Few Dare to Rock the Boat in San Diego’s Political Waters

In the midst of his 1984 reelection campaign, then-San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock was engulfed in the kind of serious political trouble that normally attracts opponents the way a slab of bloody meat draws a school of hungry sharks.

With Hedgecock facing local and state investigations into campaign finance violations that ultimately drove him from office in December, 1985, numerous local officeholders contemplated a mayoral candidacy. But, one by one, they rejected that option, leaving former television newscaster Dick Carlson, a political neophyte, Hedgecock’s only major opponent.

“They came up to the plate, blinked, and went back to the dugout to sit down,” Hedgecock said at the time, gloating. Then, tapping his chest, he added: “They don’t have it here. No guts.”

While his skeptics might dismiss that scene as simply a display of public bravado and political machismo by the cocky Hedgecock, many local political activists believe the former mayor’s point is well taken and illuminates one of the singular features of San Diego County politics.

No ‘Profiles in Courage’

“Is courage in short supply in San Diego politics?” lawyer and former City Council candidate Michael Aguirre asked rhetorically. “I think the answer is yes. Let’s just say ‘Profiles in Courage’ couldn’t have been written here. This is not a city where politicians take a lot of risks.”

Indeed, many community activists, political consultants and candidates themselves characterize San Diego politics as a generally genteel form of combat far removed from the rough-and-tumble brand practiced elsewhere.

Evidence of that can be found, they say, in the fact that incumbents rarely challenge each other, waiting instead for vacancies created by officeholders running for higher posts, or for retirements, appointments or deaths to create opportunities.

This year, for example, Mayor Maureen O’Connor, three county supervisors, four local congressmen and San Diego’s legislative incumbents appear headed for easy reelection campaigns in which they will face relatively minor opposition. Although late entries before next month’s candidate filing deadline conceivably could change the complexion of the mayoral election and several others, those campaigns now appear to be races more in name than fact--a trend common in San Diego politics.

“Politics here is sort of like sitting on the veranda of a Mississippi plantation watching the cotton grow,” said Nick Johnson, a consultant whose clients include Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, who is seeking the Democratic nomination to oppose U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) this fall.

“It’s almost like San Diego is a relic of the past,” Johnson said. “The pace is so easygoing and there’s such an acceptance of the way things are--much more than you find in most other large urban cities. Sometimes, it just seems that no one wants to challenge the accepted order.”

In support of that theory, Johnson and others point to the considerable deference displayed by most San Diego officeholders--in contrast to their counterparts in other large California cities--for one another’s political turf, at least at election time.

While Los Angeles and San Francisco politics, for example, are marked by frequent campaign clashes among elected officials from different levels of government, in San Diego the prospect of a city councilman or supervisor running against a state assemblyman, or a mayor running against a congressman, is treated as something close to political heresy.

“San Diego’s elected officials tend to be very timid as far as confronting each other,” said political consultant David Lewis. “For whatever reason, it’s just not the way we do things in politics here.”

“There’s definitely a laissez-faire attitude in San Diego politics, a feeling of, ‘Oh, let’s wait until he retires or moves on to run for that office,’ ” said advertising sales executive Dan McAllister, a longtime Republican activist. “Our campaigns usually are very non-confrontational in that way. Incumbents generally stay out of each other’s way.”

In the past five years, the special 1983 San Diego mayoral campaign to fill the vacancy created by Wilson’s elevation to the U.S. Senate was the only major local race in which multiple incumbents opposed one another. In that campaign, then-county Supervisor Hedgecock, Councilmen Bill Cleator and Bill Mitchell and former Councilwoman O’Connor led a 20-candidate field.

Since then, only a few other local races have featured one incumbent challenging another. In 1984, two small-city mayors--George Bailey of La Mesa and Brian Bilbray of Imperial Beach--unseated Supervisors Paul Fordem and Tom Hamilton, respectively. The same year, appointed Supervisor Patrick Boarman lost to Assemblywoman Lucy Killea (D-San Diego) in the 78th District race.

May Reflect Citizenry

Those instances, however, clearly are the exception to the rule. In seeking explanations, some resort to armchair psychology, arguing that San Diego’s politics simply reflect the laid-back attitude commonly associated with its citizenry.

“Recreation, leisure and pleasure are the top interests here,” said San Diego Councilwoman Abbe Wolfsheimer. “That’s partly why there’s such apathy about politics here. Also, I’ve noticed there’s a tendency among politicians in San Diego to be thin-skinned. That makes them reluctant to take risks.”

Others, however, contend that local incumbents rarely cross paths for reasons stemming more from pragmatic political considerations than from life style-oriented philosophy. Name recognition and fund-raising advantages generally increase according to the level of one’s office, meaning the political assets available to, say, a congressman often are almost as daunting to a city council member as to a non-officeholder.

Moreover, most of San Diego’s legislative and congressional districts are lopsided in terms of voter registration, heavily favoring either Republicans or Democrats--a factor that discourages incumbents of different parties from challenging each other in partisan races.

‘Pecking Order’ Seen

Consultant Lewis also argues that there is a strongly entrenched “pecking order” in local politics that holds that “you get in at the bottom and wait your turn to move up.” Impatient politicians who attempt to accelerate their climb up the political ladder by running against another incumbent--particularly a more senior officeholder--often do so at their own risk.

One of Lewis’ clients, Republican San Diego Councilman Ed Struiksma, learned that lesson in 1986 when, contrary to the wishes of many GOP leaders, he entered the special mayoral race necessitated by Hedgecock’s forced resignation. Struiksma ran against Democrat O’Connor and Cleator, at that time the senior Republican on the council.

Many traditional Republican donors shunned Struiksma, angrily charging that his candidacy was an unwelcome intrusion into a campaign they viewed as Cleator’s “shot” at the mayor’s office. Amid controversy over trips he made at city expense, Struiksma withdrew from the primary, but the intraparty animosities lingered long afterward.

“This is not a city that rewards politicians who rock the boat,” said Aguirre, whose occasionally abrasive behavior has drawn enmity in both legal and political circles.

‘Stepford Wives’ System

“If you do that, you’re branded as a troublemaker,” he said. “The message is, ‘If you want a career in politics in this town, you’d better go along with the way things have always been done.’ What we have in San Diego is a political ‘Stepford Wives’ system.”

To some, that is an overly cynical view of local politics and largely ignores the fact that this year could yet see several major electoral contests featuring head-to-head confrontations between incumbents. As she has been since early this year, Supervisor Susan Golding is considering running against O’Connor in the June mayoral primary. And Councilwoman Wolfsheimer has taken out candidacy petitions to oppose City Atty. John Witt, although she has not yet decided whether to enter that race.

But even as Wolfsheimer weighs her options and solicits opinions on her prospective candidacy, she has encountered reactions that demonstrate how the potential of one incumbent challenging another produces uneasiness within San Diego political circles--if for no other reason than it is so unusual.

“We’ve been getting a lot of calls from people saying, ‘Oh, we think you’re just great! But why don’t you wait until he retires?’ ” said Joanne Johnson, Wolfsheimer’s administrative executive.

Wolfsheimer herself, noting that she defeated incumbent Councilman Mitchell to win her current seat, says she feels no awkwardness over the prospect of opposing another incumbent--even one who sits only about 30 feet from her at council meetings.

“I’ve never been hesitant to do something just because it isn’t done very often,” Wolfsheimer said. “Regardless of whether I do or don’t run, that won’t be a factor. And if I do run and it causes people to pay a little extra attention to the race, that’s not bad, either.”