Opponents Bring Backgrounds Forward : Bradley Recalls Political Obstacles in Plea to ‘Lay Groundwork for Future’

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Bradley went after Northern California voters Saturday with earnest appeals that they “lay the groundwork for the future” by making him the nation’s first black elected governor.

Scrambling to make up ground in the final 10 days of his campaign against Gov. George Deukmejian, the Los Angeles mayor accented the day’s events by reminding voters at three stops of the obstacles he faced on the path of his political career.

Bradley did not mention his race nor did he allude to ethnic discrimination, but he clearly sought to portray himself, struggling and prevailing against the odds, as a model for future generations.

“I want every youngster, of every race, creed and color, no matter where they may worship, no matter what their circumstances may be, to know that anything they dream, anything they want, is possible because there was a man named Tom Bradley who was able to overcome those obstacles,” Bradley told supporters in Santa Rosa.

“I want you to dream big dreams,” Bradley said. “I want these young people . . . to believe in the system.”

Although Bradley painted the Nov. 4 election as a down-to-the-wire race, the underdog nature of his efforts was never far from notice.

At the Santa Rosa breakfast, a preacher started the day off by, in his invocation, asking God to reverse Bradley’s and Deukmejian’s positions in the polls.

“Thank you in advance,” added the Rev. James E. Coffee of the Community Baptist Church.

Coffee later said he frequently requests political aid from God.

“He has a way of reversing things and making a negative into a positive,” Coffee said. “He can stretch things out, like the loaves and the fishes.”

The Northern California swing was meant to shore up support for Bradley in areas where he showed strength when he last battled Deukmejian in 1982.

Poll Results

Two of the three counties he visited Saturday, Sonoma and San Francisco, went for Bradley in that election. He lost the third, Contra Costa County, by a slim 1.6% margin.

Overall, a Los Angeles Times poll taken earlier this month showed Bradley ahead of Deukmejian by 11 points in the San Francisco Bay Area but behind by a substantial 18 points in the rest of Northern California.

After breakfast in the balloon-strewn Sonoma County Fairgrounds hall in Santa Rosa, Bradley spoke to the California Teachers Assn. in San Francisco and then traveled inland to a Pittsburg community center, where he met with labor union members and other Democrats.

At each stop, Bradley repeated his steady criticism of Deukmejian’s handling of toxic wastes and his vetoes of education bills.

“I’m a living, breathing example of what education has done for one human being,” he told several hundred teachers at the San Francisco Airport Hilton. The CTA has endorsed Bradley and contributed tens of thousands of dollars to his campaign.

Gave Teachers Credit

Bradley, who graduated from public schools in Los Angeles before attending UCLA on an athletic scholarship, gave his teachers credit for keeping him in school.

“Without that (education) I don’t know where I might be today,” he said. “Others may have forgotten, but I have not.”

Traveling through Northern California, the mayor also unveiled a new twist to his anti-toxics message--a rather involved story in which he lampoons Deukmejian as a jockey on a horse named “Polluters’ Friend.” Oil and chemical companies figure in the tale as gamblers betting on Deukmejian.

“I’m betting we’re going to leave George Deukmejian and his special interests choking in our dust on Nov. 4,” he said.

But Bradley’s listeners seemed unsettled, if not befuddled, at the analogy and frequently missed the mayor’s punch lines.