Woo Finding Second Fight for Stevenson Seat Tougher

Michael Woo, a Los Angeles City Council candidate and grandson of a Chinese laundryman, was reading a piece of hate mail, a letter which began by asking Woo, “Are you only going to defend the Chinese?” and ended by saying, “We need another Civil War to clean out the aliens.”

Woo had hoped those sentiments were part of his political past, along with other factors that contributed to his loss four years ago to 13th District Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson. Aside from a trickle of ethnic slurs, the race this time has been more civilized.

However, Woo, whose impressive debut was the Cinderella story of the 1981 election season, is finding that new obstacles--notably a tough new challenger and a determined Stevenson--are making his second run for the council harder in some ways than the first.

Woo, 33, an aide to state Sen. David Roberti (D-Los Angeles), leads a field of five candidates who are challenging Stevenson for the council seat she has held since 1975, when she succeeded her late husband, Councilman Robert Stevenson.

Reduce Crime

Stevenson is running on a record that she says is highlighted by service to the district’s large concentration of elderly people, by work with police to reduce crime and by efforts to rebuild downtown Hollywood.

Her opponents accuse her of being a lazy council member who repeatedly bows to the interests of corporate contributors, who allows real estate developers to run roughshod over hillside residential neighborhoods and who has done virtually nothing to bring Hollywood back to life.

Entering the final phase of the primary--election day is next Tuesday--Woo says he is doing well enough to force Stevenson into a runoff. Stevenson needs more than 50% of the vote to win without a runoff.

However, figures from polls Woo has been conducting show that he has a lot of ground to make up if he is going to equal his 1981 primary performance, when he received 42% of the vote and came within two percentage points of surpassing Stevenson.

Telephone Poll

Woo said his polling, done by telephoning 50 different people each night through last Friday, indicates that he will receive 22% of the vote, as compared to 38% for Stevenson, 4% for the other four candidates and 36% undecided.

Stevenson says her most recent polling shows her just four points away from winning the 50% majority she needs to avoid a runoff. She said a poll this week of 400 voters had her leading Woo 46% to 21%, with the other four candidates receiving 11% and an undecided factor of 22%.

Spokesmen for the Woo campaign say they are not troubled by these poll results. They say they do not believe the Stevenson figures.

“We’re not looking to do what he did in ‘81,” said Harvey Englander, Woo’s campaign manager. “We’re just looking to get into the runoff, and we think we are right on track for that.”

Woo and Englander point out that the race is different in several ways from what it was last time. Twenty percent of the electorate has changed as a result of reapportionment. Highland Park and other communities in the east end of the district are gone, replaced by several hillside neighborhoods to the north. There are two more candidates than there were four years ago.

Moreover, Stevenson, who admits she was stunned by Woo’s performance in the 1981 primary, is devoting more time and energy to getting reelected.

Unpleasant Surprises

Woo admits that the campaign has brought some unpleasant surprises, including an echo of some of the anti-Asian sentiment of the last campaign. It has come this time in the form of gratuitous hate mail.

While Woo blamed Stevenson’s campaign managers for arousing anti-Asian feelings in 1981 by sending out literature that suggested Woo was the pawn of Chinatown bankers, Stevenson has different managers this year. Thus far, there have been no references in her campaign literature to Woo’s race.

In 1981, Woo was backed by the younger, more liberal elements of the district. This year, however, he has an aggressive new rival for the affections of those voters. Michael Linfield, a 34-year-old high school mathematics teacher with a long record of activism on behalf of rent control, farm workers’ rights, gay rights and women’s issues, has gained the endorsements of eight liberal community groups that supported Woo in 1981.

Growing Needs

In his speeches, Linfield likes to refer to the 13th District as the city’s “Ellis Island,” where the growing needs of immigrants, runaway children and homeless adults are being ignored.

Linfield has raised $64,000, not a lot when compared with Woo’s $210,000 and Stevenson’s $300,000. However, with volunteer help from the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental group, and the Coalition for Economic Survival, a renters’ organization active in the West Hollywood cityhood campaign, Linfield has established a presence in the race.

Woo says Linfield has cut into his support.

“Unfortunately for me, some of the groups in the district have decided to support Linfield,” Woo said last week. “But I am confident that I am still the front-running challenger.

The poll results quoted by Stevenson’s staff are the most generous to Linfield, showing him with 7% of the vote.

Strong Showing

But as long as Woo holds onto second place in the primary, he stands to be helped rather than hurt by Linfield, whose strong showing can make it harder for Stevenson to amass the majority she needs to avoid a runoff against the No. 1 challenger.

If Woo is no longer the darling of the disaffected, he believes he may be better off for it. One of the more important lessons he said he learned during the anti-Asian blitz of the 1981 campaign, is that “the district isn’t all that liberal a place.”

In the mail he has sent to voters, Woo has worked to cultivate an image of middle-class responsibility. He informs people that he is a homeowner. He tells of his efforts to get money to plant new trees along the streets of Elysian Valley, of his membership on the board of the Sunset Free Clinic, of his part in the fight last year against putting a new dump in Griffith Park and of his efforts on behalf of historical preservation along Hollywood Boulevard.

Believing that many of the new voters in the district are college-educated, civic-minded people who pay attention to what goes on in City Hall, Woo has criticized Stevenson for inattention to such matters as police pension reform and campaign finance legislation and for changing her vote to allow the Occidental Petroleum Corp. to drill for oil in Pacific Palisades.

Woo has picked up several noteworthy endorsements that he did not have in 1981. They come from Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, state Sen. Gary Hart of Santa Barbara and Assemblyman Burt Margolin of Los Angeles, all Democrats. Woo also has been endorsed by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles), Secretary of State March Fong Eu and Roberti.

Bradley Name

Mayor Tom Bradley has lent his name to both the Woo and the Stevenson campaigns, allowing himself to be named on invitations to their fund-raising dinners, but, so far, he has refrained from making an endorsement.

Blessed with the lion’s share of money and endorsements, including those of 10 City Council members and seven state legislators, Stevenson has been busy shoring up her image in the area that appears to need it the most: among residents who believe that she offers no protection against the encroachments of big real estate projects.

Two of her five opponents, Bennett Kayser, a health company systems manager and resident of Silver Lake, and Arland (Buzz) Johnson, a Hollywood restaurant owner, have been effective in making neighborhood development issues part of the campaign focus.

The only other candidate in the race, James Duree, who lists himself as a political consultant, has used the campaign to advance the ideas of Lyndon LaRouche, the ultra-right wing former presidential candidate.

Withdraws Support

Under pressure from election-year critics, Stevenson has withdrawn support for two major apartment projects in Silver Lake and Hollywood. She has also made sure that the committee in charge of planning for Hollywood commercial redevelopment includes representatives of nearby residential neighborhoods.

“I do think that in the shadow of the election year, Mrs. Stevenson has been more accessible and more responsive,” said Brian Moore, president of the Hollywood Coordinating Council and someone who has been critical of Stevenson in the past.

Stevenson said recently that she is optimistic that she can win this year without a runoff. She said she is heartened by the results of one poll taken by her campaign staff that gave her a 59% approval rating among new residents of the district.

“From our polling, from the activity we see, it is looking very good out there,” she said.