Garcetti, Cooley Court Ethnic Voters

Gil Garcetti shed his shoes at the door. Then, with more than a thousand people watching, he stood in his stocking feet before Pramukh Swami Maharaj to accept a divine endorsement--a blessing for his reelection as Los Angeles County district attorney.

“I am here . . . because of my feelings for your community,” Garcetti told the Indian American crowd sitting cross-legged in a vast hall at the Swaminarayan Hindu temple in Whittier on Thursday night. “This is also my community.”

The crowd was not there for Garcetti so much as for the swami, who is visiting from India and is the spiritual leader of an estimated 1 million people worldwide. But as Garcetti slipped on his shoes outside the hall afterward, a group of worshipers surrounded him. “The blessing will really help you,” one man confided.

“I accept it,” Garcetti said, with a broad smile animating his face.

The politics of ethnicity is an old and hallowed American tradition. Politicians have long been accustomed to plunging into neighborhoods far different from their own, eating foods they would never consider at home, hearing their words translated into languages they don’t understand.

But in few places are the votes of ethnic minorities as important as they are in Los Angeles County, whose population is so diverse that no ethnic group can claim to be a majority. As in other countywide races, the campaign for district attorney has become a head-spinning tour of the virtual U.N. General Assembly that now constitutes Southern California’s “local” politics.

Both Garcetti and his challenger, head Deputy Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, have been reaching out to ethnic audiences throughout the county. In recent weeks, Garcetti has appeared at a Portuguese American celebration in Artesia, a gathering of young Latino professionals at Universal City and before an Armenian American group in Encino.

In the past 10 days, Cooley has attended campaign fund-raisers sponsored primarily by Chinese Americans in Monterey Park, Armenian Americans in Tarzana and Latinos in Hollywood.

In fact, about an hour before Garcetti received his blessing in Whittier, Cooley was standing before a room of mostly Latino supporters at Lucy’s El Adobe Cafe, the cozy Hollywood restaurant where politicians and entertainers have long provided the extra spice in a traditional Cal-Mex menu.

Like Garcetti, Cooley claimed, with equal improbability, to be one with his audience.

“My aunt by marriage is Peruvian,” he offered with an impish grin.

His supporters laughed, but repeatedly said they didn’t care about Cooley’s roots, which he says are English or Irish. It’s not important, they said, that he’s not Latino.

“I don’t care if he is or he’s not; I just care if he can do the job,” said Patricia Casado, the daughter of Lucy Casado, the restaurant’s owner.

She then set out to hang a photograph of Cooley on the restaurant’s wall of fame, alongside photos of past political patrons, including Cesar Chavez, Ted Kennedy, Alan Cranston, Bob Dole, former President Gerald Ford, former Gov. Pat Brown and, most famously, former Gov. Jerry Brown, who put Lucy’s on the map when he made it his hangout with singer Linda Ronstadt.

As were Dole and Ford, Cooley was something of a rarity at Lucy’s: a registered Republican. “We’re for the man, not the party,” Patricia Casado insisted. As Cooley leaned on the bar, margarita in hand, she appraised him: “He’s not perfect, but he’ll find the way,” she said.

As is often the case, Cooley’s supporters at the event were hardest on one of their own--in this case, Garcetti, whose roots are in Mexico (his grandfather Garcetti immigrated to Mexico from Italy).

“Personally, I never considered him Latino,” said Arnoldo Casillas, an attorney who is past president of the Mexican-American Bar Assn. “He’s a fair-weather Latino. It’s kind of a convenient moniker he takes on in certain situations.”

In general, however, Garcetti’s strongest support is among Latinos. In a Los Angeles Times poll in April, Garcetti trailed Cooley badly among every ethnic group except Latinos, who were split almost evenly between the two candidates. In fact, despite the presence of several Latino lawyers at Cooley’s event, the Mexican-American Bar Assn. has endorsed Garcetti.

And while the district attorney might claim that the Indian American community is his own, he seems at his most comfortable among Latino crowds, such as the one he addressed at a party thrown recently by the Latino Professional Network at a Universal City nightclub.

Garcetti spoke repeatedly in the first person plural, as in his references to “those of us in the Latino community.” He joked easily, and told the story--repeated at every campaign stop in recent months--of his family’s migration from Mexico and his father’s troubled years as a gang member.

While Garcetti didn’t join the young crowd on the dance floor, he promised them: “I’ll be dancing after the election.”

Garcetti, Cooley Both Going All Out

Garcetti was invited to the event--attended by nearly 800 people, most of them young and successful--after his campaign called to ask if he could speak, Latino Professional Network co-founder Alejandro Menchaca said. Menchaca said the organization wasn’t endorsing anyone, but that he personally supported Garcetti.

“I think he’s done a terrific job as D.A.,” said Menchaca, a law student at USC, Garcetti’s alma mater. Moreover, he said, “I think he’s very cognizant of his Latino heritage, and makes it a point to outreach to the community. I’ve seen him at a number of events, whereas I haven’t seen Cooley.”

But Cooley has been out there too, and not just in the Latino community. Like Garcetti, he has spent years building relationships in ethnic communities, and is taking full advantage of those ties now.

Cooley has bonds to the Armenian American community dating to his days working for former Dist. Atty. Robert Philibosian, one of the group’s most influential political activists, and campaigning for former Gov. George Deukmejian, who also has Armenian roots.

And he has cultivated friendships in the Chinese American community by regularly attending meetings of two organizations: Chinese-Americans United for Self Empowerment and the Southern California Chinese-American Lawyers Assn.

At his fund-raiser in Monterey Park, Cooley sat down to an elegant Chinese banquet in a room filled with dozens of prominent Chinese American lawyers, judges and business executives. The event was organized primarily by Joseph Tseng, lead partner in a South Pasadena accounting firm.

“I’m supporting Steve because Steve . . . is very competent and he has a lot of experience, and we feel he cares about our community,” Tseng said. “He understands the issues--the legal issues--in our community.”

Both campaigns insist that they aren’t pandering to ethnic communities, but are simply reaching out to the county’s diverse voters. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles), who is running for mayor and attended the Latino Professional Network party with Garcetti, agreed.

“To meet with the Armenian community, the Chinese community, the Vietnamese community, the Coptic Egyptian community; it’s not that you’re pandering to a particular community--that’s just L.A.,” he said.