MAYORAL LOSS FAILS TO KILL PASSION HERTZBERG MULLS HIS POLITICAL FUTURE.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

He came from nowhere, appearing as a giant looming large over the city, and came within a few thousand votes of making the runoff for mayor of Los Angeles.

Now Bob Hertzberg is back to where he started his campaign: a lawyer who can make big bucks in the private sector but harbors a passion for public service. He's no longer an unknown with low voter I.D., but he's got no place to go, at least for now.

So what will Huggy Bear do? Will he endorse someone in the runoff? Will he find a public office to run for?

``I'm breathing. I'm in the fight. I'm not going anywhere,'' Hertzberg, 50, said in an interview late last week after conceding the race to Mayor James Hahn, who squeaked past him to make the May 17 runoff against front-runner Antonio Villaraigosa. ``The nature of the bully pulpit changes, but the passion and the energy for the ideas don't.''

His first step is to return to the law firm Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw and resume his role on local civic boards. And he'll be replacing his campaign Web site ChangeLA.com with Bigideas4LA.com, which he wants to use to network ideas and people throughout the city.

Perhaps the best measure of the impact of Hertzberg's meteoric rise in support is the size of the shadow his endorsement - or possible nonparticipation - is casting on the runoff. The 22 percent of the votes he got is enough to put Villaraigosa over the top if he got it all, enough to put Hahn close to a majority if he wins over Hertzberg voters.

Sources said it's difficult to imagine Hertzberg endorsing Hahn after the sharpness of his criticisms and the barrage of negative ads and accusations the mayor hurled at him in the closing days to eke out second place.

While Hertzberg shares many of Villaraigosa's passions - working together in Sacramento, where both were Assembly speakers and roommates - their relationship also has been strained by a number of personal and political issues that might be hard to repair.

His campaign strategist, John Shallman, said Villaraigosa's flip-flop decision to enter the race changed the election calculus for Hertzberg, making it harder to raise money and forcing him to focus on voters in the Valley, Republicans and centrists - with Hahn competing for many of those same votes.

There's also issues of ambition. Political consultant Arnold Steinberg said that, if Villaraigosa wins the runoff, he's likely to prevail for a second term, pushing back Hertzberg eight years.

``I don't know what else Bob is interested in other than mayor,'' Shallman said. ``It's fine to say you're interested, but what else can they do?''

Under any scenario, however, there is widespread agreement among political observers that Hertzberg saved his political future by vaulting from a candidate with single-digit name recognition into a solid third place among five legitimate candidates, with a campaign that broke the mold in its creativity, and pushed the envelope on major controversial issues.

``This is not the end of him in politics; this is not his funeral,'' said political consultant Joe Cerrell. ``If you talked to people a year ago, most laughed when you said he'd run. He certainly has come from nowhere. He's gone from obscurity to a well-known name.''

Tom Hollihan, a University of Southern California professor and associate dean at Annenberg School for Communication, said questions loom around Hertzberg's political future now, particularly how he's going to translate his momentum.

``I doubt he's patient enough to wait four years,'' Hollihan said.

The problem for Hertzberg - who flourishes in executive-type positions where he can envision broad programs - is that there aren't that many political offices that fit the bill.

``He has name recognition now, which is hugely important,'' Hollihan said. ``But, if you make lists, there are a lot of capable middle-age politicians bouncing around because of term limits.''

It remains an open question, too, how much of Hertzberg's campaign - branded by television ads depicting a giant Hertzberg some called ``Bobzilla'' - reached into L.A.'s political consciousness.

Most were reluctant to suggest that Hertzberg's campaign of ``transformational'' themes opened up the dialogue or breathed a fresh political breeze into the city any more than Villaraigosa did four years ago.

Steinberg said Hertzberg's message was clouded somewhat by the multicandidate nature of the race, as well as by popular ambivalence toward some of his themes: ``bigness'' in general, and breaking up the school district specifically.

``There is a real ambiguity about big,'' Steinberg said. ``Some people who are big doers want Los Angeles to be seen as big. ... I think average people have real ambivalence equating big with more crime, more traffic.''

Hertzberg, however, said that, by keeping to his themes, he elevated the city's political dialogue - forcing other candidates to join the conversation.

``It was really creative ... and idea-issue driven,'' he said. ``We really pushed the envelope, not danced around the issues, but really (talked) about things that affect lives. It was about taking risks. I saw the city at risk, and I wasn't going to walk away from it.

``That's me.''

Beth Barrett, [phone]

beth.barrett(at)dailynews.com

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(1) There is widespread agreement among political observers that Bob Hertzberg saved his political future by vaulting from a candidate with single-digit name recognition into a solid third place among five legitimate candidates

John Lazar/Staff Photographer

(2 -- color) - Bob Hertzberg