Warren Beatty doesn't want the job. Nor does Phil Jackson or Rob Reiner or Eli Broad.
On the eve of the 45th mayoral race since the founding of modern Los Angeles, this piece could start off with a lament: Nobody's interested. T.C. Boyle is working on a novel and is too busy to talk about things like elections. It could go on about how in some cities politics vie with sports as the stuff of idle chit-chat and deep sentiment, a staple, a fix, a thrill, a comfort, a conversation, a passing exchange or an impassioned debate to be had with the mail carrier or the neighbor or the co-worker or the supermarket checkout clerk, not to mention civic leaders and thinkers and writers and artists and activists. Matt Groening isn't doing political interviews. How here, it's tough to get people to talk about the office of mayor, let alone consider running for it. Peter Ueberroth is in a meeting, always in a meeting and, sorry, unavailable to discuss it. Otis Chandler is out of the loop, doesn't really have anything to say. Jared Diamond is caught up with his book tour. How in other cities the office of mayor is a point of pride, an affirmation of place and proprietorship and sensibility. Richard Riordan's been there, done that, declines to comment. How in other cities the man himself--the current mayor--and the contenders are everywhere, on TV news, on front pages of newspapers, knocking on your door. Sherry Lansing is so preoccupied with packing up her office at Paramount that even her assistant can't return calls. How in those cities everybody has a stake. How things are at stake. Jobs and ideas and the ruling class. Because hizzoner alone has the power to unite or divide, to make a city feel its greatness and its strength. To make a city matter.
But here everybody knows those paradigms don't apply. Voter turnout for mayoral elections hovers around 34%. That means that in the primary on March 8, only a third of the city's 1.5 million registered voters might cast a ballot. That doesn't count the additional million residents of Los Angeles who are eligible to vote but haven't bothered to register. Or all the adults who live here but aren't eligible to vote. Compare that with the 50% voter turnout in San Francisco, or the 74% in San Diego. Amid the vibrancy of this polyglot, Pacific Rim, pan-Latin, poverty-riven, paradisiacal mega-metropolis, one can't help but wonder why L.A.'s mayoral races--and its mayors--are so disappointing.
Why Are These Guys Running?
Disclaimer: no mayoral candidates were interviewed for this piece, nor was anyone who has a direct stake in the outcome of the race. The point of this piece is to step away from politics as usual and puzzle over how we might move from the usual and the ordinary (which leaves many of us feeling disengaged) to the inspired and the extraordinary. Despite the difficulties in securing some interviews--as laid out above--two dozen or so thoughtful people were willing to talk. Each was asked to address two questions: If you could choose anyone at all to be mayor of Los Angeles, whom would you choose? And why? More detail on their responses later, as well as their thoughts on why we keep voting the usual suspects into office. For now, just know that several qualified their responses by noting that they'd be content with any of the current top candidates. None who chose to comment on the current race, however, singled out a particular candidate as his or her top choice.
This is not too surprising, considering what's on offer. The incumbent, Jimmy Hahn, rode into office on the nostalgia vote delivered by fans of his late dad, longtime County Supervisor Kenny Hahn, and has been missing in action ever since. The two city councilmen in the race, Bernie Parks and Antonio Villaraigosa, appear to have scores to settle with the mayor. Hahn helped fire Parks from his job as police chief, and bested Villaraigosa in the last mayoral runoff after unleashing a scurrilous mail and television blitz suggesting that his opponent was linked with a seamy world of drugs and thuggery. Villaraigosa, Bob Hertzberg and Richard Alarcon are Sacramento ping-pongers, members of a growing group of career pols whom term limits have bounced from L.A. to the Capitol and back again. One can't help but suspect that for these guys, coming back to L.A. is like moving back home after college and sleeping in your old bunk until you figure out what you really want to do with your life.
