More Aggressive in This Campaign : Bradley, the Underdog, Is Not One to Give Up

“You must never, never, never give up,” Mayor Tom Bradley said with feeling as he spoke to a roomful of young and middle-aged black business executives, entrepreneurs and government officials.

“You’ve got to believe it is possible. . . . You’ve got to take a defeat once or twice. You may not make it on the first try. . . . I’ve lost some elections the first time. I’ve never lost one the second time around.”

On the surface, the speech--in a large accounting firm’s meeting room in Oakland--was a pep talk to his audience. But it was also a pep talk to himself. For Democratic leaders are pessimistic about the chances of Bradley, the expected party nominee, to defeat Republican Gov. George Deukmejian in the November general election.

Things have changed since Bradley came within a whisker of beating Deukmejian in the governor’s race four years ago. Democratic strategists are concerned about declining party registration, favorable state economic forecasts and public opinion polls. The Democrats also believe that Deukmejian has won support among middle-class Democrats and Republicans with generally moderate policies, including increased appropriations to the public schools, the state university system and the University of California.

Friends, Democrats, Workers

A Bradley friend said: “If his inner circle would tell you the truth, they don’t think he should run.”

Another Democrat, Clinton Reilly, who manages campaigns, said: “I would like to see him win, but it is difficult to see a reasonable path to victory.”

Oakland City Councilman Wilson Riles, a Bradley worker in the last gubernatorial campaign, said: “I don’t see the issue that will put him across.”

In addition, Bradley must deal with unhappy supporters. Among them are environmentalists chilled by his decision to allow oil drilling in the Pacific Palisades, Jewish leaders still not reconciled to the way he reacted to the Los Angeles appearance of Black Muslim minister Louis Farrakhan and liberals who say he is backing away from his strong opposition to gun control.

But Bradley does not seem discouraged by his underdog role, even on bad days.

Another Marooned Traveler

Flying from Los Angeles to Redding for a luncheon speech, the mayor was delayed for two hours in San Francisco by fog. Waiting for his connecting flight on a small, two-engine commuter plane, he patiently sat in the airport waiting room, just another marooned traveler, reading the paper work he always carries with him.

At Redding, Bradley had to suffer through questionable jokes while being introduced by Modoc County Supervisor Mick Jones (“We brought him to the scene to add color to the organization”).

Then another hour on the commuter plane and a scramble to catch the Los Angeles-bound flight. It was about 5 p.m., 12 hours after he started, with evening appearances ahead of him. But Bradley did not complain, continuing to read and occasionally chat with Ali Webb, his press secretary, and Los Angeles Police Officer Bobby Adams, his bodyguard.

That willingness to undergo a difficult day illustrates the inner drive, the highly competitive nature, that is prodding Bradley to reverse the 1982 defeat. It is the way he has conducted his life, a reflection of his deepest beliefs, and it explains, better than any political analysis, why Bradley has embarked on a hard campaign this year at 68, when he might have finished his fourth mayoral term and retired after a long and successful political career.

His View of Life

His view of life is based on the experience of one man--Tom Bradley, the boy who ignored advice to take shop courses in high school and went on to UCLA; the young man who, when his police career was stalled by departmental bigotry, became a lawyer; and the middle-aged man who immediately began campaigning after losing for mayor in 1969 and won four years later.

Recalling recently his rise from South-Central Los Angeles, he said: “In my neighborhood, there were many who would prefer to get out and steal and vandalize rather than study, rather than get a job, rather than make some contribution to life. I refused to go along with that crowd.”

Bradley is not the only one who believes victory is possible. He has a new campaign team. The 1982 veterans were tossed out as if they were executives of a corporation with low dividends. And the new team has a new strategy: aggressiveness, even meanness, in place of the boring Bradley of 1982.

Where last time the campaign focused on Bradley as a safe and solid leader, this time Bradley is putting the focus on Deukmejian. In Redding, for instance, Bradley talked about what he believes is a Deukmejian weak point, toxic waste cleanup. “After three years in office, you know what a miserable failure that cleanup effort has been,” he told reporters.

The switch to a more aggressive campaign style is a page out of Bradley history.

Bland Start in 1973

After a bland early start in his 1973 campaign against then-Mayor Sam Yorty, Bradley surprised his opponent in a late campaign debate when he sharply criticized Yorty for making a prison visit to John Alessio, a convicted income tax evader and former race track operator whom Bradley had said was identified as “one of the kingpins of organized crime.” It surprised Yorty and was generally credited with putting him on the defensive in the campaign’s final days.

And, unlike 1982, when Bradley was not highly visible in black neighborhoods, Bradley this year is speaking out on black issues.

In Oakland he urged blacks to use political power to gain economic power by forcing government to give contracts to qualified black firms.

“Others have been doing this for generations, for centuries,” he said. “The time has come for us to get our fair share, our fair share, nothing more. . . . Open those doors if we have to smash them down. . . . We mean business. There is power in politics.”

New Team’s Strategy

The attacks on Deukmejian and the willingness to speak up on black issues are examples of the new team’s strategy.

Tom Quinn, who managed Edmund G. Brown Jr. to the governorship in 1974, said he believes Deukmejian is vulnerable to attack.

“An incumbent governor at this point should be well ahead of any challenger,” he said. “Typically, during a campaign, the incumbent’s support erodes. I think Deukmejian is very vulnerable. He is probably the least-known governor we have had in modern history. He has been invisible. He has operated as if he were No. 1 bureaucrat, as if he were a civil service manager, not a governor, and that is why the challenger looks so strong. . . . I don’t think anyone out there can tell about George Deukmejian, his goals, where he wants to take our state. He sits in his office and reads documents, quietly directing the civil service staff.”

Bradley supporters cite polling figures to back up that view. While a California Poll in December had Deukmejian leading 51% to 43%, the same survey in August put Bradley ahead 50% to 44%.

‘Closely Fought’ Contest

“Given the fact that there is a 4% plus or minus statistical tolerance for the percentages found in both the August and current survey, the findings at this point suggest that the contest is likely to be closely fought,” Mervin Field, the California Poll director, said.

And a Los Angeles Times Poll taken last June indicated that voters had a more favorable opinion of Bradley than Deukmejian, with Bradley viewed favorably by 79% of the voters and Deukmejian by 69%.

Will the tough Bradley attacks backfire?

“I doubt it,” Quinn said. “The criticism is very specific and factual. He is not engaging in the kind of character assassination Deukmejian is engaging in. Deukmejian has been looking very mean-spirited for an incumbent. The man is obviously afraid of losing and some of his worst qualities are coming out.”

Bradley’s willingness to talk on black issues also reflects a strategy of trying to increase the black turnout over 1982.

‘An Emotional Quality’

Oakland City Councilman Leo Bazile, who represents some of the city’s poorest black areas, said “my constituents (in 1982) needed to see Tom Bradley in those Baptist churches. Instead, they saw him on TV, being bland and colorless, and he got a bland and colorless response from my constituents. He will have to put forth an emotional quality, not apologize for being a black man; don’t duck it, capitalize on it.”

But statistics point up the size of the task. In two poor precincts in Bazile’s district, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a far more charismatic candidate than Bradley, produced turnouts of just 56% and 47% in the 1984 presidential primary. Bradley, despite a commonly expressed view by some supporters that his black turnout was low, actually did slightly better in the 1982 gubernatorial election than Jackson did in 1984. One Democratic strategist said he believes that Bradley will need a turnout of between 70% and 75% in black precincts this year.

Statistics from the Los Angeles vote in the 1981 and 1985 mayoral elections also illustrate another black-related difficulty facing the mayor.

The 1985 mayoral election was a test run for the new campaign team, an effort to show they could turn out a better vote than the 1982 campaigners, who had been in charge of Bradley’s 1981 mayoral reelection campaign. Comparisons of 1981 and 1985 results, then, should offer a comparison between the two teams’ effectiveness.

Difference Over Turnout

In three City Council districts with predominantly black populations, the turnout was greater in 1981 than in 1985. Kerman Maddox, Bradley’s deputy campaign manager, said, however, that the turnout figures were less important than the 1985 total vote for Bradley, which was higher than in 1981. But other Democratic strategists said the vote was bigger only because the voter pool was higher in 1985, the result of the strong registration drive for Jackson’s presidential campaign. They said given the larger number of voters, the turnout should have been much more.

Bradley is also beginning to propose programs aimed at bringing in other groups of voters, including Northern California’s environmentally oriented liberal Democrats, who supported the mayor but disappointed him with a lower-than-expected turnout.

Last fall, for example, Bradley went on a two-day fishing trip in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to sell a north-south water plan designed to win support among northerners who fear a water giveaway to the south. Bradley has proposed that Southern California intensify conservation and water storage before looking north for more water.

Bradley was not at ease on the houseboat.

“I’ve never been fresh-water fishing,” he said, explaining his unfamiliarity with delta fishing techniques. “I’ve been deep-water fishing.”

Assemblyman Ignored

And, as usual, his reserve prevented him from engaging in fishing trip camaraderie with other politicians on board. Assemblyman Tom Bates (D-Berkeley), an environmentalist eager to support Bradley, waited for minutes, ignored by the mayor, until another politician brought them together for a chat.

Mostly, Bradley stood alone, not stopping until late into the cold night when he caught a striped bass and went to bed. Yet he also eventually netted Bates, who told him: “I see our interests are closely aligned. I think your statement (on the Bradley water plan) was great.”

But for each plus, obstacles seem to grow.

Despite the optimistic analysis of the campaign team, the mood among some Bradley staffers and other supporters has dropped from last summer, when--helped by the aggressive advice of new Deputy Mayor Tom Houston--Bradley seized the initiative against Deukmejian on environmental issues and forced a reluctant City Hall bureaucracy to accept a South African stock divestiture policy. It was a move to strengthen his support among blacks and white liberals.

Started in September

The decline started in September when Bradley turned down the request of Jewish supporters that he denounce Farrakhan before he spoke in Los Angeles. Bradley followed the advice of black leaders and waited until after the speech. At a tense press conference, Herb Brin, publisher of the Heritage, a Jewish newspaper, told Bradley he had risked losing Jewish votes.

“You know something?” said Bradley, growing angry. “I’ve never looked to see whether something would be popular or unpopular. In fact, the only person I have ever personally thrown out of my office was someone who asked for a vote.”

“Well, you don’t have to throw me out,” said Brin, rising and walking from the room, his face flushed, pushing his way through mayoral aides and reporters along the wall. The governor’s aides hope to build on similar latent hostility to try to take Jewish campaign contributions and votes away from Bradley, a longtime ally of the Jewish community.

Then disclosures of city-caused pollution of Santa Monica Bay damaged Bradley’s reputation as a master of municipal detail and as an environmentalist, as did the Palisades decision.

Gun Control ‘Flip-Flop’

Following this, liberals, and Deukmejian, charged “flip-flop” when Bradley, who had supported a gun control measure on the 1982 general election ballot, volunteered during a TV interview that he now would oppose a gun control initiative if one were placed on the ballot. He said he thought the 1982 initiative had cost him votes against Deukmejian, who opposes gun control.

Then, too, some death penalty foes object to the vigor with which Bradley, who has said little on the subject, now advocates capital punishment. California Poll figures show, however, that Bradley may have made a smart move. Men, women, Anglos, Latinos and blacks all favor the death penalty. Significantly, blacks support it 62% to 24%, a reversal of positions more than a decade ago.

Another problem is the presence of state Supreme Court Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird on the November ballot, when she is up for confirmation. Under attack by death penalty advocates who say she and the rest of the court are not carrying out the state’s capital punishment law, Bird is behind in the polls. Bradley supported her in 1978 but has not taken a stand this year.

“He will lose the election on that subject alone if he doesn’t do anything or if he makes the wrong decision,” said William Roberts, an anti-Bird campaign manager and a former political adviser to Deukmejian.

Labor Leader Agrees

William Robertson, secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, agreed that the Bird issue could hurt Bradley. He said he does not know how Bradley will handle it, but “I don’t see the mayor opposing Rose Bird or any other justice. I don’t see how he can oppose her. He defended her in the past.”

But he added: “You know he’s not going to campaign (for Bird).”

Bradley does not like to discuss such questions. When asked about it by reporters, he snaps irritably that he is studying the Bird question.

Bradley prefers more hopeful signs. That was the case at his recent fund-raising dinner at the Century Plaza. Although receipts were good, boosting his treasury to about $700,000--far below the Deukmejian total--many places were vacant, the no-shows an apparent sign of a lack of enthusiasm. Nor was his speech greeted with great applause.

The mayor ignored all that. What he liked was the band playing the theme from “Rocky” when he was introduced. He said he thought the music was appropriate. Surrounded by trouble, Bradley had turned his thoughts to the mythical heavyweight who came back from defeat.

BRADLEY’S NEW TEAM

Tom Quinn, owner of radio stations in California and Nevada and of City News Service in Los Angeles, as campaign chairman, is in overall charge. Quinn directed Edmund G. Brown Jr.’s 1974 gubernatorial campaign and was a major political adviser to the mayor over the years. Quinn was also chairman of the California Air Resources Board in the Brown Administration and often tangled with industry over pollution control. Last year, he headed Bradley’s election to a fourth term as mayor. Quinn, along with David Townsend, a Sacramento-based campaign consultant, is in charge of making commercials, devising mailings and other parts of strategy and weighing polling advice from the polling firm of Fairbank, Bregman and Maullin, which includes former Brown pollster Richard Maullin.

Steve Sulkes, former statewide coordinator for Colorado Sen. Gary Hart’s campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in California, is assistant campaign manager. Sulkes licked envelopes in a San Fernando Valley headquarters at the age of 12 when Bradley first ran for mayor in 1969. Last year, he undertook a bigger job, as executive director of the Committee for California’s Future, an organization put together in the fall to stir up support for a Bradley gubernatorial candidacy. The organization built up enough backing, including from Hart followers, to help frighten state Sen. John Garamendi out of the race, leaving Bradley an apparently clear field for his party’s nomination. Sulkes will concentrate on building up a field organization.

Mary Nichols, who succeeded Quinn as head of the state Air Resources Board, is the campaign manager, in charge of day-to-day operations. Environmentalist Nichols, an attorney, was president of the League of Conservation Voters, and an attorney in a downtown Los Angeles firm, before becoming manager. While Quinn and Townsend are known as political strategists, Nichols says her strength is as an administrator.

Kerman Maddox, deputy campaign manager, is also a key Bradley organizer, expected to build up a strong turnout in urban black areas. Maddox is a former aide to Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and also worked for the Los Angeles campaign management firm of Winner, Taylor & Associates Inc. In the last mayoral campaign, Maddox was regarded as a skilled political worker who helped put together drives to get out the vote. After the campaign, he became a mayoral adviser in City Hall before going on the campaign payroll.

Ali Webb, press secretary, left her job as Bradley’s City Hall press secretary to join the campaign to represent him before the press around the state. After working on a small newspaper in Texas, she became Bradley’s assistant press secretary in City Hall, then was promoted to the top job. In 1984, she was statewide press secretary for Walter F. Mondale’s Democratic presidential campaign.