to all.

It’s not that he’s really such a bad mayor. It’s that he’s a boring mayor.

And it’s not right. A city as glamorous and dangerous and flamboyant and flaky as Los Angeles deserves better.

Barbie went through a long clinical state of denial before she would admit the truth: Dick is dull.

“Not that dullness is always a bad thing,” she quickly added. “Hey, you want an exciting mayor, move to D.C.”

True enough. Time, for example, certainly knows the first name of the notorious Mayor Barry. The closest thing L.A. has to Marion Barry is Mike Hernandez. Oh, Dick Riordan got busted for DUI, but that was long before he became mayor.

“Or try Miami.”

Xavier Suarez may not yet be a household name, but Miami’s new mayor is fast becoming famous for his unorthodox--some say certifiably bonkers--leadership style. At a manic pace Suarez has tried to fire popular officials, dropped in on angry constituents late at night, burst into tears twice in front of reporters and once dropped by the Miami Herald in the wee hours clad in a terry-cloth bathrobe. Nope, Mayor Riordan has never done anything like that.

But as Barbie knows, dullness is no virtue either. Her boss is a waffler--too eager to please, too reluctant to offend. A mayor needs either charisma or controversy to be memorable. Chicago’s original Mayor Daley seemed almost supernatural, able to make the dead vote. New York’s Jimmy Walker had style to spare. Ed Koch was a one-man show now playing on “The People’s Court.” San Antonio’s Henry Cisneros had sex appeal--a little too much. And we can only wonder what Cincinnati did once upon a time to have Jerry Springer as mayor.

Today, California’s most entertaining and provocative mayor is, certainly, San Francisco’s ever-quotable Willie Brown, a guy who thrives on conflict. Not long ago, a couple of Hollywood exports would famously become mayors of Carmel and Palm Springs.

Now it seems Oakland, of all places, may have its own famous Mayor Brown--ex-Gov. Jerry.

Oakland? Oakland???

The very idea is insulting.

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Too bad charisma doesn’t come in a bottle. Being civic-minded, I was happy to help Deputy Mayor Barbie in her quest, less so when she asked me to model her selections. I refused. Not that there’s anything wrong with cross-dressing, especially by politicians.

Between malls she let out a sigh of frustration. “I don’t know. Remember when Mayor Frank Jordan, running against Brown up in San Francisco, got in the shower with those two radio guys?” she said. “I was thinking that maybe I could arrange for Dick to take a shower with Dr. Laura. Or maybe Gloria Allred and Larry Elder.”

But that didn’t help Jordan, so now Barbie was shopping for dresses. She’d narrowed it down to three possibilities. She was torn between an elegant silk molded-to-the-body sheath in gray, a classy low-cut velvet gown in hunter green that would require a Wonderbra, and a saucy little black cocktail dress that would show the mayor bicyclist’s gams to great advantage. Or otherwise.

Barbie silently contemplated the choices, smiling in that fixed way of hers, her tiny yet powerful brain in overdrive. I almost thought I saw a light bulb appear above her pretty little head.

“We’ve got to push the envelope,” she declared. “We’ve got to out-Giuliani Giuliani. Come on, just one more stop.

“Frederick’s.”

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Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St. , Chatsworth, CA 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.