Strong Effort Among Jews Urged : Blunt Memo by Advisers Prods Yaroslavsky Camp

Two political consultants have told Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky that he will lose to Tom Bradley in the mayoral election next year unless he becomes an uncompromising foe of overdevelopment, learns to smile more and improves his fund raising, especially among his fellow Jews.

“The campaign is not going in the right direction and major changes must be made,” wrote advisers Michael Berman and Carl D’Agostino, the operators of BAD campaigns, which have earned a reputation for toughness in many state and local campaigns.

The memos are written in the irreverent, breezy, often insulting and always blunt style that characterizes the private conversations of Berman and D’Agostino, who are specialists in hard-hitting political advertising by mail and in sizing up precincts for their clients. Their firm is the political arm of the powerful Democratic West Los Angeles-San Fernando Valley organization of Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman and Howard Berman, Michael Berman’s brother.

In a telephone interview, Yaroslavsky said he had read the “largely unsolicited” memos and said, “I don’t agree with everything in them, I don’t agree with a lot of things that have been in their several dozen suggestions and memos over several months.”

The memos, one written on March 29 and other on May 4, provide an unusual look inside the world of politics, where managers, advertising people and political reporters many times speak in a cynical shorthand not reflected in their public utterances and writing.

“The reason why BAD thinks you can beat Bradley is: You’ve got 50 IQ points on him (and that’s no compliment.) But your IQ advantage is of no electoral use if you don’t use it.”

The detail-oriented Yaroslavsky must change his ways, the advisers said--and not spend so much time attending City Council meetings. “Three days a week tied down to City Hall and the Council is a waste,” they said. “We believe that it should stop immediately. One Tuesday a week is enough to waste. You will definitely get a bad story or two for not showing up for votes. It is a small price to pay for the extra million or two you will be able to raise with the extra time.”

Close Ties to Jews

One of the frankest parts of the memos urged Yaroslavsky to capitalize on his close ties with the Jewish community to raise money.

The two advisers said they were not fund-raising experts, “but what we do know is that Jewish wealth in Los Angeles is endless. That almost every Jewish person who meets you will like you and that asking for $2,000 is not an unreasonable request to people who are both wealthy and like you.” At one point, the memo said, “The Yaroslavsky campaign becomes the United Jewish appeal .”

Berman and D’Agostino are paid consultants to Yaroslavsky and City Councilman Marvin Braude for the November initiative campaign the two councilmen are backing to stop a Pacific Palisades oil drilling project. The two consultants are also being considered as managers of Yaroslavsky’s expected 1989 campaign for mayor.

Berman and D’Agostino said that the memos received by The Times were early drafts written to Yaroslavsky. They charged the memos were stolen from their office and asked The Times not to publish a story on them. “You are a receiver of stolen property,” Berman told a Times reporter. “If you print that, we will have to quit and Zev will have to quit.”

Topics for Discussion

Yaroslavsky said the memos “are not intended to win agreement or disagreement. They are intended to promote discussion, which they do. They want me to spend more time outside City Hall, something I would not do, have not done. They should not be read literally. They should be designed to focus attention on individual subject matters.”

Referring to the consultants’ criticism that he should smile more on television, Yaroslavsky said: “I appreciate their advice, largely unsolicited, especially as it relates to my personality. But my short first name and my long, complicated last name and my infrequent smiles have gotten me where I am and they are going to get me where I am going, one way or another.”

The Times learned of the memo Friday when reporter Kenneth Reich received a telephone call from a woman who did not give her name. She said she was going to send Reich a memo drafted by the Berman and D’Agostino campaign organization, BAD. On Monday, the memos were delivered to Reich’s desk at The Times. Accompanying them was a typed note: “You should be interested to see this. Government is bad enough without BAD.”

A central theme of the consultants’ advice--echoed by other Yaroslavsky supporters--is that while he espouses a slow growth platform, he appears ambivalent because of compromises he has made with builders in his development-heavy Westside City Council district.

Value of Advocacy

Berman and D’Agostino frankly admitted that they are not environmentalists, whom they called “tree huggers.”

But they said that Yaroslavsky must become a clear-cut advocate of restricted growth, rather than engage in lengthy and complicated negotiations over projects such as a controversial hotel being built near the Beverly Center.

“Yaroslavsky’s vision (should be that) there is no reason on this earth why some flitty restaurateur should be allowed to build a hotel at the corner of Beverly and La Cienega,” they said.

“The Yaroslavsky vision says ‘there is no reason on earth why anyone should be building more places to shop in West L.A.,’ ” they said. Then, mentioning a well known and stylish political figure whom they have represented, Berman and D’Agostino wrote:

“Even Lisa Specht can spend her entire life shopping and not exhaust all the shopping centers (already) built.

“Just because you are more slow-growth than Bradley does not mean you can take anti-growth voters for granted.”

View of Bradley

Berman and D’Agostino said many anti-growthers are Republicans “who think Bradley is to your right on more important political issues. And many are racially tolerant people who are strongly pulled to Bradley because of his height, skin color and calm demeanor. They like voting for him--they feel less guilty about how little they used to pay their household help.”

“To beat Bradley, you must be intensely, thoroughly and totally committed to your vision of L.A.,” they said. “It is the way you overcome the racial tug many Jews and non-Jewish liberals feel toward Bradley. It is also the way you overcome the possible Republican preference for the conservative black over the Jewish kid friendly with the Waxman-Berman machine.”

The consultants dwelt at length on the politics of blacks and Jews, major political forces in the city. “Bradley can and will excite black voters to outvote the white electorate especially if there is a runoff where his mayoral office is seen as jeopardized by a perfidious Jew, and/or most Jews and tree huggers will be, simultaneously, happy with both alternatives or distraught with having to choose between the two alternatives and therefore will turn out at their normal rates.”

Berman and D’Agostino also discussed Yaroslavsky’s personality and his ability to appear as strong slow-growth leader against a popular, four-term mayor.

Easy Laugh but Dour

Noting the difference between the witty Yaroslavsky seen in private and the dour councilman viewed on television, they wondered, “Why is one of the easiest laughs in Los Angeles (when he’s among people with whom he is comfortable) dour and cautious when . . . he has the possibility of facing people who are even the slightest bit hostile or critical?”

“You are not going to survive this psychologically or politically--unless you learn to enjoy it,” they said. “Every aspect of this incredibly difficult campaign has to be made into a game and a challenge. You’re smarter than Bradley and you know it. You are certainly smarter than the crazed homeowners whom you need to co-opt. You will be mayor if you use your brains and talents to conquer obstacles--with a smile on your face and a con in your eye.”

“An L.A. mayor race against Bradley is incredibly difficult, puts you under intense scrutiny and will be decided, in great part, by how well you perform over the next 11 months,” they said. “In fact, running head to head against Tom Bradley in front of an L.A. press corps with little else to cover may be more demanding than running for President.”

One of the memos devoted considerable space to a scenario for raising money in the Jewish community, where Yaroslavsky has always had strong support.

Among the suggestions were making “a complete list of mainstream Jewish charities . . . Find a person in each charity to slip us a list with name, address and phone numbers of $1,000-and-above contributors.”

Call to Every Donor

Every donor would be called. “If this works, the campaign should hire a driver to chauffeur Zev on an endless schedule of meeting new Jewish $2,000 givers.”

Another target would be “contributors to Zev who have not participated to their ability and who belong to every Jewish country club in the L.A. area.”

Noting that Yaroslavsky “hates the idea of calling people blind,” the consultants suggested that he talk to masters of Democratic political fund-raising, Rep. Mel Levine, (D-Studio City) and State Controller Gray Davis.