Source: Los Angeles Times

Date: January 23, 1993

By: Faye Fiore

Parts of this artical were excluded for brevity

This is a city in search of a new leader and Laurence Greenblatt -- a.k.a. Melrose Larry Green -- has heard the call. He straps on his pink fanny pack and heads for the corner of Melrose and Highland.

The trunk of his four-door white Plymouth is stocked with big white signs informing the rush-hour traffic that he -- a tax return preparer recently arrested for screaming and waving a Cajun fried fish at the Santa Monica Pier -- Should be mayor of the nation's second-largest city.

He pops a Madonna tape into his boombox and starts dancing. His fingers, each wrapped in a Band-Aid from paper cuts sustained while making signs, are waving wildly above his frizzy hair. He is not wearing socks.

This race is wide open -- 39 candidates at last count -- and Green is one of the 28 or so who, quite frankly, don't have a prayer. Political reporters call them "clutter." The nicest thing political analyst Joe Cerrell could think of to call them was "completely irrelevent." They do not get invited to candidate debates and when they hold news conferences, hardly anybody shows up.

Even Green's 80 - year old mother, Augusta Greenblatt of Pembroke Pines, Fla., says that although her son is hard-working and sincere, dancing on a street corner is no way to conduct a campaign.

"He knows how to act with dignity. I thought he was past this stage," she said.

While the mainstream contenders jockey to distinguish themselves from the pack -- and let's face it, the "viable" candidates all showed up at the first debate in suits of varying shades of gray -- this crowd adds a little pizazz to a municipal election thus far upstaged by the holiday season and the inauguration of a new President.

The lesser-knowns range from a Beverly Hills physcian on the warpath against hysterectomies to a 22-year-old musician who lives with his parents and voted for Goofy in the last presidential election.

Some of their ideas sound plausible: Reform the Los Angeles Police Department, control skyrocketing rents.

Some are bizarre: Cut down on pollution by making the roads move like giant conveyor belts, suck the smog out of Los Angeles with big fans.

Sure, some of these alternative candidates wear plaid shirts with checkered sport coats. Sure, a few have been known to cuss in public. Sure, one of them removed his denture plate in the middle of discussing his platform and finished the interview with no top teeth.

But if you subscribe to this newly popular doctrine of term limits and anti-incumbency, these people have a certain appeal, a kind of Ross Perot "Let's get it done" energy that cuts through all the political mumbo jumbo voters keep complaining about.

Some are legitimate but underfunded. Some of them are crazy. All face virtually insurmountable odds. Still, they keep going, pasting together campaign signs on the living room floor and trying to run a race on $40 when most of their mainstream counterparts are shooting for $2 million or beyond. What makes them think they can pull this off?

"Simple," Augusta Greenblatt said flatly. "It's ego."

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A line of cars streamed into the underground parking lot at the Anti-Defamation League's brick headquarters on Santa Monica Boulevard. Nine men in suits, the field anointed by the press as the early viable contenders, were taking their places at a long table. The hot lights of television cameras burned around them as the second mayoral candidate debate was about to begin.

It was happening again. Twenty people had by this time declared their candidacies and only nine were invited to debate. The jilted majority had not been invited to the first debate either, but had learned about it too late to protest. This time, they would not be locked out without a fight.

Larry Green put on a fuzzy red Santa hat and loaded up the boombox. He stood on a park bench and started hollering : "This is veiled anti-semitism! I'm a Jew!"

---

The lobby was filling with ADL staff members who watched glumly as their their dignified forum exploded before the moderator had thrown out the first question.

The police were called and several officers stood watch over Green, arms folded, while the debate got started upstairs...Green, who was excluded after he frightened the ADL staff with what they called they called threats, turned his megaphone to the traffic and denounced the group as "a bunch of phony liberals and self-hating Jews."

Reporters collected in the lobby and ADL staff members were asked to explain why the minor contenders were denied a place, which raised the question of what separates a viable candidate with a non-viable one.

"We never had any intention of inviting everybody. Our room seats no more than 100. Logistically , it's just not possible," ruffled Barbara Bergen, ADL spokeswoman, said.

But if former Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. had thrown his hat in the ring, you can bet they would have found an extra chair. No, clearly the real criteria are money and some kind of political track record. Most of the mainstream candidates are well - funded and have served on the City Council or held other influential governmental posts. Many of the long shots are broke, have owned auto body shops or are unemployed.

But no one wanted to acknowledge such unspoken divisions this day.

"Who's to say which of us is viable?" Attorney Riordan, considered a leading candidate, said afterward. "I'm not God."

In a field this big, it is easier to dismiss the minor leaguers. Reporters have too many candidates to investigate and debates slow down with too many debaters. And experts predict that altogetherr, these contenders might get 1% of the vote.

Then again, as analyst Cerrell said, anything can happen.

"Didn't they elect a dead guy in New York last year?"

Want to learn more about Larry's run for mayor? Order his book right now: It's Melrose Larry Green Everybody

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