Bradley Organizers Targeting Few Valley Areas for Heavy Campaign

The walls of Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley’s reelection campaign headquarters are covered with maps. Marked on them are areas of the city targeted for a special effort to win votes on April 9.

It is not surprising that few areas of the San Fernando Valley are singled out.

The liberal Bradley has never fared well in the conservative Valley. In five elections, including an ill-fated run for governor in 1982, Bradley has carried the Valley only once--in the 1981 mayoral race against former Mayor Sam Yorty, considered weak opposition.

That is why Bradley is concentrating his campaign in his traditional strongholds of central, south and west Los Angeles.

It is also why Bradley’s chief rival, City Councilman John Ferraro, considers the Valley his highest priority, according to Ron Smith, Ferraro’s campaign consultant.

“We have to get 60% of the Valley vote to win,” Smith said.

Bradley has proven that he can win without the support of the Valley, where about one-third of the city’s 3 million residents live.

Still, the mayor will mount an active Valley campaign, said Michael Gage, his campaign manager. “I can’t believe you can write off any part of the city,” he said. “Nor will we.”

Some political observers have suggested that Bradley needs to win big in his hometown to shore up his viability for another run at the governorship in 1986. It is a subject to which Bradley’s campaign advisers, sensitive to Ferraro’s charges that Bradley’s reelection campaign is merely preparation for 1986, decline to respond. The mayor has denied, however, that he plans to run next year.

Ferraro’s slow start was underlined last week by a KCBS-TV poll in which 975 respondents gave Bradley a 55%-15% lead. And the mayor’s Valley campaign is better organized than Ferraro’s, although Ferraro needs the Valley more than Bradley does.

Bradley opened a campaign office in Van Nuys Saturday and has named a Valley campaign director, Frankee Greenberg, a Democratic Party activist from Woodland Hills.

He has also named four honorary chairpersons of his Valley campaign to organize community events and will hold his first Valley fund-raising event Wednesday in Warner Center.

Ferraro has yet to take any of these steps.

Race Compared to 1981

Gage predicted that the 1985 race will be comparable to Bradley’s successful Valley campaign against Yorty in 1981. “I don’t think we have formidable opposition this time either,” Gage said.

Gage dismissed Bradley’s loss of the Valley in the 1982 gubernatorial election as a problem of partisan politics. In that race, Republican George Deukmejian defeated him 185,000 to 174,000. Although the Valley has more registered Democrats than Republicans, it has a history of electing Republicans.

“Historically, Bradley has had strong support from Republicans in mayoral elections,” Gage said. “I don’t think that support was as strong in the gubernatorial election.”

Neither Bradley nor Ferraro plans to campaign differently in the Valley than in other parts of Los Angeles.

Targeting Promising Areas

Gage said areas where the mayor has a good chance of picking up votes will be targeted for a special effort--to receive more campaign mail, more personal appearances by the mayor and more calls or visits by campaign volunteers.

“When you’re talking about 1.1 million people in the Valley, there are going to be sections where you’re not going to put your resources because you know you just can’t win,” said Greenberg.

This probably means that a resident of conservative Chatsworth is less likely to receive a phone call or a mailing from the Bradley campaign than a resident of liberal Pacoima, Gage acknowledged.

Bradley supporters also will be calling voters in targeted areas to find out who they support for mayor, Gage said. Areas in which large numbers of residents are uncommitted or leaning to Bradley will be targeted for an extra effort.

No Phone Banks for Ferraro

Ferraro has no plans to use phone banks. He plans to flood the entire Valley with mailers.

The mailers will use the same three themes that have become the trademark of Ferraro’s campaign. These are his contention that Bradley, if reelected, plans to run again for governor before finishing out his term, and his criticism of the mayor for supporting Metro Rail and transferring police out of the Valley to a special task force in South-Central Los Angeles.

“There is the same strategy in the Valley that there is in the Eastside and Harbor area,” said Smith, Ferraro’s campaign consultant. “That is that city services have been neglected in the Valley and in other areas in order to service downtown.”

Smith said his first goal will be to familiarize Valley residents with Ferraro, who has represented the Wilshire District on the City Council for 19 years.

Greenberg said the toughest part of her job will be to counter Ferraro’s charges that Bradley has shortchanged the Valley.

“We have to get across to the people that the mayor has accomplished many things in the Valley,” she said.