TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/042489/04248900.040

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 6KB | 102 lines

NATION, Page 20

How to Make Boring Beautiful

Or, why California has such glitzy people and such dull pols


    The city that gave the country personal trainers, liver with
kiwi, and Cher ought to be more adventurous than to have a Mayor
for Life. But that's what Los Angeles' Tom Bradley is turning out
to be. The man the Wall Street Journal calls the "recumbent
incumbent" has just been elected to a fifth term, squeaking by with
a 52% majority against a weak field of opponents. With no strong
challenger to smoke him out, the tall, quiet Bradley got away with
something akin to a Rose Garden strategy. He granted few interviews
and ran in part on a platform of "the most ambitious
sewer-improvement project in the nation." On election night, he
talked about a new literacy program, public works jobs, beautifying
neighborhoods and household-trash separation.

    This in a city known for some of the country's worst air
pollution, traffic jams that last most of the day and more than 400
gang-related murders last year; a city where 60% of the people
polled said they thought the quality of life has become worse and
where half of 12,000 people polled said they had considered moving
away in the past year.

    "Stealth Mayor" Bradley keeps a low enough profile not to be
associated with the city's problems. Unlike New York City's Mayor
Ed Koch, who blurts out insults to someone nearly every day, the
resolutely dull Bradley has said hardly anything memorable in
almost 16 years in office. But the mayor is no accident in
California politics. Like most public officials in this
trend-making state, Bradley is part of a wave of certifiably
boring, aggressively bland politicians. How else to account for
Governor George Deukmejian, Senators Pete Wilson and Alan Cranston
and others too unrecognizable to mention?

    What happened to those glorious days of yesteryear, when
California produced Red-baiting Richard Nixon, tap-dancing George
Murphy, and the diminutive, tam-o'-shanter-wearing S.I. Hayakawa,
who said of the Panama Canal, "We should keep it; we stole it fair
and square"? Or, for that matter, the Gipper? On the liberal side,
there was Jerry Brown, promoter of Zen politics and Spaceship
Earth. Bill Schneider, political analyst at the American Enterprise
Institute, blames Governor Moonbeam for starting the trend away
from trendy. "Brown singlehandedly is responsible for the election
of at least two of the most boring politicians the country has ever
seen -- Deukmejian and Wilson. Jerry made boring beautiful."

    But is fear of being parodied in Doonesbury enough to account
for a statewide charisma deficit? Deukmejian, who established an
organization called Citizens for Common Sense, is so unadventurous
that George Bush makes jokes about him. The most exciting thing
about Pete Wilson -- dubbed one of the more anonymous people in
American politics -- was his showing up on the Senate floor
straight from the hospital in his pajamas to cast an important
vote. Wilson was so unremarkable during his first term that
one-third of California voters were unable even to rate his
performance.

    Wilson makes the shy Alan Cranston seem positively flamboyant.
Cranston's greatest vice is jogging too much for a man his age
(74); the most colorful thing about him is his hair, which he dyed
an orange shade of red five years ago to update his haggard look
for a brief run for the presidency. For a while it looked as if
Cranston might lose his seat in 1986, but that will take someone
a lot duller than challenger Ed Zschau, a Silicon Valley
entrepreneur who believes in memory chips and the Pacific Rim.

    Part of the insouciance about local politics, according to
pollster Mervin Field, comes from sheer confusion. In a metropolis
where as many as 85 languages are spoken, that extends from the
perfumed hills of the Westside to the barrios of East L.A. and the
ghetto of Watts, where state, county and regional authorities
overlap one another, voters hardly know who's in charge. Bradley
and the business community, his biggest supporter, seem to like it
that way.

    Then there is the agenda-setting Hollywood elite and its
preoccupation with national affairs. Ronald Brownstein, who is
writing a book about Hollywood and politics, says most political
money for Democrats comes from California and about two-thirds of
that bankroll comes from Los Angeles. "Stars, though, don't want
to slum with the locals," says Brownstein. "They are at the
pinnacle of their profession and want to deal at the highest
levels. (Disney CEO) Michael Eisner wants to raise money for Bill
Bradley, not some city supervisor."

    So uninteresting have living, breathing candidates become that
California is leading the move to dispense with them. Last fall 29
initiatives and referendums made it onto the state ballot; voters
were asked to decide everything from taxes to bonds to insurance
rates. The movie community also prefers causes to people: the
Hollywood Women's Political Committee devoted most of its efforts
this year to the April 9 abortion march on Washington, with Morgan
Fairchild, Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, Cybill Shepherd and others
leading the charge.

    But politics can become only so boring before it ceases to
exist at all. Last week Los Angeles held an election and almost no
one came -- only 23% of the voters turned out. Bradley does not
need charisma to attract money; the bankers and developers in Los
Angeles have wallets as fat as Michael J. Fox's. But politicians
do need to inspire people, or at least keep them awake, if they are
to lead as well as win.