Woo Aims at Senior Vote in Stevenson Runoff

Confident after forcing incumbent 13th District Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson into her second runoff election in four years, challenger Michael Woo said he plans to put Stevenson on the defensive and court elderly voters who have traditionally been her strongest supporters.

“It’s clear I have to keep voters’ attention on her and her record,” Woo said Wednesday as he began mapping strategy for the 2 1/2-month runoff campaign. “I have to continue broadening my base and keep the focus on her.”

In the Tuesday primary, Woo took nearly 35% of the vote, six percentage points behind Stevenson, who had stepped up her visibility and campaigned vigorously in recent months to avoid a repeat of her narrow victory over Woo in the 1981 primary.

Woo, 33, an aide to state Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), said he interpreted Stevenson’s failure to win outright as an indication of vulnerability in the runoff. “She said she wouldn’t be caught asleep at the wheel this time,” Woo said. “It’s obvious she failed at that. More than 58% of the people in her district voted against her.”

‘Puppet of Machines’

But Stevenson, who in 1981 successfully portrayed Woo as an outsider to the district during a campaign marked by anti-Asian political literature, quickly went on the attack Wednesday.

“He is the puppet of Sacramento and Westside political machines who care more about political power than they do about our district,” Stevenson said in a prepared statement, referring to Woo’s ties to Roberti and his endorsement by influential Westside Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles).

Woo hopes to deflect similar attacks by boosting his image among the 13th District’s elderly voters. He failed to make significant inroads into that group in the 1981 general election when Stevenson handily defeated him after winning by only a percentage point in the primary.

In recent weeks, Woo aimed several mailings at senior citizens. One mailer was signed by his mother, Beth Woo, and provided a detailed family history and a strong pitch to the elderly.

‘Battle of the Moms’

That provoked what Woo’s campaign manager, Harvey Englander, called “the battle of the moms.” The mothers of candidates Michael Linfield and Arland (Buzz) Johnson put in appearances for their sons and Stevenson responded with a lavish mailer detailing her family history.

Several Woo campaign aides said he could also be expected to emphasize crime as an issue among elderly voters, pointing to the prevalence of street crime in Hollywood and burglaries and car thefts in the surrounding hills.

The political landscape in the 13th District has been altered by reapportionment, causing Stevenson to lose reliable working-class voters in Highland Park while more affluent hillside voters in communities north of Hollywood were added to the district. Woo tried to pick up support in those areas during the primary but was unsure Wednesday whether he had been successful.

“My hunch is that I ran well in the new parts of the district,” he said. “I know for sure it helped in terms of not having the northeast area (Highland Park) where Stevenson did well before.”

Low Turnout Blamed

He said he thought Stevenson may have made a critical error four years ago in voluntarily accepting reapportionment and not fighting it.

But Stevenson’s campaign aides attributed her low vote percentage--41.6%--to the low voter turnout. Jill Barad, a Stevenson consultant, said earlier polls indicated that if 40% of the district’s voters went to the polls, Stevenson would win a slim majority. “Our vote didn’t come out,” she said.

“We were caught by surprise by the very low turnout (36%),” June Cassidy, Stevenson’s press deputy, said Wednesday. “We wish it has been higher. But Mrs. Stevenson was in a runoff four years ago and she beat him (Woo) quite soundly. If we have to take another 2 1/2 months and do it again, we’ll do it.”

Although Stevenson aides declined to discuss what strategy they would apply during the runoff campaign, she paid special attention to the district’s elderly during the primary, appearing repeatedly at senior citizen centers and emphasizing her work for them in campaign literature.

Looking for Gay Vote

Woo said he will also concentrate on the 13th District’s homosexual and lesbian voters, who have been loyal to Stevenson in the past. Stevenson won a key endorsement from the gay-oriented Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles, but most other gay political clubs and newspapers tilted toward Linfield.

Linfield, a mathematics teacher and community activist who cut into Woo’s support among liberals in the district’s east side, taking about 13% of the district’s total vote Tuesday, later phoned Woo and promised his endorsement and campaign help. Woo said he hoped Linfield would persuade many of those groups to back him in the runoff.

Parke Skelton, Linfield’s campaign manager, said Woo and Linfield would probably “sit down in a day or so and talk about how we can move our base over to Woo to make sure he gets elected.”

Woo also made overtures Wednesday to Johnson, a conservative restaurant owner who appealed to long-time Hollywood residents and some hillside homeowners. But Johnson, who won nearly 11% of the vote Tuesday, said he would “wait a week or two and see how things go” before deciding whom he would endorse.

Accused of Hayden Connection

Woo aides said Johnson probably helped him by siphoning off some Republican support that otherwise would have gone to Stevenson. She tried to shore up that support in a last-day mailer that accused Woo of taking contributions from Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) and his Campaign for Economic Democracy. Woo said he received money from the group in the 1981 race but nothing this year.

Woo expects that campaign funds will be forthcoming now that he has secured a place in the runoff election. “A lot of people said they wanted to hold off until it was clear there would be a runoff,” he said. “I think we’ll get what we need.”

About 100 Woo loyalists celebrated Tuesday night, crowding into a warehouse at the rear of his campaign offices in Silver Lake. They mingled in a room furnished with crepe bunting, wood folding chairs and a water cooler, cheering as Woo spoke to them frequently throughout the night.

Their stark surroundings were overshadowed by a lavish party thrown by Stevenson at the Palace nightclub in Hollywood. But Stevenson spent only 20 minutes at the party.

Supporters Felt ‘Snubbed’

Reportedly displeased as the primary results became apparent Tuesday night, Stevenson failed to join council colleagues milling about City Hall, instead staying behind locked doors with campaign aides and council deputies.

Supporters waiting for her at the Palace began leaving when it appeared she might not show up. “People are angry,” one aide said as he phoned Stevenson’s downtown office to find out if she would appear, “They think they are being snubbed.”

Stevenson showed up at the Art Deco club at 12:45 a.m., but by then the crowd had dwindled to about 30 people. “We don’t think there’s going to be a runoff,” she said. “We think we’ve got enough.”

She said she expected that uncounted write-in votes would give her more than 50% of the district’s vote, but by the time she reached the Palace it was apparent those votes had not helped.