14 Candidates Head for Wire in S.F.’s 5th District

Who says 1987 is a slow year in California politics? A special election in the 5th Congressional District has produced:

- A Republican candidate, Tom Spinosa, who calls for bombing Nicaragua “out of existence.”

- A Democratic hopeful, Harry Britt, who hired a private investigator to check out his major opponent and then, when confronted, said he did it to find out where his opponent stood on the issues.

- Another Democrat, Carol Ruth Silver, who ridiculed front-runner Nancy Pelosi’s Washington connections by paraphrasing Shakespeare. She said that Pelosi boasts, “I can call the creatures from the deep.” But Silver wants to know: “If you call them, will they come?”

- And Pelosi, the well-connected Democrat who bridles at the suggestion that she is fuzzy on the issues but said in a candidate forum: “What are the issues? Well, I’ll do a great job. I love the city of San Francisco. And I come from the urban tradition.”

Fourteen candidates--independents, Democrats, Republicans and members of two minor parties--are on the ballot Tuesday to fill the seat of Rep. Sala Burton, who died of cancer on Feb. 1.

The district, encompassing three-fourths of San Francisco, is one of the most liberal in the country. It was represented for almost two decades by Burton’s husband, Phil, who used his base to become one of the most powerful Democrats in the country before he died in 1983.

A candidate who gets 50% of the votes plus one on Tuesday will win outright. Otherwise, the top vote-getters in each party will be on the ballot in a June 2 runoff.

With so many candidates dividing up the vote Tuesday, a runoff is almost certain. And since Democratic registration is more than 60% in the district, the Democrat winning on Tuesday is virtually assured of the seat.

Despite the zany antics of some of the candidates, the race has not lived up to expectations.

It was supposed to be a close contest pitting Pelosi, 46, the candidate of the Democratic machine organized by Phil Burton, against Britt, 48, a gay Democratic supervisor who became one of the leaders of the increasingly powerful homosexual and renter rights groups in San Francisco when he succeeded gay Supervisor Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978.

Many observers thought that a victory--or at least a strong showing--by Britt would signal major changes in the political makeup of the city, where being aligned with the Burtons and their friends has always been helpful if you are seeking office.

Polls Favor Pelosi

But recent independent polls show Pelosi, whom Sala Burton endorsed on her deathbed, leading the pack with almost 30% of the vote. Britt, her closest challenger, has about 15% and has moved up only slightly since the race began.

“This should have been a good race,” said California media consultant Kam Kuwata, who is supporting Pelosi. “But Britt spent most of his time attacking Pelosi and not enough time defining himself.”

Also, Pelosi was endorsed early by San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, Sen. Alan Cranston, Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. Both Brown and McCarthy are from San Francisco, and Cranston’s liberal stands on arms control and minority rights have always made him popular in the city.

Valuable Endorsements

“Those are vote-getting endorsements in San Francisco,” Kuwata said, “especially in an off-year when voters aren’t really paying much attention and they want some guidance from people they know in politics.”

Turnout among the district’s 278,000 voters is not expected to be more than 40%.

“Pelosi is in cruise-control,” said San Francisco political consultant Paul Ambrosino, who is not involved in the race but who has watched it closely.

Gay voters make up as much as 15% in the district, and in a low-turnout special election, the clout of that bloc could be magnified, since gays tend to vote in high numbers. Britt has made increased federal funding to combat AIDS a major issue.

He also hopes to appeal to renters and young voters by attacking Pelosi as a wealthy Establishment Democrat who is out of touch with the average person in the district.

The Big Three

“The Establishment is the mayor, Willie Brown and Leo McCarthy,” Britt said at a recent forum. “The alternative is us.”

Pelosi is the wife of a wealthy San Francisco businessman and daughter of a former mayor of Baltimore. She has been a major fund-raiser for the national Democratic Party for more than a decade and was recently praised on the floor of the U.S. Senate for her fund-raising role in helping the Democrats win control of the Senate last November.

Not surprisingly, she tells voters that people in Washington will return her phone calls if she is elected to Congress and that San Francisco will benefit.

Her manager, Clinton Reilly, has run a low-key campaign stressing Pelosi’s connections, staking out standard liberal Democratic positions on such issues as arms control and the environment, and avoiding excitement that could work to the benefit of more grass-roots candidates like Britt.

Battleship Controversy

Typical of Pelosi’s cautious approach to the issues is the way she has handled one of the city’s hottest controversies--the docking of the battleship Missouri in San Francisco Bay, which Feinstein wants because it would bring jobs.

But the Missouri carries nuclear missiles and that is a problem for the city’s many peace activists. Britt would keep the Missouri out. Pelosi said she would welcome the Missouri but would remove the missiles--not exactly a viable option in the eyes of the Navy.

Sources close to the Pelosi campaign say that her expenditures in the race could easily top $800,000, most of it for direct mail and an extensive get-out-the-vote effort. Britt’s expenditures probably will not top $350,000.

The race has become nasty in recent weeks, with most of the pack going after Pelosi. Some of the question-and-answer sessions at candidate forums have been heated too, as vocal San Francisco voters take the candidates to task.

So it was not without reason that Pelosi took a deep breath the other day when an angry man stood up at an event and demanded to know why there is no restraining device on the Golden Gate Bridge to help prevent suicides, long a problem on the otherwise romantic symbol of San Francisco.

Pelosi sighed with relief and told the man that she was indeed against people jumping off the bridge and would try to do something about it if elected.