Veteran Joins Sumner as Campaign Manager

Six weeks into the race, Democratic congressional candidate Bruce W. Sumner has replaced his part-time campaign coordinator with a veteran Orange County campaign manager.

Sumner said the decision to replace Keith Glaser with Irvine political consultant Howard Adler did not suggest any confusion or dissension in Sumner’s long-shot campaign to unseat five-term Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach).

Rather, he said, the switch was prompted because Glaser, 31, was too busy with other commitments. The young political strategist was stretched thin by his job as an executive in the development branch of J. Ray Construction Co., the role of coordinator for Sumner’s campaign and his post as the California coordinator for Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-St. Louis), an undeclared presidential candidate in 1988.

Meanwhile, Adler, 43, a partner in the public relations firm of Adler Droz Inc., said he would devote whatever time was needed to Sumner’s campaign.

Sumner became the official Democratic nominee for the 40th Congressional District after an unexpectedly successful write-in campaign against Art Hoffmann, a follower of political extremist Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. He was confirmed as the Democratic nominee after a recount and court hearing in late July.

Of the staffing changes, Sumner said he was delighted that Adler, who had been an adviser, now was assuming a formal role in the campaign.

“It was not a question of Keith not working out. Keith was deeply involved in his career and he didn’t have quite the time,” Sumner said.

Glaser agreed, saying in a telephone interview Thursday from San Jose, where he was on the road with Gephardt:

“My eyes were a little bigger than my stomach” in agreeing to take on the Sumner race. . . . “They needed to have somebody that can actually sit in an office and watch (campaign activities) full time.” He said that he was “a little too far away” in his Irvine office when strategy sessions were held at Sumner campaign headquarters in Santa Ana.

Adler’s election credits are impressive: He was campaign manager for county Supervisor Harriett Wieder’s first race in 1978, and directed former Assemblyman Dennis Mangers’ upset win over a Republican in 1974. He also guided former Assemblyman Ron Cordova’s campaign when he won an upset victory over a Republican in 1976, and was campaign manager for attorney Frank Barbaro’s losing bid in the 32nd state Senate District in 1982. Mangers represented Huntington Beach as a Democrat, and Cordova--who since has become a Republican--represented Newport Beach as a Democrat.

Adler said that at first he had been reluctant to assume a formal role in Sumner’s race. But he added that Sumner, a retired judge and former assemblyman, was such an outstanding candidate that he believed that the voters of Badham’s district could be persuaded to ignore the party labels of Republican and Democrat and instead to “vote for the best man.”