Hertzberg Gets a Lift From Gov.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared with Bob Hertzberg on Friday to endorse the Los Angeles mayoral candidate’s plan for education reform, giving Hertzberg a televised boost as he struggles to keep pace with two better-funded rivals in the campaign’s final stretch.

In a hastily arranged event at Schwarzenegger’s Santa Monica office, the governor -- who already had expressed generalized support for Hertzberg’s proposal to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District -- held a private, 20-minute meeting with the former state Assembly speaker.

At a news conference afterward, the governor did not endorse Hertzberg, a longtime friend; instead, he reiterated his intention to stay out of the mayor’s race. But cameras snapped pictures of the two men together as Schwarzenegger praised Hertzberg’s breakup plan.

“I think that Bob knows I don’t get involved with the mayor’s race,” the governor said, standing in a courtyard outside his Main Street office. “I think it would be wrong for me to do. But Bob and I have been friends, and I have asked him many times for ... advice, and I am more than happy to also work with him and the education idea he has.”

By appearing with the high-profile governor, a very popular figure among Republicans, Hertzberg hoped to bolster his standing with conservative voters. Conservatives have been a key target in the mayor’s race for Hertzberg, one of five major Democratic candidates in a field with no well-known Republican.

The impact of the public session was unclear -- Democrats make up most of the city’s voters, and recent polls show them souring on Schwarzenegger -- but it came at a key juncture for Hertzberg.

After spending a large chunk of his finances on an early round of television advertising, the former assemblyman has succeeded in advancing into the top tier of candidates vying for the mayor’s office. But, with the election 10 days away, he has found himself with limited resources to close the sale.

Media strategists said he will be outspent at least 2 to 1 on television by Mayor James K. Hahn and Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa before the March 8 election, potentially overwhelming Hertzberg’s ability to communicate just as voters begin to tune into the campaign.

“It’s like these NBA games, where the first three quarters are essentially meaningless and everything happens at the end of the fourth quarter,” said political strategist Chris Lehane, a former consultant to Councilman Bernard C. Parks, another mayoral candidate. “Usually who wins depends on who has the biggest guns.”

Many political analysts view the race, at present, as a three-way contest among Hahn, Hertzberg and Villaraigosa for the two spots in the May run-off. Of the three, Hertzberg is in the weakest financial position.

The former Assembly speaker had $779,000 on hand as of Feb. 19, and hadn’t yet purchased advertising for the final two weeks of the campaign. Meanwhile, Hahn and Villaraigosa each had $1.1 million remaining -- and the mayor already had bought his television time through election day. Parks was running even with Hertzberg in a Los Angeles Times poll last month, but had less than half as much money left as the Sherman Oaks lawyer.

Friday’s joint appearance with the governor was aimed at getting Hertzberg more airtime -- for free.The two men reportedly met two decades ago through a mutual friend, Gale Anne Hurd, who attended high school with Hertzberg and later produced the first “Terminator” movie, which made Schwarzenegger an international star.

A few days after his 2003 election, Schwarzenegger appointed Hertzberg to a 67-member transition team that also included Hahn and a few other Democrats. Later, Schwarzenegger relied on Hertzberg for advice about policy, the state budget and the workings of the Capitol, and at one point considered tapping him as chief of staff.

The governor promised Hahn last year that he would not take sides in the mayor’s race, but he has given Education Secretary Richard Riordan tacit approval to campaign vigorously for Hertzberg, according to a person familiar with the administration’s strategy. A campaign mailer featuring Schwarzenegger and Hertzberg is expected to hit mailboxes next week.

During their brief news conference Friday, Schwarzenegger called Hertzberg’s plan “terrific” and said he “absolutely” supports breaking up the school district.

“It does not work the way it is right now, and I think it’s very important that we make smaller districts and pay much more attention to individual children,” the governor said.

A beaming Hertzberg, who clapped Schwarzenegger on the shoulder several times, said, “This is what leadership is about.”

“This is what Jim Hahn should be doing, taking the leadership, just as Gov. Schwarzenegger is doing in fighting for our kids,” he added.

Hertzberg has given varied explanations of how he would dismantle the district, and it was not immediately clear which of them Schwarzenegger was endorsing. The mayor has no direct authority over the schools, and education leaders have strenuously objected to a breakup.

In a recent interview with The Times, Hertzberg suggested putting a district that mirrors the boundaries of Los Angeles under mayoral control, while paring off the rest of Los Angeles Unified into smaller districts. But in his campaign commercials, including a new ad that began airing Friday, he has implied that all of the new districts would be small, not just those outside the city borders.

At Friday’s news conference, he said a city-sized district was “one of the many ways how to accomplish this objective.”

Hertzberg has been touting himself as someone with “big ideas” for Los Angeles, and his new commercial once again features him as a larger-than-life figure towering over the city. At one point, he lumbers down a downtown street, standing taller than the historic buildings.

“I think you deserve a mayor who thinks big for a change,” he says.

Even though the spot will air far less frequently than his rivals’ ads, the former assemblyman’s advisors maintain that the commercial will win him support from those who do not want to see a rematch between 2001 competitors Hahn and Villaraigosa.

“We felt we didn’t need as much money as our opponents because they’re all well known,” said John Shallman, his campaign consultant. “When you see Jim Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa, voters are saying, ‘It’s deja vu, 2001 all over again.’ ”

But his competitors predict that Hertzberg’s message will be overshadowed by a barrage of commercials featuring his rivals.

“He’s not as well known as the mayor or Councilman Villaraigosa, and I think it’s very difficult if you’re going to be outspent at the end,” said Hahn strategist Bill Carrick. “You want momentum going into election day, not six weeks before.”

Carrick was referring to Hertzberg’s decision to hit the airwaves Feb. 1, a full two weeks before his rivals. The move cost him an extra $500,000, and in order to conserve money, Hertzberg was forced to go off the air for five days this week.

“When you’re in that situation, you throw a long pass: You go up early and try to go up in a way that breaks through with the voters,” said strategist Darry Sragow, who is not affiliated with any of the campaigns. “But the problem when you do that is you don’t have infinite money. The question is, do you have a strong enough presence to get across the goal line?”

In the last two weeks, Hertzberg has tried to create his own momentum by feeding the notion that he is on Hahn’s heels. He has predicted that the mayor would soon go after him, and challenged Hahn to avoid negative campaigning and personal attacks.

“It is clear I will become your next target,” he wrote in a letter to the mayor Wednesday.

Some political strategists said Hertzberg appeared to be trying to inoculate himself in case the mayor launched a hard-hitting ad against him, and laying the groundwork in case he decides to run his own negative commercial. Others said Hertzberg was trying to elevate his standing by picking a fight with the mayor.

“They want this strategically to be about Hahn and Hertzberg,” said Julie Buckner, a public affairs consultant who worked for Hertzberg when he first entered the race. “To the extent that Bob can bait him into a mano a mano, it shows it’s about the two of them.”

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Times staff writers Peter Nicholas and Robert Salladay contributed to this report.