O’Connor, Cleator Focus on Each Other

As the San Diego mayoral primary enters its final week, candidate Maureen F. O’Connor is attempting to make her differences with Councilman Bill Cleator on development the focal point of the race--a strategy that has prompted charges from Cleator that the former councilwoman is using negative campaign tactics in her bid for outright election next Tuesday.

Meanwhile, former San Diego Councilman Floyd Morrow, who is running a distant third behind O’Connor and Cleator in most polls, continued his recent offensive Tuesday against the two front-runners in his effort to qualify for a possible runoff. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote next Tuesday, when 10 long shots also will be on the ballot, the top two vote-getters will compete in a runoff June 3.

Both Cleator and O’Connor, however, regard Morrow, who received less than 10% support in several recent polls, as a minor factor in the race and have made it clear that their attention will be focused on each other in the primary’s closing days.

Perhaps the clearest indication of that can be seen in the O’Connor television ad that began appearing Tuesday. It does not even mention Morrow but rather is designed to contrast O’Connor’s position--in particular, her refusal to accept campaign donations from developers--with Cleator’s.

The 30-second ad begins by showing black-and-white photographs of O’Connor and Cleator while a narrator says that the mayoral campaign “has reached a critical point.”

“There are two candidates--Maureen O’Connor and Bill Cleator--and one issue--development,” the narrator continues. “Maureen O’Connor has refused to accept contributions from developers. More than a third of Bill Cleator’s campaign has been funded by development interests. Think about it. Who do you want to make development decisions that affect your future? Tuesday, Feb. 25, that choice is yours.”

O’Connor argues that the ad, for which her campaign has purchased $20,000 worth of TV air time over the next week, “simply focuses attention on the primary difference in this race.”

“It’s not an attack; it’s not antagonistic,” O’Connor said. “I didn’t use one adjective in that commercial. I didn’t say that they should vote for me over Bill Cleator. What I said was there’s a clear choice and it’s up to the city to decide. That’s an issue. That is not being negative.”

Not surprisingly, Cleator’s backers have a different perspective on the matter.

“Is this negative campaigning from the candidate who said she wanted to keep the race positive?” asked Cleator spokesman Don Harrison. “It sure sounds like it.”

On one hand, the O’Connor ad can be seen as an attempt to frame the election in terms of her own choosing--she has repeatedly trumpeted her refusal to accept campaign contributions from developers. In short, the ad seeks to convince voters that the issue that O’Connor has chosen to emphasize is the major issue of the campaign.

Noting that O’Connor compiled a more moderate growth-management record than Cleator on the City Council, Dick Sykes, O’Connor’s campaign consultant, said Tuesday that the ad is intended to focus voters’ attention on “the starkest contrast” between the two front-runners. O’Connor is a co-author of the growth-management plan the City Council approved in the 1970s; Cleator generally cast pro-development votes on the proposals that environmentalists regard as litmus tests.

“Mr. Cleator’s record over a period of years has been totally clear, totally consistent in terms of being supportive of more major development,” Sykes said. “And while we know the purpose of (Cleator’s) campaign is to blunt and obscure that fact, the campaign (finance) reports tell a very telling tale of how much Bill Cleator has really changed.”

Sykes and David Bain, O’Connor’s treasurer, released an analysis of Cleator’s campaign contributions showing that more than 35% of the councilman’s nearly $160,000 in donations as of Feb. 8 came from development interests--developers, contractors, architects, real-estate brokers and lawyers. However, Cleator’s handlers, who use a narrower definition of the word developer, contend that less than 20% of his contributions are from that source.

Regardless of which figure is cited, Sykes argues that the heavy infusion of development money in Cleator’s campaign reinforces the perception of him as pro-development and undermines his recent attempts to recast his image as someone who is more sensitive to the environment.

“Mr. Cleator is attempting to run from his record,” Sykes said. “The message here is he can run but he can’t hide.”

Although O’Connor has refused to accept funds from developers, about 6%, or $3,635, of the $58,934 that she raised as of Feb. 8 came from “development interests” such as escrow officials, architects and land surveyors, Bain said. The rationale for accepting that money, Sykes added, is that such individuals are only “indirectly” involved in development but that there is a potential for conflict of interest if elected officials accept contributions from developers who might later appear before the council to seek approval for various projects. As he has throughout the race, Cleator sought Tuesday to throw O’Connor’s refusal to accept developer contributions back in her face, characterizing his opponent’s position “as a way of saying ‘You’re not wanted’ to a segment of the population.”

“I think what she’s doing is very negative, and I respectfully disagree with her,” Cleator said. “This is not a way to bring people together. This is a way of excluding people.”

Pointing out that under city election laws, $250 is the maximum that an individual can contribute to a mayoral candidate, Cleator added, “Her argument just doesn’t make sense. You don’t buy anybody’s vote for $250.”

O’Connor responded: “I agree that you can’t buy a vote for $250. There’s a strong perception in the community, though, that special interests, meaning developers, control City Hall. The only way to eliminate that perception and show that there’s going to be fairness at City Hall is to just not accept developers’ money. Bill (Cleator) and I happen to have a different opinion on that.”

Meanwhile, although O’Connor and Cleator may be paying scant attention to Morrow, the former three-term councilman has shown that he does not intend to fade quietly from the scene.

Morrow, who recently has gone out of his way to emphasize the fact that Cleator and O’Connor are millionaires, continued his criticism of them Tuesday, accusing the two of exercising “followship, not leadership” for aligning--and in some cases realigning--their campaign positions in accordance with ideas popular with the public.

Morrow stressed, for example, that he was the only one of the three major candidates who supported Proposition A before voters approved the growth-management initiative last fall. Cleator opposed the measure and O’Connor remained neutral, but both have since said that they strongly support its implementation.

“I don’t say after the fact that I’m for Prop. A,” Morrow told the Lions Club at a candidates’ forum downtown. “I said it ahead of time. . . . Rhetoric is fairly cheap. Action you can measure.”

Although he did not mention O’Connor by name, Morrow also used thinly veiled remarks to criticize the former councilwoman for imposing a $150,000 spending limit on her primary campaign after conducting a poll that showed that the public favored such a limit.

“I cannot simply say, ‘Hey, I’m going to take a poll. I’m going to find out where everybody is and where they’re going, and run out and get in front of it,’ ” Morrow said. “That’s not leadership.”

Both the O’Connor and Cleator camps, however, continue to view Morrow as simply a spoiler whose impact may be limited to denying a 50%-plus victory to either of the two front-runners.

“He’s a spoiler in the sense . . . that he’s likely to drain enough votes so that nobody can win in the primary,” Sykes said. “When you . . . take away 8% (for Morrow) and 3% to 5% for the minor candidates, you’re now trying to get 50% in the context of only 85% to 87% of the vote being available. . . . That’s very, very difficult.”