Hampered by staff turmoil and a shortage of money, City Councilman Bernard C. Parks is struggling to remain a viable contender for mayor of Los Angeles as supporters fret that he may have botched his campaign.
The former Los Angeles police chief entered the race last spring with notable advantages, including a solid base of support among African Americans and a name familiar to voters citywide.
But Parks has entrusted much of his campaign to family members and friends with minimal political expertise. He has fallen far behind three rivals in raising money, and all of his professional campaign advisors recently quit.
The shrinking of his campaign operation, which comes just as opponents start ramping up for the final push to the March 8 election, has left Parks' supporters dismayed.
"To put it politely, it's been kind of a disappointing, underwhelming campaign," said Kerman Maddox, a Parks family friend who managed his run for City Council in 2003. "My disappointment speaks for a lot of people, because a lot of people would like to see the campaign perform well."
By now, Parks, 61, had hoped to unite the city's most prominent African Americans behind his candidacy. Though comedian Bill Cosby and county Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke have lent their support, many others -- most notably Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), leaders of the major black churches and former basketball star Magic Johnson -- have yet to endorse him.
"At the end of the day, people want to go with a winner, and the perception is, at least today, that he doesn't appear to be a winner," said Maddox, who expects at least Waters to endorse Parks in the weeks ahead. Neither Parks nor Waters returned calls for comment.
For Parks, a key question is whether his wife, Bobbie Parks, has contributed to the campaign's undoing, as some former advisors allege. Fiercely dedicated to her husband's success, she has been the central player at his campaign's headquarters on Martin Luther King Boulevard in the Crenshaw district. She was recently named deputy campaign manager, an honorary title that belies her domination of the operation, according to several former Parks advisors.
That pervasive influence, they said, helped trigger the departure of some of Parks' professional campaign advisors and contributed to his failure to raise the money that they believed he needed to mount an effective run for mayor.
