O’Connor Sets Spending Limit : Challenges Other Candidates With $150,000 Pledge

In what she hailed as a “bold effort . . . to end the craziness” of spiraling campaign costs, mayoral candidate Maureen F. O’Connor pledged Thursday to spend less than $150,000 in the Feb. 25 mayoral primary, regardless of whether her major competitors follow suit.

However, O’Connor refused to rule out the possibility that she might spend her own money within the $150,000 limit.

O’Connor’s proposal, combined with her challenge to her opponents to match her pledge, touched off a rhetorical flurry in the camps of the other mayoral contenders--much of it seemingly designed to prevent O’Connor from scoring a public relations coup on the issue.

Confusing Array

Indeed, by day’s end, O’Connor’s proposal had prompted a confusing array of counterproposals--some of the “I-might-if-you-do” variety--that left it unclear which, if any, of her fellow candidates would join her in adopting the limit.

City Councilman Ed Struiksma, for example, opposed the concept of a spending limit, but said he would agree to O’Connor’s proposal if two other leading candidates--Councilman Bill Cleator and former Councilman Floyd Morrow--also agreed. Struiksma apparently would not be harmed by accepting O’Connor’s limit because his handlers have said that he will probably spend only about $100,000 in the primary.

Cleator, however, said that he intended to proceed with plans to spend about $250,000 in the primary, but suggested that each of the candidates limit their expenditures for media advertisements to $150,000.

Meanwhile, Morrow, noting that he expects to spend “much less” than $150,000 in his race, said he regarded $100,000 as “a more realistic limit and one that I’d be glad to agree to.”

‘Reasonable Number’

At a news conference in Southeast San Diego, O’Connor called the $150,000 figure “a reasonable number . . . sufficient to get our message out to voters,” and emphasized that she would adhere to the limit, regardless of her opponents’ actions.

“I’m hoping that the others will go along . . . but I can’t control what they do,” O’Connor said. “All I can say is . . . I’ve signed it (the limit) and I’ll live by it. In fact, I hope to spend a lot less. . . . I feel very strongly that the people want a change in government. They want a spending limit, and they want it now.”

Calling the $150,000 limit “a big risk,” O’Connor said it would restrict her ability to respond, if necessary, to any last-minute charges from her opponents via broadcast ads or mass mailers.

“So, if you get any direct mail in the last two weeks, tear it up and don’t read it,” O’Connor joked.

Based on Poll

O’Connor’s spending limit, based on the results of a poll that she commissioned to test public support of such a ceiling, means that the former councilwoman, at least in the primary, will not be relying on her personal wealth to the degree that she did in her unsuccessful 1983 mayoral campaign.

In 1983, O’Connor drew considerable criticism when she spent about $564,000 of her own money (and $780,000 overall) in her campaign.

O’Connor said Thursday that she has not spent any of her own money in her current campaign but declined to flatly rule out that possibility--leading her opponents to characterize the $150,000 ceiling as an attempt to deflect criticism if and when she uses her own funds.

In his counterproposal, Struiksma asked that O’Connor agree to spend no more than $75,000 of her own money in the primary--a plan that O’Connor readily accepted, primarily because her $150,000 limit would probably preclude her from using even that much of her own money. O’Connor said Thursday that her campaign has raised about $50,000, adding that she is receiving an average of about $2,000 a day in contributions.

No Problem

“I’m doing everything possible to not have to spend any of my own money,” O’Connor said. “But as far as $75,000, that’s no problem at all. Tell Ed (Struiksma) to sign the letter and add that extra paragraph and send it over for me to sign.”

O’Connor’s survey on the spending limit was conducted by New York-based Dresner-Sykes and Associates, which is providing consulting services to her campaign.

Of the 300 registered voters interviewed in the poll earlier this week, 85.3% of those who responded favored a spending limit in both the primary and runoff elections, 12.3% were opposed and 2.3% were undecided, according to Dick Sykes. Of those favoring a limit, 52% said that candidates should spend no more than $150,000 in the primary.

If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote in the primary, the top two vote-getters will face each other in a June 3 runoff.

Limit in Runoff

O’Connor said she would also adhere to a spending limit in the runoff, but suggested that that ceiling would be slightly higher than $150,000 because of the longer length of the campaign.

Sykes explained that if O’Connor’s campaign raises more than $150,000 in the primary, the excess funds would be placed in an escrow account, to be either given to charity (if O’Connor won outright election in the primary) or carried over to the runoff.

In his response to O’Connor’s proposal, Cleator said that his campaign consultant, Ken Rietz, advised him that he would need to spend about $150,000 on television, radio and newspaper ads to put his message before every city voter. The other $100,000 that Cleator expects to spend would be used, he said, to pay campaign staff members and for “direct voter contact programs,” such as leaflet distribution in neighborhoods.

Seeking to focus attention on O’Connor’s refusal to promise not to spend her own money in the race, Cleator reiterated that he and his wife have pledged to spend no more than $250 each--the city’s contribution limit for individuals--in both the primary and runoff.

‘Philosophic Problems’

Struiksma, saying that he supports “free enterprise in all aspects of American life,” explained that he had “philosophic problems” with O’Connor’s plan.

“However, in the interest of testing such a concept, I will agree” to the limit, Struiksma added, provided that Cleator and Morrow also do so.

Morrow, meanwhile, argued that O’Connor’s proposal was “not made in good faith,” and added, “I’d have a lot more confidence in it if it came from anyone other than a person who spent more than $700,000 in a race a few years ago.

“The figures she’s talking about are still kind of nonsensical,” Morrow said. “If she really wants to limit expenses, let’s talk about a $100,000 limit. I’d be much more enthusiastic about that kind of a limit.”