Name That Mayor

In the Sunday Opinion section last month, a guest writer laid the inability of many Los Angeles voters to name their mayor -- let alone care whether he is reelected -- squarely on this paper’s shoulders. The Times, opined online columnist Mickey Kaus, is too serious about covering local politics. If only the paper gossiped more about Mayor James K. Hahn and his challengers in the March 8 election, maybe residents would talk as much about Bernie and Jimmy and Antonio as they do about Brad and Jen and Angelina.

Then again ....

Could it be that West Coast politicians just can’t match the personal peccadilloes of their East Coast counterparts? After all, Kaus’ prime example was that The Times had only mentioned in passing Hahn’s separation from his second wife. Compare that with how the New York City tabloids covered then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s marital woes.

Back East, a mayor gets tossed out of Gracie Mansion and sleeps on a gay couple’s couch before finally marrying The Other Woman. Here, the mayor keeps the house and the kids and, despite his sister’s best efforts, can’t get a date. Imagine the headlines: “Hahn Home for Dinner -- Again,” and “Mayor Spotted at Hardware Store on Weekend.”

Sure, voters have a right to decide if they want a self-professed ordinary guy who keeps regular hours for mayor. Or not. They also deserve to know the juiciest tidbits unearthed in Times profiles of the candidates. Three of the five major candidates are divorced or separated, two of them multiple times, and that’s not even counting their fallouts with each other. Former Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg’s second wife hauled him to court over the size of his child-support payments, should he actually win the office and have to make do on $200,000 a year. The ex-wife of state Sen. Richard Alarcon endorsed Hahn.

Still, that’s pretty standard fare, as is -- post-Monica -- former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa’s admission of a flawed marriage that a decade ago came close to unraveling. Like a certain former president’s union, Villaraigosa’s survived.

More unusual was the revelation that Hertzberg, known as “Huggy Bear” for his incessant embraces, sued his own father, with whom he’d once shared a law practice. His father died before the case went to court.

“It is what it is,” the candidate told Times columnist Steve Lopez, explaining that creditors kept knocking on his door for his father’s unpaid bills. Should voters be frightened or relieved that beneath that teddy-bear exterior lies a man who says his father “tried to toughen us up” -- and succeeded?

The Hertzberg drama is not, however, the weirdest story of the race. Even Kaus missed this one. Much has been said of former L.A. Police Chief Bernard C. Parks burning through consultants and ultimately entrusting his campaign to wife Bobbie. Here’s the real scoop:

Parks, who at 61 maintains the chiseled features and impeccable style that once landed him among People magazine’s most beautiful people, has been married to the same woman for 35 years and is still madly in love with her.

Now what’s up with that?