No Fame in the Political Name Game

I’m standing outside the Richard J. Riordan Central Library in downtown Los Angeles, asking people if they know who’s running for governor of California.

“The mayor is running,” one guy tells me.

What mayor is that? I ask.

“Whatzisname. Bill Hahn is running.”

“I’ve been taking a look at the issues,” says another man.

But who’s running? I ask again.

“It’s, no, wait a minute. Who’s that one guy?”

Two thoughts come to mind.

First, I’m seriously reconsidering my belief that we need to get more citizens involved in the political process.

Second, if people at the Richard J. Riordan library in Los Angeles don’t know he’s running for governor, what chance does Riordan have in Yreka and Shasta?

I talked to more than a dozen people at the library, half of whom named Riordan as a candidate. But only two or three could associate the candidates with any particular issue, and only one person was able to name all four dogs in the hunt.

Bill Simon and Bill Jones are with Riordan in the Republican primary, hoping for a chance to take out Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.

This kind of ignorance and indifference is another reminder that running for statewide office in Balkanized California is no holiday, particularly if you’re the ex-leader of Los Angeles, which is viewed as hell’s parking lot in the part of the state where I grew up.

But it’s not as if Riordan’s brain trust didn’t have a decent candidate to pitch.

The problem is that Riordan and his bush league team, on early inspection, have no clue how to run a major league campaign. Not even against a couple of stiffs like Simon and Jones.

Riordan, who breaks left on some things and right on others, is working on his third marriage, has no interest whatsoever in conventional governance and believes in God but breaks half the rules of his church, could have been billed as a Californian for all seasons.

Instead he’s allowed himself to get sucked into a no-win ruckus over his contradictory views on abortion. Then he attacked lobbyists in a moment of desperation, and now he’s acknowledged the ship is listing by firing televised torpedoes at Simon.

Can anything do more to boost Simon’s candidacy than for Riordan to demonstrate that he suddenly fears him? It’s like Shaquille O’Neal taking a poke at that scrubby Chicago Bulls center no one had ever heard of.

Where’s the cocky self-confidence we all grew to expect from the man who gladly used his own money or his rich friends to fix every problem he encountered? Where’s the unapologetic quipster who often speaks of the underprivileged, but once said, “I’m taking lessons in learning how to wave to poor people.”

Most people have to die before getting a building in their name, but not Riordan.

I stood in the audience the day of the ceremony at the library last June, marveling at his chutzpah. Employees grumbled under their breath as Rufus Von KleinSmid, the former library commissioner, had his name replaced by Richard J. Riordan’s. Unfortunately poor old Rufus couldn’t put up much of a fight. He’s dead.

But that’s the kind of arrogance that can take you to the top, and with Simon having sliced 20 points off Riordan’s lead, now is the hour for the ex-mayor to play to his strengths.

It’s time for him to start spending serious money from Yountville to Yucca Valley and buy this thing fair and square.

If I were running his campaign, I’d buy TV, I’d buy radio, and I’d buy a billboard on every mile of California highway. But I’d start by making that sign at the library much, much bigger.

Back to my man-on-the-street interviews, I corner a crew member from the TV show “Leap of Faith,” which is shooting a scene downtown. He’s game to name the candidates, but this lifelong Angeleno can’t think of one to save his life. How about some clues? he pleads.

All right, I say. A major downtown building is named after one of them.

I toss a look over my shoulder, but he gazes past the “Richard J. Riordan” sign and across the skyline.

“Oh, wait a minute,” he says. “Isn’t Magic Johnson running?”

No, I say.

But the idea doesn’t sound all that bad.

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Steve Lopez writes Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Contact him at steve.lopez@latimes.com.