Bradley Campaign Wheels Into Deukmejian Footholds

There he was--Tom Bradley on a bike in the Napa Valley, dark glasses and biking helmet--leading a polite pack of riders through the wine country.

“It’s a matter of presence,” the Los Angeles mayor explained, “people seeing me and knowing I care about them.”

Trips like this weekend’s bicycle ride in Napa also are part of a Bradley strategy to improve his chances in this year’s governor’s race by campaigning hard in areas he lost when Republican George Deukmejian narrowly beat him in 1982.

So Bradley has been taking his message outside of large urban areas, trying to strike a responsive cord with local voters on issues like toxics, insurance rates and offshore oil drilling.

This past weekend it was Tom Bradley on the stump before labor supporters in Fresno, again raising questions about what he now says is $500,000 that rival George Deukmejian has received from toxic waste companies: “I dare say as much as George Deukmejian’s mother loves him, she wouldn’t give that much money to him.”

Bradley campaign chairman Tom Quinn has no illusions that the Los Angeles mayor will carry the Central Valley or some northern rural areas but says “our goal is to convince them George Deukmejian is not looking out for their interests . . . the mayor will have to do better in the Central Valley to win the election.”

Bradley’s trip to Fresno and to Napa underscores the difficulty he faces in trying to win over Central Valley voters who do not know him well, who see him only as the mayor of that behemoth metropolis to the south.

In spite of a 58% Democratic registration in Fresno four years ago, Deukmejian carried that county by more than 10,000 votes. In Napa County, with a 51% Democratic registration in 1982, Bradley lost by nearly 5,000 votes. Today, those two counties are still solidly Democratic in registration, but their voters often have a tendency to vote Republican.

About 75 people, mostly loyal Democrats, greeted Bradley Saturday afternoon at the Domaine Chandon Winery in the Napa Valley after Bradley and other bicycle riders had completed a one-hour ride around the winery. Bradley spoke to the friendly, but not wildly enthusiastic group, telling them that the state “has been a miserable failure” in handling toxic waste and insurance problems.

The speech was brief, and most of the crowd dispersed quickly. Some struggled for a moment to think what to say to a reporter who asked their opinion of Bradley.

“I think he’s very sincere,” said Rose Ann Dooley, a Democratic activist in Napa. “I’m not sure if many people in Napa, though, know his positions on the issues. Then again I’m not so sure they know the governor’s.”

“I think he’s sincere, but I’d sure like to have seen him take a stand one way or other on (whether to retain on the California Supreme Court Chief Justice) Rose Bird,” attorney Duncan Footman said.

“Last time his stand against gun control hurt him here and this year I think it’s going to be Bird, right or wrong. I’d like to have heard what he plans to do about toxics, not what Deukmejian did wrong. I want to hear what he’s going to do to help us control growth, which is probably the overriding concern here.”

Warm Greeting at Reception

At a reception Friday in Fresno, Bradley received his warmest greeting at the sprawling home of a black businessman, who hosted a multiracial crowd of other entrepreneurs, Democratic activists, teachers and union members. Bradley asked supporters to sign postcards complaining about the insurance industry, which the Bradley campaign plans to send to Deukmejian.

Later, at an AFL-CIO dinner, Bradley declined to take a stand when asked by a Fresno reporter about the UFW grape boycott that the union has pushed to protest what it sees as Deukmejian’s favoritism toward growers. A spokeswoman said the mayor was “pro-union” but “chooses not to get involved in this particular issue.”

On Saturday, Bradley drew cheers from a crowd of about 200 when he repeated his demand that the Casmalia toxic dump in northern Santa Barbara County be shut down.