HAYDEN STARTS HIS RUN : STATE SENATOR OFFICIALLY KICKS OFF CAMPAIGN FOR MAYOR.

Byline: Rick Orlov Daily News Staff Writer

Saying ``it will take guts, not money'' to run the nation's second largest city, state Sen. Tom Hayden on Sunday officially entered the April 8 Los Angeles election against Mayor Richard Riordan.

At a crowded news conference at his new campaign headquarters near the Fairfax district, Hayden, D-West Los Angeles, opened his mayoral bid with a broad attack on Riordan's policy by offering what he said was a different vision for the city.

``I am running for mayor because Richard Riordan wants to make Los Angeles the biggest city in America and I want to make it the most livable one,'' said Hayden, who moved into Los Angeles last year to prepare for the race.

``I am running because I see the chance of a lifetime for all of us. We can change what really matters, life in our own back yards and, in the process, change the nation and the world for the better.''

Hayden, the 1960s radical who has served 14 years as a California state legislator, said that Riordan has failed to recognize the problems throughout the city, while promoting policies that will add to congestion.

``The living truth, as opposed to the manufactured statistics, is that Richard Riordan has not turned L.A. around,'' Hayden said. ``It's too late for him to pose as a reformer now.''

Riordan was not available for comment, but campaign manager Bill Carrick questioned Hayden's statements.

``I think it is outrageous the senator from Santa Monica has chosen to make such preposterous claims the first day out of the box,'' Carrick said.

``No one had done a better job to bring quality economic life to our city and a sense of fiscal responsibility, with three balanced budgets and no tax increases.''

Carrick said he also believes Hayden plans a campaign that will ``divide this city neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block.''

Hayden is the first major candidate to declare against Riordan, who came from relative anonymity four years ago - along with $6 million of his own money - to become mayor.

Riordan already has raised more than $2 million for the coming race and campaign aides said he is willing to spend his private funds again.

Hayden said he will use $100,000 of his own money for the race and then abide by city campaign spending limits of $1.2 million, which will include some $600,000 in matching funds.

``How much can you spend on the several hundred thousand people who will vote in this election? It will take guts, not money,'' Hayden said.

In opening his campaign, Hayden questioned Riordan's success in expanding the Police Department and reducing fear in the city. He also referred to troubles with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the growing economic gap in different parts of the city.

Carrick said Hayden's attacks on Riordan did not make sense.

``Nobody has done more to make our neighborhoods safer than Dick Riordan in his first term, which contrasts dynamically with Tom Hayden's position as a leading opponent to `three strikes,' '' Carrick said, in reference to tougher sentencing laws for third-time convictions.

Riordan ran on a promise of increasing the police force by 3,000 officers. When he took office there were about 6,900 officers. Today, the number stands at about 9,200.

The mayor and his office said that increase, along with overtime money, has satisfied that goal.

But Hayden disagreed.

``The mayor said he would add 3,000 officers or not run again,'' Hayden said. ``I'm waiting to see him drop out.''

Hayden said his own experiences - as an anti-war radical and civil rights marcher in the 1960s, as well as in the environmental movement - have prepared him to lead the city.

``Like those trying to rebuild the inner city, I spent seven years organizing poor people in the urban ghettos and the segregated South,'' Hayden said. ``I went to jail with Martin Luther King. I carried the coffin of Cesar Chavez.''

Hayden said he plans to take his campaigning to all areas of the city and began Sunday by walking through a portion of Van Nuys and the Fairfax area.

Also, Hayden outlined a broad plan that he will campaign on, including giving more power to neighborhoods, working on violence prevention programs, attempting to develop a service core of college students to work as mentors in the inner city, supporting a living wage amendment, reforming the MTA and pushing for stronger environmental laws.

``With a mayor who leads a renewal movement, we can make Los Angeles the first example of a global city that is livable,'' Hayden said.

The senator also disputed the notion that he will need another major candidate in the race to force Riordan into a runoff.

``We have a strategy that we can beat him one-on-one,'' Hayden said, citing recent polls showing that Riordan captured less than 40 percent of the vote in a race against him and other potential candidates.

However, political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe said Hayden faces a tough road in defeating Riordan.

``Any re-election is, in effect, a mandate on the incumbent, and I don't sense there is that great a dissatisfaction with Riordan,'' Jeffe said. ``Also, Hayden has the problem of winning the moderate votes. The fact is, the people who vote have not been his supporters.''

But Hayden countered he has been easily re-elected to his Senate seat by a constituency that included many of the same people who have voted for Riordan.

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1) Grace Umali works on a poster at Hayden campaign headquarters.

(2) Supporters applaud as Tom Hayden, right, announces his candidacy.

Evan Yee/Daily News