Content area
Full Text
To understand City Councilman Nate Holden's decision to run for mayor of Los Angeles, go back to 1945 to a gym in Elizabeth, N.J., when he was 16 and a novice boxer.
"They had this black guy who looked like he weighed about, I guess about 200 pounds, and I weighed about 167," Holden said. "They said, `Can you beat this guy?' I said, `Yeah, I can beat him.' I was watching the way he walked. Sized him up. So, they say, `OK, you're on.' But instead of me fighting the black guy, they put me on with the champion, who was an Italian guy. In an Italian town."
Those who have experienced the ferocity of ethnic fight fans and seen their hysteria influence referees and judges know the mischievousness of the double-cross inflicted on Holden. The only way a black fighter could have won that fight, in an arena filled with Italians, was to knock out his opponent.
"So I went in and knocked him out, and they booed me."
The story tells much about Nathan Nathaniel Holden, 59, a tall, gray-haired, dignified-looking man in a nicely conservative suit, a city councilman since 1987 and a state senator from 1974 to 1978.
This is a man who does not avoid a fight. In fact, he looks for one. After four years in a state Senate seat so safe he had virtually a lifetime job, he gave up Sacramento to enter a crowded Democratic primary for a congressional seat ultimately won by Julian C. Dixon. He has run for office eight times in the last 22 years, winning only twice.
So when Holden decided to run against the heavily favored Mayor Tom Bradley this year, it came as no surprise to those who have watched Holden's frequent entrances into the political wars of Los Angeles, particularly those in the predominantly black South-Central and Southwestern sections-his base.
"Nate has a habit of going out and running for things before he has tested the waters of the office he holds," said Bradley supporter Ted Watkins of the Watts Labor Community Action Committee.
As he showed that day in the New Jersey ring, Holden loves a fight. When City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky looked at the polls, concluded...