Morrow Battles the Odds : His Campaign is Filled With Cheerful Optimism Despite No. 3 Ranking

When Floyd Morrow hears people suggest--as most do--that his mayoral candidacy faces seemingly insurmountable odds, he smiles with the satisfaction of a man who knows that he has conquered tougher obstacles.

“I know a little bit about tough odds,” Morrow says. “That doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, that’s a situation that I rather relish.”

Indeed, for Morrow, being seen as number three in what is widely regarded as a two-candidate race--despite the fact that there are 13 on the Feb. 25 ballot--is a problem that pales by comparison to others that he has encountered in his personal and political life.

Born in a tent in Texas during the Depression, abandoned by his father and adopted at age 4 by an oil-pipe liner whose frequent job moves produced a nomadic existence, Morrow grew up to become a successful lawyer with a six-figure income, a former three-term San Diego City Councilman and local Democratic Party chairman. To win his first council race in 1965, Morrow borrowed $1,000 against his GI life insurance and, with “a lot of hustle and a little luck,” won an 11-candidate election in which “the experts picked me to finish seventh or eighth.”

Morrow is at once proud and modest about his version of the American success story.

“Maybe I didn’t get the best possible start (in life) . . . but I got the opportunity to move up, the chance to take advantage of options before me,” said the 53-year-old Morrow, a medium-built man with black hair that is streaked with gray, and a well-tanned complexion.

“My story really isn’t any different than literally tens of thousands of other people who grew up in that period. That’s the beautiful thing about our country. This country has been very good to Floyd Morrow. This city has been very good to Floyd Morrow. And I’d like to give something back.”

The prospect of voters awarding Morrow the opportunity to “give something back” from the 11th floor at City Hall, however, appears remote as the mayoral primary campaign enters its final 10 days. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote in the primary, the top two vote-getters will compete in a June 3 runoff.

In most polls, Morrow runs a distant third behind his two major opponents, San Diego City Councilman Bill Cleator and former Councilwoman Maureen F. O’Connor. Although Morrow initially projected spending about $100,000 in the race, campaign finance reports filed this week listed contributions totaling $45,763, with $38,190 of that being his own money. The fact that, as of Feb. 8, he had received only $6,573 in donations raises questions about the depth of his support.

Another major hurdle facing Morrow is that his eight-year absence from the City Council, combined with the frequent turnover in San Diego’s population, means that he is largely unknown even to many voters in his former council district.

“Morrow is a person from the past,” said Robert Meadow, a pollster who worked on Councilman Ed Struiksma’s aborted mayoral campaign. “The people he represented in the 1970s live somewhere else, and the people living there now don’t know him.”

Morrow, however, is undeterred by those bleak statistics and scenarios and has gone about his campaign with the faith of a true believer who senses that he knows something about the electorate that does not show up in the polls or campaign finance reports.

“I think there’s an awfully, awfully good chance of my being mayor,” Morrow said. “I’m campaigning on the basis of beliefs. Primarily, of course, I believe in myself. That shouldn’t sound arrogant. I just feel I’m the most experienced candidate in this race, by far . . . That’s not an idle boast. It’s a matter of public record.

“I think the people are looking for a change, for someone who hasn’t been involved in the problems we’ve seen at City Hall lately. But they also want someone with experience. That description matches me perfectly.”

Consistently upbeat in his campaign appearances, Morrow has waged a candidacy focused more on himself and his personality than perhaps any other candidate in the race. While he talks about specific issues as much as the other mayoral contenders, Morrow’s standard stump speech and television ads deal more with the man than with his vision for the city’s future.

In particular, Morrow emphasizes that he and his wife, Marlene--whom he never fails to point out, with visible pride, to voters at candidate forums--have been married for 32 years and have lived in the same Kearny Mesa house for 26 years. The message that Morrow hopes voters will get from his remarks is that personal stability could translate to political tranquility at a City Hall that has been wracked by various scandals over the past two years.

“Where a man’s been, where he’s coming from, indicates where he’s going,” says Morrow, the father of three children. “To look at what kind of public official someone might be, look at his personal background. One of the things that we have to do in our society . . . is create stability. That stability of living in the same place, of having friends, of having some sort of moral suasion that says, ‘Hey, you can’t act like an idiot and get away with it. Your friends will know about it.’ ”

If Morrow stresses personal stability, perhaps it is also because there was so little of it during his youth.

Named Jerry McDaniel at birth, Morrow and a twin brother were born on Jan. 20, 1933, in Wichita Falls, Tex., two of nine children of a family that lived in a church-donated tent. After his father deserted the family, his mother could not afford to take care of the children and placed them in the care of others shortly before she died. The future councilman and mayoral candidate received his current name when, at age 4, he and his twin were adopted by a family that, in his words, was “very, very poor but at least had food.” Morrow and his other siblings were not reunited until they reached adulthood.

Morrow’s adoptive father “moved whenever the Phillips Oil Co. said move,” Morrow recalled. During his freshman year in high school, the family lived in four different cities, he said.

Morrow arrived in San Diego as a Marine recruit shortly after graduating from high school. After his military service, he received a bachelor’s degree in business and law degree from the University of Texas.

After returning to San Diego with his wife, a native San Diegan, Morrow was a corporate attorney for the Ryan Aeronautical Co. from 1959 to 1963, and then worked two years as a deputy San Diego city attorney. Morrow now practices law in Linda Vista, with most of his practice devoted to probate work.

Morrow lost his first race for the City Council in 1963, but two years later was elected in a campaign in which he says he spent only about $1,600, including the $1,000 loan that he took out on his GI insurance policy and $200 each from his father-in-law and uncle.

Twice reelected, Morrow encouraged greater public involvement in city government and developed a strong environmental record during his 12 years on the council. An ardent supporter of community planning groups, Morrow also pushed for development of a water-recycling project in Mission Valley that since has gained international attention and helped create the Tecolote Canyon Preserve and the city’s environmental growth fund.

Long before it became politically stylish to do so, Morrow also was a persistent critic of the San Diego Gas & Electric Co.’s rates. In 1967, he helped lead an unsuccessful battle for public ownership of the utility system when SDG&E;’s franchise came up for approval--an effort that resulted in an increase in the company’s franchise fee, money used for preservation of open space.

Some Democrats say, in fact, that they find Morrow’s record more attractive than that of his fellow Democrat O’Connor.

“Issue by issue, I think that I and a lot of others are probably closer to Floyd than Maureen,” said former Councilman Jess Haro, who served with both Morrow and O’Connor. “Floyd’s always been there, a friend, someone you could count on. His council record was an excellent one.”

Midway through his council career, however, Morrow was drawn into the so-called Yellow Cab scandal, considered the most notorious in the city’s recent history until former Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s 1985 felony conviction. In 1970, Morrow, then-Mayor Frank Curran, three other council members, two county supervisors and a state assemblyman were indicted by the county grand jury on charges that they had accepted bribes from the former president of the Yellow Cab Co. linked to the council’s approval of a 22% taxi rate increase.

Morrow was acquitted--as were seven of the eight officials charged--but the experience left him bitter years later.

“A reputation is a delicate thing,” Morrow was quoted as saying in a 1980 news story written for the scandal’s 10th anniversary. “Once it is besmirched, you can’t erase that. They made it look like there was something wrong here. It hurt and it continues to hurt in some quarters. . . . I had not received any money. They simply had no case. . . . The political ambition of a lot of people got in the way of their judgment.”

Morrow survived his 1973 reelection campaign, but four years later lost his council seat to Fred Schnaubelt. He also has suffered several defeats since then, losing races for Municipal and Superior Court judgeships and the state Assembly. Overall, he has won 12 out of 18 political contests, with most of his victories coming in races for seats on the San Diego County Democratic Party Central Committee.

In 1980, Morrow was elected chairman of the local party’s Central Committee. While he is generally credited for helping to improve the party’s fund-raising apparatus, Morrow lost his bid for reelection to the post in 1982, largely because of the Democrats’ continuing lack of success at the polls and displeasure over his decision to seek a judgeship while holding the partisan post.

Morrow has emphasized two major issues in his mayoral campaign--the need for what he calls “a truly modern, world-class library” in San Diego and increased citizen participation in local government.

Toward the first goal, Morrow has suggested using laser discs and other technological advances to create “a library that’s going to stand as a model for the rest of the world in the 21st Century.” However, while Morrow often talks about the proposal in broad terms, he fills in the picture of his “world-class library” with few specifics, notably those dealing with cost.

His other priority, Morrow says, would be to “bring a tremendously larger number of people into the mainstream of having something to do with their local government.” To do so, Morrow would establish two major advisory boards--one consisting of “scientifically selected” citizens that would meet quarterly, and the other of “the wise heads of the largest institutions” in San Diego, provided that the business and academic leaders are retired.

Over the years, Morrow has drawn more bemusement than criticism for his advocacy of the economic philosophy of Henry George, a 19th-Century economist and politician who favored a single tax on land, accompanied by the elimination of all other taxes. In one of the more unusual proposals heard during the mayoral campaign, Morrow also suggested during one forum in Otay Mesa that a new currency be created along the U.S.-Mexico border area in an effort to prevent problems caused by devaluation of the peso--a plan that drew open snickers from many of his fellow candidates.

“Just because an idea seems a bit unusual or hasn’t been tried before doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have merit,” Morrow responded. “If you aren’t receptive to new ideas, you find yourself being stuck with a lot of old problems. That’s the trouble with a lot of our current public officials.”

However, Phil Connor, a lawyer who succeeded Morrow as local Democratic chairman, says that such proposals have led him and other Democrats to conclude “that Floyd just doesn’t represent the mainstream of the party.”

One question widely asked in political circles is why Morrow--or anyone--would be willing to spend so much of his own money in an election that, by all conventional political yardsticks, he appeared from the outset to have little chance of winning.

Despite his six-figure annual income, Morrow is not independently wealthy, and he admits that the money that he is spending on his campaign constitutes “a very big sacrifice.” However, rather than viewing that fact as a subject causing, at best, puzzlement, or, at worst, ridicule, Morrow argues that his willingness to spend his own funds is evidence of his commitment.

“I’m not sacrificing the security of my family, but it’s a very big sacrifice in terms of . . . how I could have a Mercedes Benz or a couple more trips to Europe instead,” Morrow said. “But I don’t begrudge that in any sense.

“If someone is not willing to make the sacrifice to actually go after something, then perhaps they shouldn’t be there. I don’t feel insecure about spending my money for things that I think are really worthwhile . . . And I can’t think of many things more worthwhile than serving one’s community.”