... AND OUT WITH THE OLD HAHN SQUANDERED GOODWILL LEGACY.

Byline: Jonathan Dobrer Local View

THE Han Dynasty of China lasted nearly 400 years - with a short break in the middle. One senses that the Hahn Dynasty in Los Angeles will not achieve such length of days. In fact this dynasty seems to be dying nastily.

Never has the inheritor of so much good will so squandered a legacy as in this misspent single term of Mayor James Hahn. It is quite rare to gain office on a flood-tide of good will left over from one's family and to see it disappear in rapid ebb.

Now Jimmy Hahn - let me backtrack a moment. His name is James Hahn and he was always James while city attorney. He transforms into ``Jimmy'' when the race narrows and he needs to stoke the helpful confusion that he might be the late and beloved Kenny Hahn, his sainted father. Growing up in Los Angeles, I knew Kenny Hahn, and James Hahn is no Kenny.

Nor, to be fair, is he a monster. He is simply a run-of-the-mill politician without either discernible vision or charm. He complained, much as Bob Dole did when running against Clinton, that he had a chronic charisma deficiency. True. And he is not to be held at fault for his lack of charisma. The comparison to Dole however is apt. Hahn shares a lack of charisma with Dole and also a certain meanness. He is like Dole but without the redeeming humor or charm.

Hahn had a choice of how to run his campaigns, and twice, when the going got tough, the tough got mean. You can tell a person's true character by watching him under stress. It is relatively easy to be gracious while in the lead, but when the race tightened, Jimmy went for the race issue. In both races he played the card.

This year a Hahn campaign ad reached all the way back to 1990 and referenced a suit Villaraigosa filed questioning an anti-gang ordinance for being overly broad. The ad concluded, ``Los Angeles can't trust Antonio Villaraigosa.'' Another ad that played both on TV and was disseminated on the phone charged that Villaraigosa voted against raising the mandatory penalty for child-abusers from 15 to 25 years. This was a half-truth that conveyed a complete lie. He voted for a competing bill that raised the penalty from 25 to life. That bill died in committee despite Villaraigosa's support.

Perhaps worst of all was the 2001 ad and mailer charging Villaraigosa with trying to get a jailed gang member clemency. The young felon was indeed the son of a contributor. What made the ad reprehensible was that it showed a dark and blurry picture of the father, Horacio Vignali, whom some could have believed was the candidate himself. Still worse was the fact that this picture was juxtaposed with a crack cocaine pipe.

The implication was clear: dark, foreign-sounding and crack cocaine. Put them all together and they spell GANG. Former Chief of Police Bernard Parks called this ad ``racist.'' It does not take a genius to decode that Hahn's ads and mailers charging Villaraigosa with voting against anti-gang legislation was a shallowly coded message that we all better watch out for that Mexican. We were expected to understand that gangs are Mexican and Villaraigosa is weak on gangs because he is Mexican. He just won't protect us.

Hahn played this despicable race card in their first matchup four years ago and again this year. It worked before but it did not work as well this time. We had four years to watch both Antonio and Jimmy. We saw Antonio run for office again, hold office and learn. We saw Jimmy, uh, well, we saw Jimmy accomplish something really beyond imagination. He lost the support of the African-American community.

From hard-liner Maxine Waters to user-friendly Magic Johnson, black leaders fell away from Jimmy and came over to Antonio. Hahn somehow used up the good will - not that he had earned by works but inherited by grace from his dad.

Yes, it is true that an important factor in how Hahn lost the confidence of so much of the African-American community was his firing of Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks. Hahn must have believed that replacing Parks was the right thing to do for Los Angeles, for he surely knew it would cost him politically. However, he handled it inelegantly.

First, Hahn lobbied for Parks' removal and, through the city attorney, insisted that the performance review that would decide Parks' fate would be closed. This despite Parks' request for an open meeting. The stated reason was that private matters would be discussed; the implication was dirty secrets. This was not Hahn playing the race card, but the not-so-subtle hinting at an issue concerning Parks that went past performance to character. A smear.

Hahn showed with Parks, as he displayed with Villaraigosa, that the way to win the day was to smear the character of anyone in his way.

Kenny Hahn, in 23 years as a Los Angeles County supervisor, earned the trust and respect of the African-American community. He served an ethnically mixed constituency for his entire career and proved himself to be available and sensitive to the bread-and-butter needs of his people - his people of all races. Kenny was no charisma-charged dynamo. He was simply a guy who treated every community with dignity. He became beloved by nearly all.

Many, I am sure, voted for Jimmy believing it was Kenny, just as many are said to have voted for Franklin Roosevelt thinking it was Teddy, or Ted Kennedy confusing him with John. Even during this campaign, I heard Jimmy introduced on several occasions as Kenny. Old habits die hard.

The original Han Dynasty had a hiatus. So, I suppose that it is possible that Kenny can regain his good name. There is one left, Kenny's daughter and Jimmy's sister, City Councilwoman Janice Hahn.

Will she save the legacy? We'll see.

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Photo:

(color) Mayor James Hahn gives his concession speech early Wednesday morning following defeat for a second term.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer