Riordan Battles Rivals and His Own Candor

Gubernatorial candidate Richard Riordan is calling supporters on his cell phone and asking for donations. He makes his pitch from his campaign bus as it lumbers down the San Bernardino Freeway.

“Well, things are good,” he says after the last call. “I got $25,000 from one of the cheapest guys in L.A.”

Riordan aides burst into nervous laughter. It is another spontaneous display of candor from a candidate whose handlers cringe at the prospect of many more to come.

In an era when candidates take pains to stick closely to a carefully prepared message, Riordan has refused to shake a habit that has landed him in trouble time and again: He says what’s on his mind.

His advisors say Riordan’s freewheeling manner on the stump has an upside. If he wins the March 5 Republican primary, they say, it could offer a stark contrast to the robotic style of Democratic incumbent Gray Davis.

“The governor is probably the best definition there is of a professional politician,” said Riordan campaign manager Ron Hartwig. “If anybody has gone to school on what to say and what not to say in public life, it certainly has been Gray Davis. He’s extremely disciplined.”

But it is precisely that self-discipline that got Davis elected four times to statewide office, said Garry South, chief strategist of the governor’s reelection campaign.

“One of the things about politics is, your words come back to haunt you, and Dick Riordan has said a lot of pretty goofy things,” South said.

Riordan, he added, “thinks being a babbling buffoon is a thing of beauty, and everyone’s just supposed to fall head over heals for his shtick. I will tell you, having been in this business for 30 years, a little bit of self-discipline is a good thing in politics.”

Last week, Davis turned a Riordan joke about San Francisco into a dead-serious television ad against the former Los Angeles mayor. The ad says Riordan gloated about “gouging” the rest of California last year when Los Angeles was selling surplus electricity to avert blackouts. At the height of the energy crisis, Riordan had quipped in a luncheon speech: “If it’s San Francisco, no mercy.”

‘Did I Do OK?’

Riordan is well aware of his penchant for sharing thoughts that he might better keep to himself. Day after day, he frets out loud about the risk that he will “get in trouble” by answering a tough question.

“Did I do OK?” he asked an aide after a radio interview that touched on gay marriage. “I didn’t screw up too badly?”

At times, Riordan tries to be cautious. On a visit to the Central Valley last week, he was asked how it felt to see the town of Galt for the first time.

“I’ve got to keep my sense of humor to myself,” he replied.

The week before, Riordan’s sense of humor was on full display at a breakfast with supporters in a Riverside coffee shop. A motorcyclist asked his opinion of California’s helmet laws.

“I’m going to outlaw all motorcycles,” Riordan said.

When the guffaws died down, Riordan expressed concern about the safety of “those Nazi-looking, black, thin plastic helmets.”

The conversation turned to traffic jams--a matter of great importance to Inland Empire residents.

“I want to sell books on tape to people who are on the 91 Freeway,” Riordan cracked. “I could make a fortune. I’ll put Harlequin novels on tape.”

A supporter asked Riordan to name the first thing he would do as governor.

“After I execute everybody?” Riordan asked.

Laughter filled the coffee shop.

“Headline: ‘Riordan Will Execute Everybody in Sacramento,’ ” the candidate continued between bites of scrambled eggs and hash browns. He moved on to a serious answer: He would “get rid of most of the rules and regulations.”

Riordan’s directness is not always in jest. In Sacramento last week, he startled passengers on his bus by screaming at a reporter during a conversation about the death of his daughter.

“I don’t want to talk to you again!” he yelled. “Just get out of here!”

Riordan’s staff keeps watch for his unguarded comments. In San Diego last month, Riordan glanced out the window of his bus and noticed the driver of a pickup truck flashing him a thumbs-up sign. Riordan smiled, returned the gesture and muttered, “Rednecks for Riordan.” His spokeswoman Carolina Guevara asked a reporter later: “You’re not going to use that ‘rednecks-for-Riordan’ comment, are you?”

Aside from Davis, the candidate taking most advantage of Riordan’s unrestrained manner is Bill Jones, who is running in the GOP primary.

Long before Davis put the San Francisco joke in his television spot, Jones was using it against Riordan in his stump speech.

Jones also has mocked Riordan for mixing up “fiberglass” and “fiber-optics.” Last month, he hammered Riordan for saying California’s $6.75 minimum wage is too low. Riordan had expressed his concerns about the minimum wage during a visit to a citrus packing plant; his remarks overshadowed the main purpose of the campaign stop--to promote his pro-business agenda.

To gather material against Riordan, both the Jones and Davis campaigns have dispatched operatives with cameras and tape recorders to his public events. Jones aides call it “gaffe watch.”

“Every time Riordan goes somewhere and says something, we know he’s going to step in it again,” said Mark Bogetich, chief of “opposition research” for Jones.

‘Not a Hair Out of Place’

With Davis, unscripted moments are rare. The governor “probably says nothing which isn’t completely and totally calculated,” said political scientist Bruce Cain of UC Berkeley. “There’s not a hair out of place,” Cain said.

The governor is so skilled at staying on message that some suspect “there’s no genuine core Gray Davis,” he said. Still, Davis runs little risk of his own words harming his campaign.

Aside from Riordan, the candidate who has run that risk most notably in recent years is Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

During travels on his Straight Talk Express bus in the 2000 presidential campaign, McCain was tripped up twice by speaking freely. The former prisoner of war apologized for using an anti-Asian slur in referring to his Vietnamese captors and for saying that Pat Robertson and the Rev. Jerry Falwell were “evil.”

Hartwig, Riordan’s campaign manager, sees “a constant battle going on inside Dick Riordan.”

On one hand, Riordan recognizes the need to be an “extremely disciplined politician,” Hartwig said.

On the other, Riordan tells himself, “I’ve got to say what I believe, because that is in fact why people like me, why people have confidence in me.”

Hartwig said he enjoyed working for a candidate who struggles with that conflict, but expressed grudging admiration for Davis.

“I don’t know if you can find many off-the-reservation comments by this guy, because he absolutely operates by rote,” Hartwig said.

“For a campaign manager, it’s got to be a delight.”