Bush Lobbies Riordan to Run for Governor

With Republicans struggling to find a strong contender to run for governor, President Bush urged Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan on Tuesday to challenge Gov. Gray Davis’ bid for reelection, a top Riordan aide said.

Bush called the mayor, wished him a happy birthday (Riordan turned 71 on Tuesday), and told him he would make “a great governor,” Deputy Mayor Ben Austin said.

“He talked to him about him being very well positioned to run as a moderate Republican with a large voter base in Los Angeles and a strong record on energy.”

Riordan, however, has been cool to the idea.

“He’s keeping an open mind, but he’s certainly leaning against running,” Austin said.

The mayor said last week that he was “having a little fun having people ask me, but quite clearly, right now I have no intention of running for governor.”

Riordan, who will leave office at the end of June, will focus on the issue after a three-week vacation in France in July, Austin said.

Bush’s phone call to the mayor came a week after actor Arnold Schwarzenegger opted out of the race. The only Republican in the race now is Secretary of State Bill Jones, whose support for John McCain in the California presidential primary last year remains a sore spot with Bush’s political team. Also exploring the governor’s race is William E. Simon Jr., a Los Angeles investment banker.

Riordan gave serious consideration to a campaign for governor in 1998, but decided not to run. He said he had no ambition to attain higher office and lacked the “fire in the belly” needed to serve as governor. He also said he wanted to stay focused on improving city schools.

For the campaign against Davis, who is expected to seek reelection, Riordan offers a number of attractions to GOP leaders. He’s a multimillionaire who could finance much of his own campaign. He is a moderate who could fare well in a state that has rejected more conservative Republicans in recent years. And he has a proven base of support in the state’s largest city, much of it among Democrats and Latinos, a crucial bloc statewide.

Bush is the latest--and most prominent--of several Republicans who have asked Riordan this year whether he might run for governor, according to associates of the mayor. Among the others is California GOP Chairman Shawn Steel, they said.

“Dick Riordan--on paper--looks like the ideal Republican candidate,” said GOP consultant Allan Hoffenblum. “He’s not perceived to be a fierce partisan, and the Republican label is a negative right now in California.”

On a trip to Washington last week to lobby for education money, Riordan called California’s Republican Party “an endangered species.” He also offered a brief assessment of Jones and Simon. He called Jones simply a “nice guy.”

He described Simon as “very bright, very wealthy . . . a lot wealthier than I am, by far.”

“A huge philanthropist,” Riordan said. “And he’s got a lot of discipline and fire in the belly. The only thing is, does he have that kind of, I don’t know what you call it, outgoing-ness that you need.”