Zeltner Campaign Opens With Mailer--to the Wrong District

Hoping to get an early start on his reelection campaign, freshman Assemblyman Paul E. Zeltner (R-Lakewood) decided to have 48,000 solicitation letters mailed to voters in his 54th District.

Instead, the appeals for support and contributions were mailed to voters in the 60th District of Assemblywoman Sally Tanner (D-El Monte). Zeltner even sent Tanner one of the letters, which were addressed “Dear Friend.”

With a sheepish smile, Zeltner, a former sheriff’s captain, said his direct-mail firm “apparently got the wrong set of labels on my mail, and it went to the San Gabriel Valley” instead of to his district, which covers Bellflower, Compton, Lakewood, Paramount and parts of Long Beach and Willowbrook.

Even after he received a call from a friend in the Sheriff’s Department who lives in Baldwin Park, Zeltner said, he failed to suspect that anything was amiss. Zeltner said his friend told him: “I’ll send you money, but I can’t vote for you. You’re a little out of my district.”

When other calls rolled in from the San Gabriel Valley, Zeltner said he realized that something was very wrong and quickly determined that the letters, which cost $9,000, had gone astray.

Even so, Zeltner said, he got “a stack of responses eight inches high and . . . a few bucks from people I happen to know” in the San Gabriel Valley. As a result, Zeltner labeled the mistake both “a false start” and “the kickoff of the campaign.”

Although Zeltner is unopposed in the GOP primary in June, he expects a difficult contest in November because registration in his district is heavily Democratic.

On the Democratic side, former Assemblyman Leon Ralph, a minister, and Willard Murray, a congressional aide and direct-mail specialist, have been waging low-key primary campaigns, drumming up support from churches, block clubs and community groups.

In the letter, Zeltner said that in his first campaign, in 1986, volunteers “provided us with the strength needed to overcome the enormous advantages” that his Democratic opponent received “from liberal Assembly Speaker Willie Brown and associates.”

Zeltner’s mailer contends that Brown intends to spend $1 million to defeat him. “Let Willie Brown and his outside interests know once again that they cannot dictate their demands on our community,” the letter says.

Tanner recalled that Brown “sort of chuckled” when she told him about the error. She described the mailing as “rather surprising” and “a wasted piece as far as Zeltner is concerned.”

Zeltner said his direct-mail firm, which he declined to identify, has agreed to send a new batch of letters at no charge. This time, he said, they’ll go to the right district.