Millions of Flyers Send the Message to Voters

The polls won’t open for a couple of days, but already there have been several big winners in Tuesday’s primary races.

This campaign season has been a bonanza for those who produce, print and mail the political literature that has filled mailboxes to overflowing across much of Orange County in recent days.

The losers are easy to spot: The mail carrier who has to lug it all door to door and the voter who must somehow make sense out of the deluge of mailers dispatched by candidates.

3 Million Sent Out

In the 40th Congressional District, for example, candidates have sent out no less than 3 million pieces of political mail, with the lion’s share going to GOP voters who outnumber registered Democrats 2 to 1. The nine GOP contenders in the race to replace retiring Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach) already have spent a total of more than $2 million on Tuesday’s primary showdown.

Much of that money has been pumped into extensive direct mail drives.

“Short of the candidate walking up and ringing the doorbell himself, the mail is the most effective way to make contact with the voter,” said longtime consultant David Vaporean, who is guiding Republican Nathan Rosenberg’s race in the 40th District.

Receiving 15 a Day

As the campaign draws to a close, postal officials estimate that some voters are receiving as many as 15 mailers a day.

The circulars, including a barrage of personal attacks, have prompted charges and countercharges among the candidates in the county’s two open congressional seats.

A mailer sent by C. David Baker’s campaign that attacks GOP opponent C. Christopher Cox in the 40th District has provoked a heated response.

Baker sent out a mailer Friday belittling Cox’s White House experience, saying he was just one of dozens of White House attorneys and was responsible for only minor duties. Cox, in turn, called Baker a liar, saying he played an important advisory role to President Reagan as senior associate counsel in the White House.

In the 42nd Congressional District, Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder has been criticized by her opponents in the GOP primary for using funds from her county supervisor’s campaign committee to send a last-minute mailer defending herself against a recall effort.

The mailer is a letter from Wieder that accuses “a small cadre of Laguna Beach-based, single-issue special interests” of trying to “worsen our traffic problems.”

‘It’s Wrong’

“It’s shameful and it’s wrong. And this is one public figure who simply is not going to tolerate it any longer,” Wieder said in the mailer.

The recall effort was launched by advocates of the countywide slow-growth initiative--Measure A on Tuesday’s ballot--in the wake of votes she cast for development agreements in south Orange County, including one covering the Laguna Laurel project in Laguna Canyon.

Wieder has defended her votes as an attempt to ensure that developers will pay for roads and other public improvements before they build homes.

Dana Rohrabacher, a Palos Verdes resident and ex-presidential speech writer who is one of Wieder’s leading opponents in the 42nd District, said he thought the anti-recall piece was timed to have an impact in the congressional race.

“Otherwise, she would have waited until after Tuesday,” he said.

Mailer Called ‘Deceitful’

Former White House advance man Andrew Littlefair of Torrance called the mailer “deceitful.”

Another Wieder opponent, Stephen Horn of Long Beach, filed suit in Westminster Municipal Court on Friday to try to get the supervisor to make a “full disclosure of campaign expenditures and contributions” before the election. Horn, who resigned under pressure last fall as president of Cal State Long Beach, has also filed complaints on the same issue with the state Fair Political Practices Commission and the Federal Election Commission.

The GOP races in both the 40th and the 42nd districts are perceived as being extremely close, and the last-minute mailers therefore have taken on added significance.

On Saturday, the blur of activity on the loading dock behind the main Santa Ana post office on Sunflower Avenue was a tip-off that more political mail is on its way.

First-Class Treatment

Postal workers received and sorted dozens of sacks filled with campaign circulars. Each sack was tagged with a red label that read: “Urgent. Political Mail.”

Postage on most political literature is paid for through a third-class or bulk mailing permit and costs about 10 cents a piece, but postal supervisor Larry Hernandez said all political notices are treated like first-class mail.

“Once we get it, we send it--immediately,” Hernandez said. “We don’t want anyone coming back later and complaining their mail didn’t arrive by election day. Who needs that headache?”

Mike Winston’s head does not hurt. But his shoulder is troubling him.

The Costa Mesa mail carrier said Saturday that he can’t remember ever delivering this much political mail in one campaign season.

Extra Trips

“You would think this was Christmas or tax season,” he said Saturday while making his rounds. His route is in the 40th Congressional District, and he said that some days the volume of political mail has been so great he has had to make three or four extra trips to fill his mailbag.

“I can always tell when we’re getting close to the election,” he said. “My bag gets heavier.”

In the 40th District, the mailing king has been Cox. He has spent nearly $400,000 to produce 15 separate mailers, half of which have been sent districtwide to more than 110,000 Republican households.

Cox was a virtual unknown at the outset of the race. His political consultant, Carlos Rodriguez, said mailers were critical to building name identification among voters. Cox was the first candidate in the race to send a mailer, and his campaign aides believe the strategy has paid off.

“We knew we had a highly qualified candidate,” Rodriguez said, “but he had almost zero name recognition. Television and radio don’t work in this market, and it’s impossible to walk a district this size. So we went heavy with mail, and it’s paid dividends.”

12 Mailers Each

Rosenberg has spent about $175,000 to produce 12 separate mailers, while Baker, the third major GOP contender for the seat, has spent more than $200,000 on 12 mailers.

A fourth candidate in the race, Newport Beach lawyer William Yacobozzi Jr., has tried to elevate himself into contention by personally financing his own mail blitz, particularly in the last two weeks. Yacobozzi lent his campaign nearly $400,000, the bulk of it to underwrite eight districtwide mailings.

Yacobozzi, short on endorsements and visibility, said the mail is about the only way to reach significant numbers of voters.

“It’s expensive,” he said, “but what choice do I have?”

Political experts say it costs about $25,000 to produce, print, affix the labels and mail the average circular. That includes $12,000 in postage to send the mailer throughout the district.

At this stage of the campaign, Vaporean said, a mailer must catch a voter’s eye instantly.

“It takes about 11 or 12 seconds for the voter to open his mailbox and decide whether to keep the flyer,” Vaporean said. “So it better be good.”

Times political writer Claudia Luther contributed to this article.