A Lesson in Humor and Charm From a Master

Last week’s two-hour biography of Ronald Reagan on the History Channel resonated of hail-and-farewell to the Alzheimer’s-afflicted 91-year-old former president.

Among the interviewees from Reagan’s long-ago tenure as Golden State governor was strategist Ken Khachigian.

Reagan’s first speech after being shot in 1981 was to a joint session of Congress, and Khachigian confessed that he wanted to “milk the occasion shamelessly.”

So when he delivered his final draft of the speech, he also gave the president a copy of a letter that had arrived earlier at the White House and suggested that Reagan use it in his speech.

The president initially gave it back to him, but Khachigian pressed it on Reagan again, suggesting, “Why don’t you show it to Mrs. Reagan?”

The president took it back, read it and kept it. “I’ve got an idea,” he said.

Delivering his speech, he departed from the TelePrompTer script as he mentioned having received the good wishes of “compassionate Americans and their children, from college age to kindergarten.”

He pulled the letter from his pocket and read, “As a matter of fact, as evidence of that I have a letter from Peter Sweeney. He’s in the second grade in the Riverside School in Rockville Centre, and he said: ‘I hope you get well quick or you might have to make a speech in your pajamas.’ ”

The audience broke up, and Congress passed Reagan’s economic recovery plan.

A Cornucopia of Proclamations

The news release listing all the state of California proclamations for November was actually dated Nov. 27, but, heck, November was a busy month for the governor, what with the election and all, and it must have just slipped his mind.

November was Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, California Career Development Month, California Court Adoption and Permanency Month, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Awareness Month, Diabetes Awareness Month and Lung Cancer Awareness Month.

On the state’s November calendar you will also find Nurse Practitioner Week, California Groundwater Week, Key Club Week, California Veterans Awareness Week, California Family Week and, finally, Thanksgiving Prayer Week.

Mayor, ‘Acting Mayor’ Promote ‘GreenLA’

After a TV hiatus of several months, leading Mayor Jim Hahn is back on the air. Two public service spots of 15 and 30 seconds that he taped in February with actor Barry Bostwick, who plays the mayor of New York on the show “Spin City,” are back on the air.

(Does this mean residuals for Hahn?)

The spots promote the DWP’s energy-efficient “GreenLA” programs, which help consumers pay for solar energy systems and efficient appliances, and gives free trees to promote it all.

The script, full of constructive badinage between “Barry” and “Mayor,” instructs “Mayor” to smile at a couple of points. Sample lines:

Barry: “So you can actually GET some GREEN by BEING GREEN!”

Mayor: “That’s right, Barry. We’ll also give you free green shade trees at your residence or business, because more shade means more energy conservation.”

Another moment:

Barry: “That’s fantastic! You and the mayor of Los Angeles are really doing an excellent job!”

Mayor: (Smiling) “Well, thank you, Barry, but I AM THE MAYOR!”

Yes, but in at least one of the spots, it’s Bostwick who gets to sit at the big desk.

Lobbyists’ Lucre Hits a Los Angeles Record

Hey, big spenders -- a record $4.24 million crossed the palms of lobbyists in Los Angeles in three months. Biggest single nudge-cause, according to city Ethics Commission records, was the $179,945 free-spending frenzy by eight companies seeking TV cable franchises.

An additional $151,850 was shelled out for lobbyists trying to get the city to green-light cell phone antennae; $151,033 filled the paychecks of lobbyists for the Playa Vista development in the Ballona wetlands; and $93,487 was spent by Mitsubishi Corp., which wants to open a liquefied natural gas receiving terminal at the city’s port.

A combined $218,000 was spent by various firms seeking concessions at city airports -- look to see whether the price of those packs of peanuts goes up -- along with the city of El Segundo, putting in more than its two cents’ worth on airport modernization.

And the Blame Game Winners Are ...

There’s less than a month left for those end-of-the-year best-and-worst lists, and first out of the chute are the folks of Orange County Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse.

Topping their list of most creative food-related lawsuits of 2002:

* The New York maintenance man who claimed that a fast-food diet at McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and KFC made him an unwitting addict -- and an obese one at that.

* The lawsuit against Hershey and Mars candy makers, among others, for allegedly violating California’s Proposition 65, which requires warnings about carcinogens in food. (The state attorney general found that the traces of lead in chocolate products are not added, but naturally occurring, and the law exempts naturally occurring toxic chemicals.)

* The New Jersey couple’s $100,000 suit against Kellogg’s for damage caused by a Pop-Tart that caught fire after being left unattended in a toaster. File that under “pop torts.”

Secession Vote Yields Slew of Latino Politicos

There’s no new Valley city, but there’s a load of new Valley Latino politicians.

Four Latinos won the races for the 14 council seats that would have been created for a new city, and Latinos placed second and third in the Valley mayor’s race. And in the Hollywood wannabe election, the most votes for the might-have-been city council were collected by neighborhood activist Rosa Martinez.

Thus encouraged, Valley city candidates Jose Roy Garcia, Christopher Cleto Trujillo and Jose Bonilla have filed papers to run for the L.A. City Council’s 6th District seat, which is being vacated by term-limited Ruth Galanter.

Points Taken

* Snatching breakfast from the jaw of defeat, GOP state party Chairman Shawn Steel will be guest speaker in Rosemead for Thursday’s “Victory Elephant Breakfast,” sponsored by the party’s 49th Assembly District group. The news release notes with fine understatement that Steel “came to the position of chairman of the California Republican Party at a difficult time.”

* First-out-of-the-box award: Laguna Niguel Councilwoman Mimi Walters, announcing she’s running in 2004 for the Assembly seat held by future term-limited Pat Bates.

Bates is thinking about running in 2006 for the state Senate seat held by Bill Morrow, who will then be term-out himself.

Anybody for 2008?

* The nation’s Republican governors were high-fiving one another in Dana Point, gathering together to celebrate their election gains

* Dolores Huerta, the legendary labor organizer who, with Cesar Chavez, co-founded the United Farm Workers, has been awarded the Puffin/Nation Prize for creative citizenship, a $100,000 cash award to the citizen who “has challenged the status quo through distinctive, courageous, imaginative, socially responsible work.”

* Danney Ball, a Hemet songwriter who pulled down a cool 1% in last spring’s Republican gubernatorial primary, is advertising for campaign consultants, fund-raisers and an “Internet marketing genius” for his planned 2004 campaign against Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Lest you confuse this with those million-dollar campaigns, keep in mind that Ball pledged to spend no more than $20,000 in his gubernatorial try.

You Can Quote Me

“The state is facing a budget crisis. We decided to save both money and abandoned dogs by establishing our own program.”

CHP Commissioner D.O. “Spike” Helmick. The CHP graduated nine dogs from its new bomb-sniffing training program, several of them rescued from animal shelters, including Manny, a golden Labrador retriever who was one day away from being killed by lethal injection when he was chosen. The state had heretofore bought bomb-sniffing dogs from outside agencies.

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Patt Morrison’s columns appear Mondays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is patt .morrison@latimes.com. This week’s contributors were Patrick McGreevy and Jean O. Pasco.