Riordan Endorses Advisor Steve Soboroff for Mayor

Mayor Richard Riordan, whose efforts to pull Los Angeles from the economic and social depths of the early 1990s have made him the city’s most popular public official, Tuesday endorsed his unpaid advisor, Steve Soboroff, for mayor.

“As I enter my last two years as mayor, I must look to the future,” Riordan said in a letter sent to potential Soboroff supporters. “That’s why I’m supporting Steve Soboroff for mayor--I trust him to keep Los Angeles moving forward.”

Riordan makes the endorsement with no political risk. He’s already accomplished his major goals--increasing the size of the Police Department, leading a campaign to overthrow the school board and winning approval of a new City Charter. And although some city officials, especially those wanting to run for mayor, may criticize the mayor for coming out so early, Riordan always has benefited from the image of a mayor bucking traditional politicos.

And by choosing Soboroff, Riordan signals what he wants in a successor: a pro-business outsider, precisely the kind of candidate Riordan himself was in 1993.

For Soboroff, Riordan’s letter could help him jump-start his campaign, opening doors among potential donors and giving his outsider bid for the mayor’s office instant credibility. Political observers believe Riordan’s backing may be most helpful to Soboroff in the voter-rich San Fernando Valley, where Riordan is immensely popular and where Soboroff, a millionaire Republican businessman, needs to run well in order to win.

At the same time, the endorsement reflects Riordan’s continuing affection for and relationship with the city’s business community, where developer and civic activist Soboroff is a prominent figure. And it demonstrates one consequence of the local term limits that Riordan backed: With the mayor unable to seek a third term, the campaign to succeed him has started early and has begun to shift the focus of city politics away from the mayor himself, even though he has nearly two years left to serve.

In his letter, Riordan cited Soboroff’s extensive civic involvement. Among other things, Soboroff chairs an oversight committee charged with improving local schools, has spearheaded an effort to clean up local parks and helped win approval for the Staples Center and Alameda Corridor project.

“Most of all, I admire Steve’s common-sense approach to finding common ground by bringing people together to shape practical solutions,” Riordan wrote. “When I want results, I know I can count on Steve Soboroff.”

Those are welcome words for the nascent Soboroff campaign. So vital is Riordan’s support for Soboroff that most observers believe Soboroff’s candidacy would disappear if Riordan had decided to back anyone else.

“You take away Dick Riordan, and with all of Steve Soboroff’s accomplishments, his beautiful home, his wonderful family, I don’t see it,” said veteran political observer and lobbyist Joe Cerrell. “Without Dick Riordan, we’re not having this conversation.”

‘Good Letter to Have Out There’

Soboroff’s opponents conceded that Riordan’s support would help their rival, although they downplayed its long-term importance.

“The mayor’s a great endorsement,” said Bill Carrick, who ran Riordan’s 1997 campaign but this time is working for City Atty. James Hahn, by most accounts the front-runner at this stage. “For people who write $1,000 checks, this is a good letter to have out there.”

Antonio Villaraigosa, the Assembly speaker and all-but-announced candidate for mayor, said Riordan had informed him months ago of his intention to back Soboroff. But Villaraigosa slyly suggested he might someday be Riordan’s choice.

“The mayor and I have talked about his long-term relationship with Steve Soboroff and his intention to support him in the primary,” Villaraigosa said. Asked whether he might ask for Riordan’s endorsement if the campaign reaches a runoff in which Soboroff fails to qualify but Villaraigosa does, the speaker laughed: “Anybody would love to have the endorsement of Dick Riordan.”

Although Riordan is uniquely popular in Los Angeles politics, his endorsement has not always opened doors for other candidates. In the past, the mayor has found it difficult to transfer his personal popularity to other candidates. His endorsements during the election of charter reform commissioners, for instance, carried little weight with voters, and he has a mixed record backing candidates in City Council campaigns.

Most daunting for Soboroff may be the example of Riordan’s support for lawyer Ted Stein in the 1997 campaign for city attorney. Riordan endorsed Stein, appeared publicly with him on a number of occasions and helped him raise money--only to see him trounced by none other than Hahn.

Moreover, there is a paradox in Riordan’s support for Soboroff. In 1993, Riordan won the mayor’s race by running as an outsider challenging the city’s battered political establishment. This time, Soboroff is entering the campaign with a similar strategy, but trying simultaneously to run as the outsider and as the heir apparent, a strange balancing act.

Finally, there is the question of exactly what mantle Soboroff seeks to inherit. First and foremost, Riordan is a pragmatist, a problem solver. He has backed ideas favored by left and right, infuriating some of his conservative backers but never cozying up to liberals for very long.

No Enduring Riordan Coalition

With the help of his political advisors, most notably Carrick and lawyer Bill Wardlaw--neither of whom supports Soboroff--Riordan has twice built winning political coalitions, but he never has constructed an enduring governing coalition, a hard-core group of supporters who will back his programs solely out of loyalty to him.

As a result, Soboroff’s efforts to carry on the Riordan legacy are complicated by the lack of a clear sense of what that legacy is or who most passionately supports it.

In his letter, Riordan hints at how he and his would-be successor seek to define it. Riordan trumpets the economic recovery of recent years and warns against a return to “the politics of the past.”

That is code for rejecting the more established political leadership, including Hahn, City Councilman Joel Wachs, Villaraigosa, Rep. Xavier Becerra, state Controller Kathleen Connell and County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky--all of whom have either announced intentions to run for mayor or who are considering the idea.

Typically, however, Riordan criticizes those candidates only in the mildest terms. On Tuesday, in fact, he told KCRW-FM’s Warren Olney that he did not think anything was wrong with any of the candidates for mayor, just that he was especially impressed by Soboroff.

Riordan is not alone in feeling generally positive about the city’s political class--a sentiment that does not bode particularly well for Soboroff.

When Riordan ran and won in 1993, Los Angeles voters had every reason to be fed up with politics as usual. After all, the city was wallowing in a recession, and the 1992 riots had badly shaken public confidence.

Today’s electorate is far more contented. Polls show generally strong public confidence in the city and its government, suggesting that voters may not be in a mood to reject the status quo.

Instead, Soboroff is counting on voters coming to support him as they get to know him. Congenial and hard-working, he and his backers believe Los Angeles will warm to him over the course of the campaign.

Still, the developing mayoral race promises to be extraordinarily long--the election is not until 2001--and occasionally could get nasty, as some of the contestants do not like one another. One early matchup, for instance, involves Wachs’ pointed criticism of Soboroff for the deal the businessman proposed regarding the Staples Center.

Wachs emerged as the main critic of that proposal, hammering away at Soboroff for including public money in the original financing plan. Under fire from the councilman, Soboroff reacted testily, and some of his likely opponents in the mayor’s race predict that the long campaign will test Soboroff’s patience again and again.

Already, some are relishing the thought. Soboroff has made it clear, for instance, that he does not like to be called a developer, preferring to emphasize his civic contributions.

Knowing that, some opponents have taken to referring to him as “Santa Monica-based developer Steve Soboroff.”

Although Riordan’s endorsement of Soboroff was not a surprise, the timing of it was to some observers. This is a city with a notoriously short attention span for politics, and Riordan’s endorsement comes more than a year before the April 2001 election.

In an interview, Riordan said he acted early because so many candidates already are lining up to run. As for the importance of his endorsement, Riordan said he hoped it would help Soboroff’s campaign get started and give him early help in raising money.

In the end, however, Riordan stressed that it will be up to Soboroff to convince voters he’s the right candidate for the office. “He’s going to have to do that on his own,” Riordan said.