Korenstein Victory Tied to Targeting of Voters

Precise targeting of a select group of voters and a backlash to negative campaign tactics of her foe were credited Wednesday with helping Julie Korenstein win the West San Fernando Valley seat on the Los Angeles Board of Education.

The president of the largest teachers’ union in the Los Angeles Unified School District also took some of the credit for Korenstein’s victory in Tuesday’s election. The union contributed at least $25,000 to Korenstein’s campaign and lined up scores of volunteer workers.

Korenstein won with 58% of the vote to Barbara Romey’s 42%.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would win by such a wide margin,” Korenstein said Wednesday after addressing members of United Teachers-Los Angeles at a victory party at a Canoga Park pizzeria.

Korenstein, 43, coordinator of a student volunteer program at Chatsworth High School, is the first liberal Valley Democrat elected to the school board in a decade. The last Valley liberals to serve on the board were Robert Docter, who lost his board seat in 1977 to Bobbi Fiedler, and Howard Miller, who was recalled in 1979 and was succeeded by current school board member Roberta Weintraub.

But a liberal Democrat elected from the conservative West Valley does not indicate a political trend, said Arnold Steinberg, a political strategist familiar with Valley politics.

“When you have a low turnout election such as this one, you always have people drawing conclusions on what it all means. Most of the time, these conclusions are wrong,” Steinberg said. “An election a year from now for the same office could have very different results.”

Korenstein attributed her victory to voters rejecting Romey’s campaign, which she said was filled with “sleazy, dirty tactics.”

Some of Romey’s supporters also said they thought negative campaigning had hurt Romey.

“I was unhappy with the twist in the campaign that took place at the end of the primary,” said Diana Dixon-Davis, a parent active at Germain Street Elementary School in Chatsworth. Davis said she carried petitions to get Romey’s name on the ballot.

Romey “sank down to dirty politics that were just scurrilous. If the campaign would have been run clean, it would have helped her,” Davis said.

Some politicians agreed that Romey might have been hurt by the campaign. “I think people get turned off by negativism. People are probably fed up with sleazy campaign mailers,” said state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia), who endorsed Romey. Davis added that a Romey letter that tried to cast Korenstein as anti-Semitic “undoubtedly offended a lot of Jewish voters.”

But Korenstein’s campaign managers, Barbara Grover and Parke Skelton, said the winning edge derived from a strategy concentrating on voters who cast ballots in the April primary and in the 1985 school board race.

They targeted about 40,000 West Valley Democrats and Republicans, allowing Korenstein workers to concentrate their Election Day get-out-the-vote efforts on a relatively few people who were likely to vote.

Romey’s campaign targeted a more voters--80,000 households for some mailers. They focused mainly on Republicans who voted in previous state elections.

“We just targeted better than the Romey people did,” Skelton said.

Romey and her campaign manager, Paul Clarke, could not be reached for comment on the election results.

United Teachers-Los Angeles also played an important role in the Korenstein victory.

Korenstein’s victory came from all parts of the district. In the 3rd City Council District, which includes the West Valley south of Roscoe Boulevard, Reseda and Warner Center, Korenstein won 60% of the vote. In the 12th City Council District, represented by Romey backer Hal Bernson, Korenstein won 54%.

After she takes office next month, Korenstein said, she will work with State Supt. of Instruction Bill Honig to oppose Gov. George Deukmejian’s plan to return $700 million to taxpayers. Korenstein said the money should be allocated to public education.