Frenzied Pace, Frayed Nerves as Mayoral Race Nears End

Anxious, outraged, dejected or buoyant, the top six candidates for Los Angeles mayor plunged into the final days of their campaign with a blitz of advertising, handshaking and hoarse-voiced speechifying, each vowing to unite or fix at last this infamously scattered and distracted city.

On display during this homestretch was much that Americans say they dislike about politics, from pandering to attacking. But with three candidates practically tied for the two runoff spots at stake in Tuesday’s election, the pressure has peaked, causing telltale cracks in some carefully managed personas and helping define leaders and laggards alike.

Because turnout may determine which two front-runners reach the June election, hundreds of campaign volunteers are calling tens of thousands of supporters and knocking on thousands of doors. Last-ditch fliers begin arriving today in stuffed mailboxes.

It may be the hail of TV ads that most Angelenos notice. The campaigns have reported raising about $17 million--more than $30 a vote, assuming a turnout of one in three voters. And the cash, a record sum, must be spent by Tuesday.

This campaign season has offered unparalleled access to the major contenders, who have trudged through 75 debates. Web sites and auto-dialers aside, electronics have not replaced press-the-flesh campaigning. Here are some glimpses of the candidates during what one City Hall insider says is “the only week that matters.”

An Angry Exchange

It’s Wednesday night, backstage at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus, minutes before the 7:30 start of the campaign’s last debate.

Commercial real estate developer Steve Soboroff, one of the three front-runners, is angry, and a combativeness not shown in TV ads flares into view.

The slate’s only Republican, he has benefited from hundreds of thousands of dollars the party has spent touting him--sums that don’t have to be divulged until after the election, unlike campaign donations.

Antonio Villaraigosa, also a leading candidate, has benefited from Democratic Party backing.

Criticizing the arrangement as unfair are candidates without such support. One is 16-year City Atty. James K. Hahn, the other front-runner, who is telling the TV cameras that Soboroff and Villaraigosa should release details of the spending.

Then Soboroff walks up.

The city attorney lashes him with funding questions.

“Will you be quiet so I can answer?” says Soboroff.

“I wanted to get the question out so you knew what I was talking about, Steve,” Hahn says.

“Jimmy, for 20 years you’ve had chances to change the system,” Soboroff says, and cites controversial donations to past Hahn campaigns. “It’s the most hypocritical statement I’ve ever seen.”

”. . . I’ve disclosed every contribution I’ve ever received,” Hahn says. “Now all we want to know is: who’s contributing the money?”

“Jimmy,” Soboroff says, using a name the Hahn campaign considers belittling.

“It’s a simple question,” Hahn says. “Do you know who they are?”

“You sound so desperate--”

“Do you know who they are?”

“You sound so desperate for a guy who said he was going to get 50%” of the vote.

“Do you . . .

” . . . and you’re not even at 20.”

“Do you, do you know who they are?”

“No, of course not!”

“Are you going to ask to find out?

“Jimmy, why don’t you ask the party?” Soboroff splutters. “I’ve asked, but I don’t care who they are. It doesn’t matter . . .”

“You don’t care who they are?” Hahn asks.

“Jimmy, I didn’t ask for the money,” Soboroff says, growing louder. “You’re shaking, Jimmy.”

“I’m not shaking,” Hahn says.

The two men glower at each other as hushed reporters and aides watch.

When the debate begins minutes later, Soboroff displays a more touchy-feely side. In his first remark, he asks everyone in the crowd to turn to a stranger and introduce themselves.

Drive Time

Just after dawn Thursday, Rep. Xavier Becerra, carrying a box of pastries, enters the Los Angeles studios of oldies radio station KKBT-FM, better known as Mega 92.3.

The three campaign workers with him are bleary-eyed, but the 43-year-old congressman seems perky, wearing a blue polo shirt in keeping with his earnest, Boy Scout reputation. He puts on headphones and stands next to disc jockey George Lopez.

“We’ve heard that while other candidates are the kinda guys you’d want your daughter to date,” Lopez says, disregarding the women in the race, “ . . . you’re the kinda guy you’d want your daughter to marry.”

Becerra smiles and doesn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he says he’s happily married.

He discourses on education. “Everyone should be able to walk their kid to school,” Becerra says, just as he does.

He mentions the state’s electricity shortage.

Yeah, Lopez says, “white people are going to have to stop going to tanning salons and actually go out in the sun.”

Becerra laughs.

Fancy Footwork

Hahn has six meet-and-greets lined up for Thursday morning starting at 8. The third takes place at a public skills center in a Pacoima strip mall.

Councilman Alex Padilla introduces Hahn in Spanish to about 40 adults in the English-language class.

Hahn apologizes for not addressing the students in their native language, saying their English is better than his Spanish. He reminds them to vote Tuesday if they’re eligible.

Known more for evenhandedness than erudition, he asks, “How can we make the San Fernando Valley as good as we can make it?”

Minutes later, Hahn and an aide pile into the leased sport utility vehicle driven by a volunteer and ride to a nearby Japanese American community center. They visit a dance class and courteously stand by as 22 older women and men finish mincing through a mambo.

Hahn greets the group in Japanese, explaining that his mother was born in Japan, the daughter of a missionary. Then he lists his achievements as city attorney, bragging that he “invented the whole concept” of placing legal injunctions on members of violent street gangs.

A man asks whether he’ll renew the contract of Police Chief Bernard C. Parks. “If the chief does a good job, he’ll stay on the job,” Hahn says.

In a thaw in his usual reserve, he asks the group if they are having fun.

“Want to join in?” a man asks.

“Only if you have a class for people with two left feet.”

Appeal to Future

It’s early Thursday afternoon, and state Controller Kathleen Connell addresses 55 12th-graders in the library at Jefferson High. Except for the two teachers in the Streamline Moderne 1930s-era room, few in the audience are old enough to vote.

This week, the Connell campaign is trying to soften the image of a candidate who has hammered away at the theme that the city is in crisis. A new TV ad featuring the mother of two emphasizes her maternal side. In it, she requests that bickering mayoral opponents take a “timeout.”

She talks mostly about the state’s energy crisis. The controller is writing the checks to out-of-state firms selling electricity to California.

“Every person in California should be worried,” she says. “Everybody’s taxes are going to be spent on energy.”

Calling herself the first woman to be “a viable candidate” for mayor, she asks what criteria the students would use to vote for her. They stare blankly.

She tries again, asking what they want the new mayor to do. A girl suggests dealing with the city’s water supply.

“Water is going to be the next crisis,” Connell says.

In closing, she says, “When you’re old enough to vote, vote.”

Outside, a reporter asks Connell about polls showing her at fifth or sixth in the race.

“The only poll that matters is election day,” she says.

Who will she support if there’s a runoff election and she’s not in it?

“I haven’t really made that mental adjustment yet,” she says. “I still see myself as a candidate who is very competitive.”

Playing to the Crowd

About the same time in the San Fernando Valley, 70 seniors at the Woodland Park Retirement Home listen to Joel Wachs, the 30-year Los Angeles councilman who can’t run again for that office because of term limits.

He reminisces about his first council campaign, using tried and true punch lines, such as how his father pushed a cart with a “Vote for Joel” sign. His earliest platform, he says, came from his mother. “We want that he should be a good boy,” she used to say.

“I’m still trying to be that good boy,” the 63-year-old tells the crowd, many with hearing aids and walkers. “I’ve never once had a hint of scandal or impropriety.”

He says he’ll do all he can to make city government listen to Valley seniors.

“You’ve got such a nice, honest face,” one woman says.

Belle Palmer, who belongs to the 125-member Seniors for Action, says she’s known Wachs a “long, long time” and that most of her fellow activists will “stick with Joel.”

But not all the attendees get the message. “He was my councilman for 30 years,” says one. “. . . Why wouldn’t I vote for him for governor?”

Skirmish in the Streets

Villaraigosa and supporters gather Friday afternoon for an orchestrated walk through his old neighborhood, an event billed as a chance for Boyle Heights merchants to greet this native son and former Assembly speaker.

His high-profile entourage includes county Supervisor Gloria Molina and Henry Cisneros, former U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

But a skirmish is brewing, a bit of political street theater that a voter fed nothing but TV ads might never see.

It begins as Molina approaches Villaraigosa’s campaign headquarters on Soto Street. At the door, a dozen Becerra supporters carry large signs and shout their candidate’s name.

As she enters, a Villaraigosa recruit descends the stairs holding a large sign bearing his name and heading for the opposition.

“No, no,” Molina says to ward off the confrontation. Inside the room, she uses her cell phone to call the Becerra campaign, which denies involvement.

Villaraigosa, wearing a dark blue suit, addresses his troops. “The best thing we can do is be very calm, smile at them, not agitate them,” he says. “We’ve run a very clean, positive campaign. It’s about hope, bringing people together.”

Leaving for their televised stroll, the three pols are briefly followed by the motley, mostly young group chanting, “Becerra!”

The trio ambles down Soto to Cesar Chavez Avenue, greeting women and children at a bus stop, chatting up a drugstore owner, a florist.

On the sidewalk, Cisneros is all business. “With Soboroff showing some movement, it’s critical to explain to the community what a tragedy it would be to miss this opportunity,” he says.

Villaraigosa is in his element, greeting some in Spanish, others in English. “This is my neighborhood,” he says, “make no mistake about it.”

And with that, they resume walking.

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Times staff writers Terence Monmaney and Matea Gold and researcher Maloy Moore contributed to this story.