Democrats Linked to Chief Justice : GOP Pinning Hopes to Bird’s Coattails

Along rural roads in Northern California, the message appears on signs, one after the other, reminiscent of Burma Shave ads.

California Senate majority Leader Barry Keene (D-Benicia) supports Chief Justice Rose Bird, says the first sign. His challenger, Solano County Supervisor Dick Brann, does not, reads the second. The signs are paid for by Brann.

In San Diego, Republican Assembly candidate Tom Du Bose is invoking Bird in his race against incumbent Steve Peace (D-Chula Vista) despite Peace’s insistence that he has been a critic of the chief justice for 10 years.

“You have to deal with the Rose Bird issue right off the top,” Du Bose said. “It’s a way of establishing in the voter’s mind that you are not part of the old liberal, soft-on-crime, big-spending set.”

It is all part of an extravagant, statewide coattail campaign for the Nov. 4 election, with Republican candidates for state and national office doing their utmost to discredit their Democratic opponents by tying them to the controversial chief justice.

While most Democratic candidates say they are not worried about the tactic, supporters of Bird, who was losing by a 2-1 margin in a recent Los Angeles Times Poll, say the chief justice has been hurt by the Republican blitz.

“It is naive, to say the least, to think of the campaign against Bird in terms of the three or four groups organized specifically to defeat her. What you really have is a Republican onslaught, with candidates from Eureka to the Mexican border joining the stampede against her,” said one contributor to Bird’s embattled cause.

Steven Glazer, director of communications for the Bird campaign, said he suspects that Republican candidates may have done more damage than the efforts of the groups that are campaigning directly against Bird.

While those groups have not come close to meeting their $2-million budget for television ads against Bird, four of the states’ biggest Republican spenders, including Gov. George Deukmejian and U.S. Senate hopeful Ed Zschau, have pumped an estimated $2 million or more into statewide television commercials that blast their opponents either for supporting Bird or not opposing her. Besides Deukmejian and Zschau, Mike Curb, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, and state Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights) who is running for controller are spending heavily on TV ads that try to link their opponents with Bird.

Zschau’s ad, aimed at incumbent Democrat Alan Cranston, is typical of the hard-edged rhetoric appearing in the commercials.

“Alan Cranston opposes the death penalty for the most vicious crimes. Maybe, that’s why he doesn’t oppose Rose Bird,” says the narrator in a recent Zschau commercial.

Blitz Not Ignored

Bird has not ignored the Republican blitz. She has accused Deukmejian of trying to get control of the judiciary. And she says it is morally “bankrupt” for candidates to dwell on her record instead of issues such as poverty and illiteracy that she says politicians have a duty to address.

Republicans say they are merely playing a tune the voters want to hear.

“Our polls tell us that 57% of the voters will reject a candidate who would support Rose Bird,” said a spokesman for Brann’s Northern California campaign against Keene. Keene has endorsed all six Supreme Court justices on the ballot in November, according to his press secretary, Greg De Gear.

“The (Bird) issue is being raised by Republican candidates in all 80 Assembly districts,” said William E. Saracino, chief of staff for the Assembly Republican Caucus. “We’re not saying it’s a silver bullet. But it’s important as one of a series of things you talk about. You talk about Rose Bird in painting a negative image of your opponent.”

According to John Seymour, chairman of the Senate Republican Caucus, “Opposition to Rose Bird is a common theme in all Republican state Senate campaigns.”

The Democrats’ statewide polling also indicates that a significant number of voters--from 25% to 35%--will turn against a candidate who supports Bird, according to Richard Ross, chief political lieutenant to Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

Ross said that virtually every piece of Republican campaign literature he has seen this fall contains an unflattering allusion to Bird. And Ross said a number of Democrats are being linked with Bird despite having come out against her.

“One of our candidates took money from the California Trial Lawyers’ Assn. Now, his opponent is trying to make a big deal of the fact that the association has also contributed to Bird,” Ross said.

Not Losing Sleep

Yet, Ross and most other Democratic strategists say that, except in a handful of races, Democrats are not losing sleep over the tactic. They say history has taught them that “coattails” don’t trip up many candidates in California.

However, spokesmen for two Bird supporters, Keene and Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Riverside) say they are a bit anxious. Bob Minick, Brown’s campaign manager, said last week that if Brown’s Republican opponent, Robert Henley, a San Bernardino real estate developer, can afford to continue harping on the Bird connection, he might have a chance.

“These things are hitting quick and fast,” Minick said about Henley’s anti-Bird message. “The effect is hard to read right now. If he (Henley) can get enough money to keep it going, it might have an effect. . . . I don’t think he has any other issue.”