O’Connor Issues Campaign ‘Rules’ : Candidate Will Respond Only to Allegations From Cleator

Stung by recent criticism over her personal finances, former Councilwoman Maureen O’Connor said Wednesday that, for the duration of the San Diego mayoral campaign, she will refuse to personally respond to any allegations unless her opponent, Councilman Bill Cleator, makes the charges himself.

Under what O’Connor campaign consultant Dick Sykes termed “procedures and ground rules” for the final three weeks of the race, O’Connor also intends to decline to answer any questions that “relate solely” to her husband, multimillionaire businessman Robert O. Peterson, and may take up to 48 hours to respond to other charges.

“If Mr. Cleator personally makes the charge, then Maureen O’Connor will, of course, personally respond to it,” Sykes said at a news conference at which O’Connor’s television ads were unveiled. “If Mr. Cleator chooses to make the allegations through a spokesman or a third-party source, then someone at an appropriate level on our staff will be responding to it.”

Inquiries originating from the press, O’Connor explained, “will be looked at on a case-by-case basis” to determine whether she or a campaign aide will handle the response.

“I’m certainly going to continue to be available to the press,” O’Connor said. “But I want to make sure that reporters aren’t just asking Mr. Cleator’s questions for him. At this point, I don’t think it’s appropriate or necessary to respond to what comes from seconds.”

Saying that he is “glad to play by (O’Connor’s) rules,” Cleator labeled his opponent’s guidelines for handling future inquiries and criticism “a dodge to hide from the voters.”

“I think both of us ought to answer questions wherever they come from,” Cleator said. “But at least she’s being consistent, because I think she’s been dodging issues all along.”

O’Connor’s new guidelines come in the wake of the Cleator campaign’s allegation earlier this week that O’Connor may have failed to disclose $1,500 in monthly income on financial disclosure statements--a charge that O’Connor dismissed as “absolutely, flat-out wrong.”

Terry Knoepp, Cleator’s campaign attorney, raised that allegation in a letter to the state Fair Political Practices Commission in which he asked the agency to investigate the matter. The allegation stems from a 1983 insurance enrollment card signed by O’Connor and listing monthly income of $1,500 from R.O.P. Inc., a company through which her husband pays personal staffers, including secretaries, housekeepers and a boat crew.

Both O’Connor and the corporation’s attorney, however, have said that she never received a wage from R.O.P. The $1,500 monthly wage figure on the insurance form, O’Connor contended, was “simply a secretary’s estimate” of what she might be paid for occasional services that she ultimately performed for free for Peterson’s firm.

Knoepp’s letter to the FPPC was the latest in a recent series of incidents in which either Cleator or his top aides have raised questions about O’Connor’s and Peterson’s personal finances. While relentlessly chiding O’Connor for not releasing, as he did, income tax returns and a net worth statement, Cleator has publicized some of Peterson’s business holdings that he claims either pose a potential conflict of interest for O’Connor or were not properly reported on her various financial disclosure forms.

However, campaign consultant Sykes said Wednesday that, until the June 3 election, O’Connor will personally address such charges only if they are raised by Cleator himself. Allegations raised by Cleator’s campaign aides, Sykes added, will be handled by O’Connor’s own aides. If that policy had been in effect earlier this week, O’Connor presumably would have refused to discuss the question of whether she received income from R.O.P., but instead would have referred the matter to her aides.

“If Mr. Cleator’s unwilling to take his time to make the charge, why should she take her time to respond?” Sykes asked. “Bill is her opposite number in the Cleator campaign. And if he’s unwilling to let them come from his mouth, I think it says something about the charges themselves.

“You get to a point in the campaign where (an opponent’s) sole goal in life becomes to tie your candidate up for six hours responding to what they said that morning. It’s not a particularly great use of her time to do that when she does have important messages to get out.”

O’Connor justified the policy by arguing that it will help insure that the candidates themselves, not surrogates, bear personal responsibility for attacks on their opponent.

“If we’re going to have any charges about each other, it should come from the candidate, not from middle men,” O’Connor said. “If they’re going to make comments one way or the other, we should be responsible for them and we should be available to take the heat one way or the other.”

Stressing that he stands “behind anything done by anybody” in his campaign to date, Cleator argued that O’Connor’s guidelines do the very thing for which she faults him--namely, allowing a candidate to “duck issues and hide behind her campaign people.”

“I would have been happy to co-sign that letter to the FPPC,” Cleator said. “But if she wants it to come from me directly, fine. To me, the issue is the question itself, not who asks it. I don’t think you can draw a line and say, ‘I’m going to answer this one but not that one.’ ”

Several local campaign consultants praised O’Connor’s decision from a strategic standpoint, but offered different predictions on its possible impact.

“It’s a clever tactic and a refreshing one,” said Nick Johnson, whose clients include Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy. “If there are going to be charges, make your opponent throw the first stone himself. This prevents Bill from having a lot of people run interference for him.”

Others, however, argued that O’Connor’s policy could conjure up the aloofness image that has plagued her since her service on the City Council in the late 1970s.

“From the voters’ perspective, she ought to respond to anything and they might wonder why she isn’t,” said one consultant who asked not be identified. “That’s kind of a tricky rope to walk.”

Sykes also revealed Wednesday that the O’Connor camp may take 24 to 48 hours to respond to matters “that require us to scour documents” not readily available. That policy, he explained, is designed to “come up with a totally factual and accurate answer . . . rather than making an incorrect statement off the top of somebody’s head.”

In addition, questions dealing solely with Peterson’s financial holdings will be handled in the future by Peterson’s attorneys, not O’Connor’s campaign, Sykes said. However, the consultant conceded that, because of community property laws, the personal financial issues that have been raised so far involve O’Connor in “at least some remote way.”