Political Mood Has Shifted at Barbershop

I got my baptism in modern Los Angeles politics three years ago at Tolliver’s barbershop on Florence near Western. The savvy regulars worked up a sweat arguing about who ought to be mayor, and the man who usually came out on top was Jim Hahn.

A lot can happen in three years. Or not happen.

Stop by Tolliver’s these days, as I did Monday night, and you’ll have trouble hustling any votes to reelect Hahn. First-term City Councilman and former LAPD chief Bernie Parks knows this, and so he dropped into the barbershop to kick off his campaign for mayor.

Parks says he’s still trying to determine whether he really wants to give it a shot, but don’t believe it for a minute. Look deeply into his eyes and you’ll see a frozen image of Hahn dumping Parks as chief of police. It was a move that riled lots of black voters, including some of the regulars at Tolliver’s.

The mayor simply doesn’t think big, Parks said Monday night as he took batting practice on Slim Jim for a dozen regular customers and half as many members of his entourage. In recent days, Parks has been calling the city leaderless, rudderless, adrift.

But that appears to be the least of Hahn’s problems at the moment.

“I’m also concerned about corruption,” Parks said, chiding Hahn for saying he has no idea why federal and local authorities are snooping around City Hall in the expanding pay-to-play scandal.

“It doesn’t take two grand juries to figure out” what they’re looking at, Parks said.

So could it happen? Could Bernie Parks, an African American, claim revenge by knocking off the same man who put him out to pasture? A mayor who got elected, in part, on his late father’s name, and the goodwill that former L.A. County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn generated in the African American community?

It’s probably a longshot, but it’s too soon to know.

I like the story line already, though, especially with the walls closing in around Hahn, and Parks giving himself a one-year running start.

The other players are Richard Alarcon, who’s in, and Bob Hertzberg and Antonio Villaraigosa, who haven’t yet decided. So we don’t know the calculus of who can get their hands on what money and what votes.

But it goes without saying that few Angelenos are jumping for joy at the prospect of a second term for Jim Hahn, who has barely showed up for his first one. If he loses black support for dumping Parks, and he loses San Fernando Valley votes for opposing secession, who’s going to vote for Hahn other than someone who wants a city contract?

“I think anybody that gets into a runoff with Hahn has a 50-50 shot,” said former Dick Riordan deputy mayor Ben Austin. “Hahn’s greatest asset is that people in Los Angeles don’t pay attention to the mayor.”

Parks doesn’t enter the race without some baggage of his own. A friend and assistant chief who served him in the LAPD retired in the midst of a department probe into money laundering that involved cocaine trafficking. Despite the allegations, Parks had him help lead the investigation into the Rampart scandal.

Parks has also been called insular and bullheaded more than a few times, particularly when it came to outside review of the LAPD. So his own leadership skills are open to debate.

I, for one, stood behind Hahn when he gave Parks the heave-ho.

But in a city as dynamically blessed and perpetually troubled as Los Angeles, you do not want a mayor hiding out in his City Hall bunker, afraid to come out and see his own shadow. You want someone part scold and part cheerleader -- someone who gives the place shape, taps collective will, makes things happen.

I don’t know if Parks is that guy, but at least you know when he’s entered a room. He stood in the barbershop tall and resplendent, a man of presence and history. The Laker playoff game was on TV, and people weren’t watching, the highest praise any politician can receive in this town.

With Parks in the house, I’m sorry to have to report, my good buddies at the barbershop were uncharacteristically restrained. They asked polite questions and accepted rambling answers without challenging Parks.

Finally, Lawrence Tolliver said it was time to open things up a bit. He began by asking Parks to quit fooling around and give them the lowdown on whether he’s going to run.

He hasn’t decided, Parks claimed.

Yeah, right.

Is Villaraigosa running? Tolliver asked.

“Antonio has told me over and over that he is not running,” Parks said.

“Can you believe a politician?” Tolliver shot back.

Tony Wafford said AIDS is the worst thing to hit the black community since slavery. If you become mayor, he told Parks, you’ve got to get the black churches to help stop the genocide and quit standing in the way on so-called religious principle.

“The mayor, the president, he’d have to be Jesus Christ himself to make these churches help,” Tolliver said disdainfully as a local reverend, his arms crossed, prayed for Mr. Tolliver’s soul.

Three years ago, Tolliver was Hahn’s biggest fan, claiming any boy of Ken Hahn had to be a good egg.

“I told you we should have checked the DNA,” said Wafford.

Parks became part of the audience and appeared to enjoy the show. He wore the spring-training smile of a baseball manager who thinks this is his team’s year, no matter the odds.

Tolliver admitted, with egg on his face, that Hahn appears forever “lost in a fog.” With obvious disdain, he added, “He’s just there.”

Outside the shop, I asked Parks if there’s a mayor he’d emulate.

“It’s pieces of a lot of people,” he said.

Tom Bradley for his inclusiveness. Dick Riordan for getting out of bed in the morning determined to take charge of something. Maynard Jackson for making Atlanta corporate headquarters for 30 companies. Rudy Giuliani for his post-Sept. 11 leadership.

L.A. is the kind of city, Parks said, where someone’s got to think big all the time.

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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.