Bradley: Running for Mayor

When I watched Tom Bradley on television the other night, I saw a man running for mayor.

First, there was his manner. His voice was crisp and businesslike as he demanded that Police Chief Daryl F. Gates resign. His speech had snap, his manner confidence.

What a difference from the beaten mayor I’d covered at the height of the 1989 investigation into his private financial life. Day by day during those gloomy days, he became increasingly tired, discouraged--old. The fight with Gates seems to have rejuvenated him.

But it was more than his manner that set me thinking about mayoral politics. There was the very nature of the attack Bradley waged against Gates. It perfectly illustrates Bradley’s deceptively bland style of attack, a method that allows him to remain a statesman above the fray, oblivious to his minions scurrying below, wielding the sharpest of knives.

Watching the calm and patient mayor, I couldn’t find a clue to the real Bradley and all that had gone on below the surface. His staff’s off-the-record conversations with reporters. The Police Commission’s recent public hearings, where anti-Gates demonstrators crowded in for made-for-television protests. The steady roll of press conferences by one community leader after another, all reaching in suspicious rhythm the conclusion that Gates should resign.

That’s modern political campaigning: Keep the issue in the news. Focus on Gates. Wipe out his public support. Make the fight what it has become, the mayor vs. the chief, man to man.

Pile on the pressure, as the Bradley-appointed Board of Police Commissioners did Thursday when it put the chief on paid leave for 60 days, sending him home from Parker Center as if he were a lowly patrolman caught drunk on duty.

Although there’s no proof that Bradley had anything to do with this, we political reporters place a great stock in what has happened in the past. And this sure reminded me of the 1989 mayoral election.

Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky was preparing to run against Bradley, then seeking a fifth term. But as the Yaroslavsky announcement day neared, someone--we don’t know who--dropped off at The Times a copy of a memo written by the councilman’s campaign consultant, Michael Berman.

The memo advised Yaroslavsky how to deal with some pressing campaign matters, including how to deal with Jews, blacks and other ethnic communities. Berman is a sarcastic and witty cynic and the memo reflected these qualities. Since he is a partner in the firm of Berman and D’Agostino, called BAD campaigns, the document became known as the BAD memo.

Berman’s literary style, the catchy title and the importance of the coming mayoral campaign made the memo a journalistic hit. After confirming the authenticity, we ran it on Page 1.

The mayor denounced the memo for racism at a press conference the next day. His aides said they were appalled. All of them denied filching the memo and sending it to The Times.

But after decrying the contents of the memo, Bradley’s staff and supporters then began an apparently well-coordinated campaign to keep the issue alive.

All that week, Bradley supporters in the black community denounced Yaroslavsky for condoning a racist memo. The pressure never stopped. The spotlight never left Yaroslavsky. By week’s end, he was a battered remnant of a candidate. Yaroslavsky himself became the issue--a Jewish candidate defending himself against charges of racism. That wiped out his campaign in the black community. His main theme--that the mayor was too pro-growth--was irrelevant. Eventually, Yaroslavsky dropped his candidacy.

So far, the Bradley attack on Gates is working. The mayor’s rating in The Times Poll is well above what it was during the height of the controversy over his personal finances. The climb started well before the Rodney G. King beating. Gates’ ratings have dropped since the King beating.

But this time, Bradley’s two-tier attack may not work as well. Things are much more volatile than they were in the brief scrap with Yaroslavsky. This one threatens to go on for a long time and polarize the multiethnic city along racial lines. And, unlike the deft Yaroslavsky hit, Bradley’s aides have not been quite so clever in hiding their blood-stained knives.

The chief, emerging Thursday from the Police Commission meeting, didn’t look like a beaten man. Bradley, hoping for a quick knockout, may have underestimated his opponent.

In fact, as I watched Gates perform before the cameras in the crowded Parker Center hallway--just as he performed the night before on ABC’s Nightline--he struck me as someone who relished his crisis. In fact, I saw a man running for mayor.