Riordan Is a Mystery in GOP Bastion

BAKERSFIELD —  To boosters, Richard Riordan is the can’t miss candidate for California governor. But to Nancy Kerns, he’s a mystery.

“The guy from L.A,” she ventured. “Wasn’t he a police officer? The chief of police?”

Jess Caldwell vaguely recognizes the name. “Wasn’t he the L.A. . . . I’m trying to think . . . district attorney?” Caldwell asked.

Riordan--actually the former mayor of Los Angeles--is being urged into the governor’s race by Republican leaders convinced his big-city resume, deep pockets and centrist image make him the strongest potential candidate against Democrat Gray Davis.

But first Riordan would have to win the GOP nomination, a task that may be rougher than some think, judging from people such as Kerns and Caldwell.

The two come from the most Republican neck of California, a party stronghold that has supplanted Orange County as the state’s conservative fortress. Their inability to place Riordan was hardly unusual; out of nearly 40 people interviewed last week from Bakersfield to Visalia, fewer than a third properly identified the ex-mayor. Nearly half said they had never even heard his name.

“I pay more attention to cultural activities in Los Angeles than politics,” said Sonja Swenson, an arts teacher at the community college in Taft.

Practically speaking, if Riordan runs, his lack of statewide name recognition is nothing that can’t be solved with, say, $5 million or so in television advertising.

Dan Schnur, head of Riordan’s exploratory efforts, said it was understandable the ex-mayor was little known to people “who have not had the opportunity to watch him over the last eight years.”

Once voters learn of his crime-fighting credentials, his record of balancing budgets without a tax hike and his work to improve schools and the city’s business climate, “We think they’ll respond very favorably,” Schnur said.

But Riordan’s accommodating stance on touchy issues such as gun control, gay rights and abortion may prove more troublesome among Republican loyalists. And his city’s image problem--a reputation that precedes him--may be altogether hopeless.

Ask people what comes to mind when they think of Los Angeles and several associations recur: Hollywood, entertainment, world-class shopping. Also smog, gangs, sprawl, crime, traffic, overcrowding, poverty, illegal immigration, police corruption and overpriced housing.

“The armpit of humanity,” said Marian Cote, 62, a lifelong resident of Visalia, whose last trip to Disneyland reminded her that Los Angeles was “the last place on Earth” she would ever choose to live.

Cote doesn’t necessarily hold those feelings against Riordan. Being mayor is a “pretty big job” that offers the experience he could use as governor, Cote said. But she soured as soon as she learned of his support for gun control. “We have enough gun laws,” Cote said. “You tell him to leave our guns alone.”

Visalia is at the northern end of the 21st Congressional District, the most solid Republican stronghold in California. Running north from Bakersfield through Kern and Tulare counties, the district takes in farm towns along California Highway 99 and the desert stretching east to Edwards Air Force Base.

Bill Thomas, one of the senior Republicans in the House, has represented the area since 1978, when he faced the closest race of his congressional career--a contest he won with 59% of the vote.

Republicans hold all five seats on the Tulare County Board of Supervisors and four of the five in Kern County. President Bush carried the 21st Congressional District with 64% of the vote--his highest percentage anywhere in California--at the same time he was losing the state in a landslide.

“It’s a lot of families--second- and third-generation families--who are very anti-tax, pro-military, pro-growth, pro-agriculture,” said Ken Khachigian, a veteran GOP strategist who helped deliver the San Joaquin Valley when George Deukmejian beat Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley in the 1982 governor’s race.

Those political sentiments are matched by a cultural conservatism that suggests a far greater distance than the mere 100 or so miles that separate the region from the megalopolis to the south. (To many here, Los Angeles is everything from the Grapevine to San Diego.)

As mayor, Riordan once stirred a dust-up when he scoffed at Bakersfield, calling it “boring.” He paid a penitential visit--squired by Kern County Dist. Atty. Ed Jagels, now a supporter--and all was apparently forgiven. And evidently forgotten.

But Khachigian, who grew up in Visalia in the 1950s, said the wealthy Riordan’s obvious lack of cultural affinity is something he will have to overcome if he hopes to gain much of a foothold in the conservative heartland. “The notion of someone bicycling through Provence is not exactly going to sell on Mooney Boulevard or Main Street,” he dryly observed.

Back on Visalia’s Main Street, behind the counter of the Plunkett Coin Co., Mark Fischer is less concerned with Riordan’s continental vacation jaunts than his support for gay rights, legalized abortion and gun control. “I’m pretty much against all those things,” he said.

Fischer was particularly displeased with Riordan’s stance on guns. He stood surrounded by the mounted heads of half a dozen game animals, including an Alaskan caribou, an antelope and an elk. They were all bagged by his boss; Fischer prefers target shooting. But he worries about the encroachment of an increasingly heavy-handed government. “It’s just getting to be more socialistic, in my opinion,” Fischer said.

Many leading Republicans share Fischer’s views on gun control and the like. But they have passed over two more conservative candidates, Secretary of State Bill Jones and businessman William E. Simon Jr., convinced that Riordan’s positions may be better suited to the majority of Californians.

“We believe that many of the voters who disagree with Dick Riordan on one or two issues--even if these issues are very important to them--will respond very well to his broader record of reform and accomplishment,” advisor Schnur said.

Roger Gagosian, a Bakersfield real estate developer, noted the ex-mayor’s endorsement by the likes of Jagels, Thomas and local Assemblyman Roy Ashburn. The area is definitely anti-gay and pro-gun, said Gagosian, standing outside Office Depot off Buck Owens Boulevard. But Riordan “seemed to play OK” when he visited in July as part of his statewide exploratory tour.

Ashburn joined Riordan in Bakersfield, touting the way he “turned Los Angeles around.”

“When you think about Los Angeles before Mayor Riordan, you think high crime, a sagging economy, race riots and a school system failing kids,” Ashburn said.

Apparently, many still do. And that may explain a bit of California history. Only one man has ever served as Los Angeles mayor and then gone on to become governor: William D. Stephens, elected in 1917. Back in 1909, Stephens served less than two weeks as Los Angeles’ interim mayor--scarcely enough time to make an impression there, let alone Bakersfield or Visalia.

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Video of interviews with Central Valley residents about the possible gubernatorial candidacy of former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan is available on the Times’ Web site at http://161.35.110.226/centralvalley.