O’Connor Endorses the Reelection of Cranston

Mayor Maureen O’Connor, breaking a campaign promise to shun partisan politics, Sunday night endorsed Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston in his increasingly difficult reelection battle against Rep. Ed Zschau.

Citing “distorted” commercials by Zschau, Cranston’s record of aid to San Diego and her family’s longtime friendship with the incumbent, O’Connor said she had decided within the past two days to break her pledge, but she made it clear she will not endorse gubernatorial candidate Tom Bradley or local Democrats.

“Senator Cranston has been a longtime friend of both my husband and myself, and if you can’t make an exception for your friend, what are you all about?” O’Connor asked at a news conference at Lindbergh Field.

O’Connor’s husband, Robert Peterson, founder of the Jack In The Box fast-food chain, has contributed to Cranston campaigns despite his Republican registration.

Referring to President Reagan’s campaign appearance for Zschau on Saturday, O’Connor told Cranston: “Alan, I’m not Air Force One, but I hope it helps.”

O’Connor also emphasized that the endorsement--which came just two days before voters go to the polls Tuesday--was her idea, not Cranston’s. “I would like to make it clear that Sen. Cranston is in San Diego tonight at my request,” she said. “He knew of my nonpartisan pledge and as a gentleman--even though it appears he is in a tough reelection fight--he never asked me to violate that pledge.”

Cranston, who holds a negligible one point lead over Republican Zschau in the most recent California poll, flew in to accept the endorsement and promised to “continue to await orders” from San Diego’s leaders if he is returned to the Senate.

In endorsing Cranston, O’Connor broke the pledge she made shortly after placing first in the runoff for mayor in February. Last week, she authorized the grass-roots campaign of volunteers who helped her win the election in June to work with the Democratic Party in a get-out-the-vote effort on Election Day.

She denied that the endorsement would erode her credibility locally--San Diegans know that “when I break (a promise), it’s with good reason,” she said--or jeopardize her clout with Zschau should he defeat Cranston. O’Connor said that she was willing to “take that risk,” and noted that “I have plenty of credibility with Sen. Wilson, and he’ll be the senior senator” if Cranston loses.

O’Connor said that Cranston was instrumental in cutting red tape to speed approval of the San Diego Trolley and worked with then-City Council member O’Connor to keep offshore oil rigs off the San Diego coast.

But it was Zschau’s commercials suggesting that Cranston was soft on drugs that prompted her decision to endorse Cranston during the final days of the campaign, O’Connor said. When reporters noted that the commercial has not aired in recent days, she said it “kept playing and playing and playing and that’s the one that got to me.”

“I could not watch another distorted TV commercial about Sen. Cranston’s record and remain silent,” she said. “When I went to Washington this September with the mayors of the country’s biggest cities to lobby for the anti-drug bill, it was Alan Cranston who listened.”