Riordan the Noncandidate Is Sure Sounding Like a Candidate

The idea of being governor has captured Mayor Richard Riordan’s imagination.

He’s playing around with the possibility, trying it on for size. And he seems to be enjoying every bit of the attention he’s been getting since a Times story Tuesday revealed that high-powered business and political types are pressuring him to run.

That’s the feeling I got Thursday afternoon when I talked to the Republican mayor in his City Hall East office. He was relaxed and laughed frequently. He ducked some questions but was surprisingly frank answering others, talking expansively about what he could do if he were governor.

Are you going to run? I asked.

“I’d have to change my mind to run, but everyone is hitting me so I am having a little bit of fun with it,” he said. “But I haven’t changed my mind yet.”

Why not run?

“The main [reason],” he said, “is I have put together a great team here in Los Angeles, both full-time employees and a lot of the private sector helping me to make Los Angeles better and we’re on a roll and it would really bother me to leave the city and slow that roll down.”

I was amused by his reference to wanting to stick by his City Hall staff. Most of them want him to run for governor, and would like to follow him up to Sacramento. In fact, as I walked into his office, a top staff member told me, “Convince him to run!”

Many people have speculated that Riordan, at the age of 67, wouldn’t want a tough statewide campaign, with its constant fund-raising, travel and below-the-belt attacks.

I asked if that would stop him.

“If you want to do things, you’ve got to put up with that,” the noncandidate replied, sounding like a candidate. “If you want to be president of the United States or mayor of Los Angeles, you’ve got to have what they call fire in your belly and discipline to go through 10,000 Fahrenheit of fire, or you’ll never be able to make changes.”

Do you have the fire in the belly? I asked.

“I think I showed you I have, didn’t I, when I ran [for mayor] the first time,” he said.

As for the heat of a campaign, “if you let that stand in your way, you shouldn’t be in public office.”

Riordan said if he runs, one issue, education, would “trigger his decision.”

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In his second term as mayor, Riordan has made education his No. 1 priority. But he’s been limited by the fact that he has no authority over the independent Los Angeles Unified School District. He envies Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who runs his city’s schools. He thinks such mayoral control is just what is needed in Los Angeles and other California big cities.

The public school system, he said, needs “a complete revolution.” He said it could be “bloody,” but “revolutions are never smooth.”

“How can a state expect to compete in the long run if we are at the bottom of the ladder on every statistic on education, and we’re below zero with the poor?” he asked.

He didn’t think much of the efforts of other politicians who have taken up the banner of education improvement, this year’s campaign fad.

“Almost every politician doesn’t get it,” he said. “Every politician has a magic pill--smaller classes, computers on every desk, et cetera. What it really comes down to is governance and leadership. You have to hold everyone accountable and fire people who don’t get good results with kids.”

He sounded like a candidate, again, when he said his Republican Party should be the party of educational reform. “We Republicans know how to get there,” he said. “But right now, too many people think we don’t care.”

On the other hand, he said, “the liberal establishment, whether they care or not, they have failed. They haven’t figured out how to get there.”

On Sunday, Riordan the noncandidate leaves for Washington to lobby for the city. The deadline to enter the governor’s race is Wednesday.

Maybe the turmoil in Washington will convince Riordan to complete his term and then retire to the quiet of private life.

But don’t bet on it.