Hayden Puts Riordan in Charm’s Way

“This is not a personality contest,” Mayor Richard Riordan said Wednesday. He’d better hope that’s true. Because if personality decides this spring’s mayoral race, Riordan loses to Tom Hayden.

With the mayor back in town from a two-week stay in his Idaho vacation home, he and Hayden hit the streets in the opening of a campaign that has been written off as one-sided but looks like it will be a lively, competitive scrap.

You couldn’t have two more different candidates than the Republican-businessman mayor and the liberal state senator who represents West Los Angeles and Santa Monica.

All they have in common is being Irish, rich and homeowners in the same high-priced ZIP code--Riordan in Brentwood, Hayden in Mandeville Canyon, favorite haunts of the Westside’s wealthy.

Hayden is humorous, often charming and relaxed around people. He’s survived it all, from the courtroom and street battles of 1960s to the deal-making and back-stabbing of the state Legislature.

Riordan, despite almost four years as chief executive of the nation’s second-largest city, still is as stiff as a Flower Street lawyer and as articulate as a corporate CEO who has gotten by exercising raw power and knowing just two words, “yes” and “no.”

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On Wednesday, City Hall reporter Jean Merl followed the mayor and I stuck with underdog Hayden.

As usual, it was difficult to catch the mayor. He’s not one for public appearances. On many days he makes no public appearances. We in the press have no idea what he’s doing. For the city’s sake, we hope he’s holed up in his office, reading documents and making the big decisions. But for all we know, he could be playing bridge or tennis, or riding his bike.

He had an appearance Wednesday, his first of the week, in the west San Fernando Valley, where he dedicated a new Pep Boys auto supply store.

He gave the same speech he’d delivered at a Pep Boys opening in South L.A., a short talk built around the theme of “L.A. has turned around.”

Afterward, the reporters asked about Hayden. “I am strictly going to run my campaign for the voters of Los Angeles. I have a lot of confidence in them and they are the ones that are going to make the decision.” He zipped through his record, emphasizing the increased size of the Police Department.

When the mayor was asked about another potential opponent, City Councilman Nate Holden, Riordan replied with a strained, mirthless laugh. He continued laughing in this odd manner when reporters pressed him about Holden.

Clearly a charm school truant.

With Hayden, there’s almost too much charm. He listens to what you say. Unlike Riordan, he remembers names, even of spouses. He’s your pal, your new best friend, obviously a man who has kissed the Blarney Stone too often on his visits to Ireland.

When I was starting out, the old political writers used to warn me of people like him: “Watch it kid, he’ll pick your pocket while he charms you.”

I joined other Times staff members for a luncheon with Hayden in one of our dining rooms.

Two of my colleagues are Irish and they and Hayden swapped recollections of the old country, and the way their forebears struggled up the ladder in this country. Hayden has written a book about the Irish famine of the 19th century and its impact on later generations of Irish.

When the discussion moved on to city politics, he talked in an easy, relaxed manner, even though some of his proposals will be quite controversial. He wants, for example, zoning and other planning decisions to be made by elected neighborhood councils instead of the City Council. He wants the council enlarged. He wants commissions eliminated, with city government shaped more like that of the state, where the governor and lawmakers share power, with no appointed commissioners in between.

In short, Hayden passed the great test of anyone appearing in an establishment institution such as ours: He wasn’t a wacko.

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This was just the first day of combat.

The battle will extend into April--and into June if Riordan is forced into a runoff.

He’ll have much more money than Hayden. He will be able to dominate the television screen with commercials. His staff is expensive and experienced. As he did when he was elected, Riordan will follow a script, and seldom vary from it.

Hayden will run a guerrilla campaign, probably low on money even if he kicks in up to $100,000 of his own, trying to capture attention by playing off the news--or creating it.

He did that Wednesday, with a news conference demanding that Riordan pull out of city gas purchasing agreements with Chevron because of the oil company’s price increases.

He’ll try to force Riordan into a debate, and may well succeed. He’ll try to annoy and badger him.

By campaign’s end, we’ll know whether charm and personality was enough.