Governor Formally Enters Contest for a Second Term

Republican Gov. George Deukmejian formally announced his candidacy for reelection Tuesday, asserting that the choice for voters this year will be a “robust” state under him or a state going “bust” under somebody else.

The somebody else he did not mention was Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who intends next Tuesday to formally announce his candidacy for the Democratic nomination at a Sacramento press conference and then embark on a two-day statewide campaign tour.

Deukmejian added a bit of nonpolitical drama to his announcement in a brief statewide radio and television broadcast by opening it with a report on Northern California’s devastating floods--which, among other things, inundated his statewide campaign headquarters in Sacramento with three feet of water.

“At this hour, it appears that our flood control facilities are containing the spread of these life-threatening conditions, but the next 24 to 48 hours will be critical,” he warned. “We are closely monitoring the situation, and I am prepared to take whatever additional steps are necessary to protect life and property.”

Instead of conferring with political advisers, in fact, Deukmejian spent most of Tuesday being briefed by state water officials about the flood. And today, the governor will spend the first official day of his reelection campaign touring heavily damaged regions in Napa and Sonoma counties.

There will be plenty of formal reelection campaigning elsewhere, however. With nearly $4 million in the bank, Deukmejian’s political advisers intend to begin running television commercials almost immediately, a sign both of their “attack like an underdog” strategy and their campaign affluence. At last count, the incumbent governor had five times as much cash on hand as did Bradley.

Deukmejian’s decision to forsake the traditional California method of formally announcing a candidacy--which is to fly around the state attracting local news media attention, as Bradley intends to do--prompted threatening telegrams to television and radio stations by the mayor’s campaign manager, Mary Nichols.

Demand for Time

She warned that the Bradley campaign would “demand equal air time” if stations ran the governor’s entire five-minute broadcast “uninterrupted and free of charge,” contending this would “constitute a commercial.”

Deukmejian’s campaign director, Larry Thomas, responded in a statement telephoned to the same station managers that the Bradley campaign was being “silly” and “petty” and its prospective demands for equal time had no legal basis because, among other things, Bradley was not even an official candidate yet. Beyond that, Thomas contended, Deukmejian’s announcement represented “a bona fide news event.”

Actually, there was no real political news in Deukmejian’s announcement--just as there will not be in Bradley’s next week.

It has been a foregone conclusion for months that Deukmejian and Bradley again would face each other for the governorship, as they did in 1982. The two political rivals have been campaigning unofficially for months, and the only thing that finally prodded them into making it official was California’s March 7 filing deadline.

Barring something unforeseen, this will be the first rematch of a gubernatorial contest in California’s 136-year history. In their first race, Deukmejian--then the state attorney general--won by a thin 1.2% of the vote in the closest California gubernatorial election since 1902.

This time, Deukmejian is beginning his race with the self-confidence of an incumbent who is leading his familiar challenger in all the polls. A survey early this month by The Los Angeles Times Poll, for example, showed the governor leading Bradley by six percentage points among registered voters. Four years ago at about this stage, Deukmejian was trailing the mayor by 29 points in a Times poll.

Still, the governor’s campaign advisers--as any astute advisers would--insist they are not really comfortable.

“I wouldn’t use the phrase ‘running scared,’ ” Thomas said in characterizing the attitude of Deukmejian and his strategists, “but he’s prepared for a spirited contest.”

In his formal announcement, Deukmejian suggested that anybody who enjoys living in California should vote for him.

“I am offering leadership that will keep California on a course of steady as she grows,” he told viewers and listeners. “If you like living in California, and if you are pleased with what we have accomplished, then I hope that you will help me be reelected . . .

“We can continue with a California that’s robust--or we can go back to a California that went bust.”

When he took over the governor’s office from Democrat Edmund G. Brown Jr., he said--without specifying Brown by name--”California was flat broke. We couldn’t pay our bills. Our schools were flunking the test of excellence. Eleven percent of our people were out of work. Many criminals were allowed to escape punishment by crawling through legal loopholes. Today, we live in a different California. With your help, we have replaced an ordeal with a better deal. California has traveled from hardship to leadership.”

Cites Tax Issue

Deukmejian was referring to a $1.5-billion deficit he inherited from Brown, which he pointed out to listeners was taken care of without a “general” tax increase. What the governor did not mention, however, was that Californians will be paying an additional $2.4 billion in relatively obscure taxes and fees over a four-year period because of legislation he signed.

Deukmejian, as any governor probably would, also was attempting to claim substantial credit for the big reduction in unemployment--now down to 5.8% in California--which actually is largely a function of national economic conditions.

The governor noted he has “made education our highest spending priority.” His Administration now is targeting roughly half the state’s money for schools.

Although Deukmejian pointed out that 16,000 additional criminals have been sent to state prison under his regime, he did not point out that his ambitious plans for adding cells for 20,000 more inmates by the end of the decade has been well behind schedule and frequently embroiled in political controversy.

And the governor did not allude to the biggest controversy currently facing his Administration--its handling of toxic waste cleanup. He and Democratic legislators have been battling over how best to reorganize state agencies to expedite the cleanup. Meantime, some of his Administration’s cleanup projects have been investigated by outside agencies, including the FBI.

Bradley, in responding to Deukmejian’s announcement, called upon the governor to return a $19,250 campaign contribution he received in 1982 from the owner of a Monterey Park toxic waste dump site. The owner, Operating Industries, currently is attempting to develop part of the site and the Deukmejian Administration has been actively supporting the effort, maintaining there would be no health danger.

“The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) says George’s plan to help his contributor is dangerous,” Bradley said in a prepared statement, “but George appears more concerned about his political supporter’s desire for profit than he does about the health of ordinary citizens. I call upon George Deukmejian to immediately return money he has taken from toxic polluters. It is the only honest thing to do.”