Fall Campaigns Shifting Into High Gear : Battle Spirit Evident as Bradley, Deukmejian Clash on Drug Issue

Tough talk between the opposing camps, along with an improvement in Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley’s fund raising, are signs that the race for governor is alive, although the mayor still trails Republican Gov. George Deukmejian by a substantial margin in the polls.

There is a growing battlefield atmosphere in the election, evident Monday--Labor Day--when fall political campaigns traditionally begin in earnest.

The governor and the mayor clashed on the drug issue. Deukmejian told the big Los Angeles police employee organization, the Police Protective League, that Bradley had opposed funding of a drug education program in the schools. “Now, in this election year, he is suddenly talking tough about drugs,” Deukmejian said after getting the league’s endorsement.

Bradley, on a traditional Democratic campaign-opening statewide tour of labor events, said Deukmejian lacked leadership on the drug issue. Bradley proposed mandatory prison sentences for first-time drug pushers and for those possessing five grams or more of cocaine for sale.

Even before Monday’s campaigning, staff level comments reflected the combativeness of a gubernatorial election that, judging from polls, has been an uphill journey for Bradley, who narrowly lost to Deukmejian four years ago.

“One cannot count on the incompetence of your opponents, but it helps,” said Robert Thomson, Bradley’s campaign manager, belittling what he said was a strategic error, a slow Deukmejian start in the fall contest.

“A lot of us have been resentful of Bradley’s tactics,” said a top Deukmejian aide, unhappy with the mayor’s attacks against the governor. “We feel some of his commercials have hit below the belt, attacking the integrity of the governor. A lot of us are extremely embittered by it and we’re pretty motivated. . . . Now, this is not a vendetta or a grudge match, but we’re all just very competitive.”

Mervin D. Field’s California Poll, completed in early August, showed Deukmejian leading Bradley by 11 points, 52% to 41%, with only 7% undecided. Still, that was a seven-point gain for Bradley since a Field Poll in late May.

In addition to the evidence of the polls, Deukmejian has history on his side. Californians seldom turn out an incumbent governor--the last being Democrat Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, who was seeking a third term in 1966 and got trounced by then-political novice Ronald Reagan. The last previous governor to get ousted before that was Democrat Culbert L. Olson, whose second-term bid in 1942 was quashed by Earl Warren.

Bradley’s Dilemma

The dilemma for Bradley is also illustrated by comparing this year’s Field polls with those of four years ago. That year, Bradley led Deukmejian in every survey taken by Field--and The Los Angeles Times Poll, as well--and at this stage of the race was ahead by nine points. Deukmejian did not catch Bradley until about Election Day, virtually every pollster found.

This time, Deukmejian Chief of Staff Steven A. Merksamer said, “the governor feels very good” about his prospects for reelection, “but on the other hand, he’s not taking anything for granted. There’s no complacency.”

Present polls, showing Deukmejian’s lead and a strong public image, indicate that the governor conceivably could “lose” the race, but Bradley cannot “win” it. In other words, the incumbent would have to stumble badly--for example, with some terrible gaffe, the disclosure of a wrenching scandal or a sudden downturn in the economy that soured the voters on all Republicans.

That is not the view from the Bradley campaign, where a gloomy spring season--dominated by unfavorable polls, weak fund raising and strife among the mayor’s aides--has been replaced by a more optimistic late-summer mood. Thomson, taking over after a primary in which Bradley was unopposed, has put together an optimistic sales talk to potential contributors and other supporters; the staff has settled down, and control of the campaign has moved more into the hands of a triumvirate of campaign Chairman Tom Quinn, Thomson and consultant David Townsend.

Thomson, in an interview, said Bradley can win by his own efforts. And he said Deukmejian has made a strategic error by not hitting Bradley hard in July and August, when damage was being repaired.

“This campaign could have been over by Aug. 15,” he said. “My God, what are they waiting for? We have not been seriously outspent on the tube. They gave us a month to get organized without having to respond to attacks. We literally had a big block of time to put this thing together. They gave us a chance to start building momentum, to get back on the track again. . . . If Deukmejian had been all over the tube in July and August, we could not have put it together.”

Decision a Good One

Deukmejian advisers, however, said the decision to go slow during midsummer was a good one because voters are vacation-bound and uninterested in politics.

The theory that Deukmejian could “lose” but Bradley can’t “win” is rooted in surveys showing that both candidates basically are held in high esteem by voters. Voters basically like Bradley. It is just that most people, as of now, do not see much reason to substitute him in Sacramento for Deukmejian.

Pollster Field, in an August California Poll, tested the “image appraisals” of several state politicians and found Deukmejian and Bradley to be high on the list and, in fact, tied.

“The Deukmejian-Bradley race is unique in that this challenger is much better known than a typical challenger,” Field said in an interview. “With Bradley, it’s not a case of trying to overcome a negative image. The problems for him are, I’d have to say, unprecedented in California. He’s virtually as well-known and as highly regarded as the incumbent.”

Field said that for Bradley to be successful, Californians must be sold on “some reason to throw the incumbent out,” and with the economy in “reasonably good” shape, “it probably would have to be some development that causes voters to regard Deukmejian in a less favorable light than they do.

“It’s a tough position for Bradley to be in,” Field said. “He’s well-known, highly regarded and probably very frustrated. People think he’s done a good job as mayor. He barely lost four years ago. It was a tough defeat for him to take.

“He’s like that prizefighter who’s favored to win, goes 15 rounds, loses on a split decision and recalls every blow that was thrown or not thrown, and says to himself, ‘I’m going to fight that fight again and I’ll win,’ forgetting that the whole dynamics have changed. Now the Duke’s the incumbent and the economy is looking very good.”

Ads Attack Bradley

The Deukmejian side’s resentment against Bradley goes back almost four years, an aide said. “He was attacking the governor within minutes of his inauguration,” he said. “I don’t expect a honeymoon so much as grudging respect for what happened” on Election Day.

With such an attitude, Deukmejian’s aides found it easy to launch a recent series of radio advertisements attacking Bradley’s management of city sewage disposal into Santa Monica Bay, accusing the mayor of being “the largest polluter in California.” The ads were prompted by Bradley’s commercial attacks accusing the governor of mismanagement in the cleanup of toxic dumps.

“If he wants to make toxics the focal point of the campaign, we’ll meet him head-on,” said Larry Thomas, the governor’s campaign manager. “Our record’s a damn sight better than his.”

That same tough tone came from Thomson, when he spoke of how Deukmejian has not yet taken a position against Proposition 64, the measure conceived by ultraconservative Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr.’s organization, which seeks to impose strict controls on those carrying the AIDS virus. Bradley quickly opposed the measure, siding with those who say health officers already have the power to control the disease.

“While I expect George Deukmejian’s brains will triumph over his guts, the message has already gotten through to our friends in the gay and lesbian communities,” Thomson said.

Deukmejian remains far ahead in contributions. At the end of June, the governor had almost $5.1 million in the bank, according to campaign reports, while Bradley had $504,268. Karl J. Samuelian, the governor’s chief political fund-raiser, said that by the time the campaign is over, the Deukmejian organization will have raised a record $11 million gross and will wind up with a surplus.

But the reports also showed that Bradley had raised more money than the governor in the six weeks ending June 30, the last deadline for submitting contribution reports. Thomson cited those figures, the last available, in saying fund raising had been improved. Another campaign aide also said contributions are coming in more frequently and in larger amounts.

The strategies of Deukmejian, 58, and Bradley, 68, sharply contrast. The governor is campaigning as the stately incumbent, dealing with the Legislature and planning on spending much of the next few weeks signing more than 800 bills. He is running on his four-year record, approaching the two months ahead with the confidence of a heavy favorite, although aware that big leads can evaporate, as did Bradley’s in 1982.

That’s the way Bradley always ran for reelection as mayor, and the way he conducted his 1982 gubernatorial campaign. Not this time. Aware that he is behind, knowing that he will have to persuade the public that Deukmejian’s record is flawed, Bradley is running as a fighting underdog. Replacing the blandness of the past are scrappy attacks, unencumbered by subtlety. He is doing that through television and radio commercials and personal appearances.

Some commercials are built around continued attacks against Deukmejian on the toxic issue and other aspects of his record. Others are positive, designed to promote the mayor as a fiscal conservative, to emphasize his role in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, to portray him as a fighter against drugs and to show his involvement in a city task force organized to stop local toxic polluters.

While reflecting Bradley’s philosophy, the ads also have specific political goals, Thomson said.

Emphasis on Budgets

He said the emphasis on balanced city budgets aims to counter a perception, shown in public opinion polls, that whites perceive black politicians, such as Bradley, as big spenders; the drug segments are to remind voters that Bradley was a police officer for 21 years, and the Olympics scenes are directed to voters outside the Los Angeles area who may not have known of Bradley’s role in bringing the Games to California.

The toxics segment is part of Bradley’s environmental strategy, designed to make him the choice of voters concerned about environmental issues.

One controversial ad deals with nuclear power, focusing on the Rancho Seco nuclear plant near Sacramento, which has been plagued by malfunctions and other safety problems. In a commercial shown in Sacramento, Bradley pledged to close the plant if elected. That drew heavy criticism from the Sacramento Bee, the largest paper in the capital, which usually endorses Democrats. “Did the candidate think his political image would be enhanced by this demonstration of his ability to go off half-cocked?” the Bee asked in an editorial.

Issues May Draw Voters

Bradley is also hoping to get support from voters who may be drawn to the polling booth by several issues on the ballot.

These are the AIDS measure, a toxic control initiative, the Gann measure to limit public officials’ pay, the English-only measure and the bid of State Supreme Court Associate Justice Cruz Reynoso for reconfirmation. Deukmejian opposes Reynoso’s reconfirmation. “He (Deukmejian) is picking on the only Hispanic that has been on the court and he is galvanizing the Hispanic vote better than we can,” Thomson said.

In a sense, the Bradley camp is hoping for the kind of help from Reynoso and the ballot measures that Deukmejian received in 1982 from a gun-control initiative, opposed by Bradley, which brought out thousands of anti-Bradley voters.

Governor Focuses on Record

Thomson said he expects that environmentalists will be attracted by the toxic issue; gay and lesbians, pleased with Bradley’s opposition, will turn out to vote against the LaRouche AIDS measure; public employees, who tend to vote Democratic, will turn out to oppose the Gann measure to limit top government salaries, and Latinos, also a source of Democratic votes, will be drawn to the polls by the English-only measure and Reynoso’s fight to stay on the court.

The Deukmejian side’s key strategy is to focus on the governor’s record.

“The issue is not a single one like toxics, or how are you going to vote on Bird?” Thomas said. “It’s whether the governor has performed and kept his promises, and if he hasn’t, would Tom Bradley do a better job?

Political Priorities

“The priorities of the governor, and he believes the people of this state, are: Crime and punishment, education, economic development-job creation, and fiscal stability.”

At the heart of every speech by Deukmejian on his record is that he inherited a $1.5-billion deficit from former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., and balanced the books without a “general” across-the-board tax increase. He also increased state support of schools, after inflation, by 20%, he constantly tells audiences.

Whereas toxics cleanup and the environment are a focal point of Bradley’s campaign, California Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird serves the same role for Deukmejian. The governor long has been one of Bird’s biggest critics and is urging voters to deny her reconfirmation on Nov. 4--along with Associate Justices Reynoso and Joseph R. Grodin.

Supreme Court Issue

If all three justices were to be defeated--or even just two of them--Deukmejian would then be in a position, if reelected, to “stack” the court with a majority of his own appointees. But Deukmejian advisers insist that this is not the governor’s motive. They say he is using the court politically to contrast his “strong leadership” with Bradley’s “lack of leadership.” Although Deukmejian has taken a position on each of the six justices up for reconfirmation--he supports three of them--Bradley has remained neutral, saying he does not want to further politicize the court.

“I don’t expect the governor is going to be ‘running against the court,’ ” Thomas said, “but he will run against Tom Bradley and his failure to adequately address the court issue.”

Thomson, citing polling done for Democrats, said he did not think that the Supreme Court justice issue will hurt Bradley. Convinced that the issue peaked in June, he said: “People think the whole thing is over. I welcome every cent they (the Deukmejian campaign) spend on it. God love them.”

Bradley will continue a heavy schedule of personal appearances, along with as many commercials as he can afford, until Election Day. Deukmejian will have a lighter schedule until beginning all-out, full-time campaigning in October. But his television commercials will be beamed into the voters’ homes virtually every day between Tuesday and Election Day, Nov. 4.