But Don’t Put Anything in Writing : Consulting: Winning Ugly in the War That Is Politics

“I put damn little in writing,” said political consultant Stuart Spencer, bag packed for a wild fall of imparting his blunt, funny, totally irreverent advice to Vice President George Bush. “I’m not a paper machine.”

Michael Berman and Carl D’Agostino are unconventional, controversial Democratic political strategists who, like Spencer, are afflicted with the curse of cynicism and irreverence. A stream of advice--well respected by many Democratic politicians--pours from their office in the Beverly Hills flats, much of it referring to politicians in the scornful language of a baseball manager discussing a temperamental and unreliable left-handed pitcher.

But this year, they did not follow the sound practice of the veteran Spencer, who joked of his own literary output: “I could put everything on the back of a matchbook.” Spencer, after all, is a man who is discreet enough to have advised President Reagan and his wife, Nancy, for years without having written a kiss and tell book, or seeing his many blunt and probably salty conversations with them leaked to the press. He has written Sunday Opinion section columns for The Times but has told no tales.

However, Berman and D’Agostino are victims of an affliction that is especially dangerous to those in the political business. It is the curse of wanting immortality, the fatal desire to have their wisdom recorded on something more lasting than the stale air of a political back room. Bigger men than these have been brought down by that weakness, and the repercussions have been much greater, as in the case of Richard M. Nixon and the tapes.

But the impact was substantial from the publication Tuesday by The Times of Berman-D’Agostino memoranda, bluntly telling a prospective client, Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, how he should mobilize the political support and campaign contributions of his fellow Jews in his expected 1989 campaign against the city’s black mayor, Tom Bradley.

They wrote about black and Jewish voters. Environmentalists were called “tree huggers.” And they advised, “Hug every tree, moon every mountain, stop every building (or at least do your best to stop every building) between now and June, 1989.”

It was all done in the true language of politics, the manner of talking, the tough, often cynical outlook of political consulting’s secretive world. Publication of the memos thrust words usually saved for confidential conferences into public view, talk about racial voting blocs and raising money. It put a spotlight on the consultant. “The memo told the truth and people don’t always like being told the truth,” said former political consultant Alan Baron, who now publishes the Baron Report.

Not a Well-Liked Business

It was another stormy chapter for a business that has been under fire since its beginning for engaging in electoral trickery. Berman, D’Agostino and Spencer are part of a comparatively small group of men and women throughout the country who earn their living by managing campaigns. Using public opinion polling, census information, voting patterns and--most important--instinct, they analyze the various segments of the electorate by race, religion, income, occupation, gender and age. Then they devise television commercials, mailed advertisements, press releases and speeches to appeal to each segment.

The political consulting business started in California more than 50 years ago to fill a vacuum left by a weakening of political parties, which once guided the voters. As the influence of political parties began to wane nationwide, these consultants assumed the power of the old-time political party boss in a society where communications skills have become more important than patronage. The development has worried many students of politics.

“Political consultants, answerable only to their client-candidates and independent of the political parties, have inflicted severe damage upon the party system and masterminded the modern triumph of personality cults over party politics. . . . They have gradually but steadily accumulated almost unchecked and unrivaled power and influence. . . ,” Prof. Larry J. Sabato wrote in his book “The Rise of Political Consultants.”

This episode was unique, said past and present consultants throughout the country. Not since the Nixon tapes, they said, has the public been given such a frank look at the way politicians talk behind closed doors.

It was, they said, the way consultants talk, reflecting a business where winning is everything and losers scorned.

Some Are Sharp, Others Blunt

“Everybody has a different style, some people are very precise and intellectual,” said Spencer. “Other old pols like me and Berman are probably more blunt.”

“If you are a political consultant, you have to get down to things quick, you have to communicate directly,” said Republican consultant Sal Russo.

“An election is not a vehicle for educational or moral crusades, it is a vehicle to win, so you take the electorate for what it is, a pretty side and an ugly side, and that is the environment you have to deal with. You have to deal with the ugly side, and in a polite conversation you would not discuss it. In a campaign, you deal with it because it is the reality you have to deal with.”

The consultants talk that way because they must struggle to get the attention of clients who are or want to be presidents, governors or mayors.

“People listen but they do not hear,” said Douglas Jeffe of the consulting firm of Braun and Co. “Candidates are notorious for not hearing. Sometimes (consultants) make things more colorful to make a point. There is a tendency to exaggerate a point for emphasis, almost to caricature it.”

Added to that is the personality of those who go into the business.

They live in a world of incredible tension, always on the move, many of them with clients in several states. “They’re driven,” said Sabato. “They are incredibly hard workers. Most of them don’t like vacation much. Most of them don’t do anything but politics.”

Their metaphors are of war--”battleground states”--or sports that are remarkably like a political campaign.

‘Winner Take All’

“It’s winner-take-all competition,” said Baron. “If I represent Bloomingdale’s and you represent Nieman-Marcus, we may be competitors but both survive. But in sports only one survives and in politics only one survives.”

They scorn those in what they consider the soft outside world. “If you bring Pepsi up to 49% of the market share,” said Baron, “you’re a hero. In politics, 49% is bankruptcy.”

Added to that is the cynicism their work engenders.

“Many of them have a long history of political involvement,” said Sabato. “And after they have been involved in many campaigns, they almost always become hard-bitten and cynical. . . . They are promoting the social myth that politics is the power of ideas, that politics is about ideas and issues. The truth is that politics is about petty differences, interest groups and manipulation of blocs of voters. Consultants must sell the myth and deal with the reality.”

Mixed with the cynicism is gallows humor, sharp and bitter. “If you don’t have your fun with it, it can drive you nuts,” said Spencer.

All those factors are clearly evident at one of the Los Angeles election year’s more significant--and exclusive--events, stopping by “Michael and Carl’s” sometime after midnight, long after the polls have closed and most of the races have been decided.

There, in their plainly furnished--to put it generously--office, the 38-year-old Berman, with a pale face that seldom sees sunshine, his J.C. Penney shirt hanging out over baggy thrift shop trousers, sits in his office, incessantly smoking, reworking returns on his computer, cursing the idiots who let him down in some key precincts somewhere off Ventura Boulevard.

D’Agostino is more calm, more the genial host, and mixes among the visitors. In the language of law enforcement, he is the good cop to Berman’s bad.

Machine Headquarters

On hand, eating deli sandwiches, fruit and cake and drinking soft drinks and beer, are the leaders of the Berman-Waxman machine, the Westside-San Fernando Valley Democratic organization built by Michael Berman; his brother Rep. Howard Berman of Sherman Oaks, and Rep. Henry Waxman of Los Angeles.

Politicians come here to pay their respects and hear the last results of disputed elections, just as another generation of politicians stopped by the offices of the great urban Democratic bosses, such as Jake Arvey of Chicago and David Lawrence of Pittsburgh.

In one part of the room, officeholders talk solemnly about how their constituents love them and of their legislative programs. In the back room, Berman checks precincts.

The Bermans and Waxmans began their political operation in the ‘60s, when they were active in the Young Democrats. They were part of the growing Jewish community that moved to the Westside and parts of the San Fernando Valley in World War II. To outsiders, the city was a formless mass, without cohesion, impossible to organize politically. The Bermans and Waxmans saw it differently. They saw a cohesive ethnic group, solidly Democratic, moving into neighborhoods, setting up strong community organizations, forming synagogues, becoming an easily organizable whole.

In their first great victory, Michael Berman figured out how to communicate to this constituency; Henry Waxman was elected to the state Assembly. In the years that followed, Berman and Waxman went to Congress and the organization elected their choices to the Assembly.

Michael Berman and D’Agostino formed their company--naming it BAD in a show of their cynical humor--to run the organization’s campaigns and to manage campaigns elsewhere.

Communication Is Key

Their political organization is not held together by patronage, but by communication, mostly mailings and literature distributed by hand, an expensive undertaking financed by contributions raised, to a great extent, by Waxman.

Their most colorful way of communicating was by distributing potholders bearing the names of their candidates. Many a Westside home has one of these potholders in the kitchen.

A more effective way was through a slate mailer, including all the names of candidates the organization supported. On election day, Berman and D’Agostino prowl voting booths in the afternoon, checking the garbage cans to see if they can find crumpled up slate mailers. If they find a lot, they figure their candidate is in good shape because it means the voters have taken the slate to the polls and presumably followed it.

That does not always work, but the two enjoy the exercise. Another eccentricity of the firm is its refusal to use public opinion polls unless the candidate absolutely insists. Berman says he trusts his instincts and knowledge of precincts more than polls.

Their memorandum came out of this highly pragmatic, ethnic-minded milieu, the product of two men who see Los Angeles’ voters in terms of ethnic blocs.

And that, according to several consultants, was why it caused such a great stir here.

Mark Shields, a Washington Post columnist who was once a Democratic consultant (“I’m a born-again virgin”) said the advice--that Yaroslavsky should work to expand his Jewish base for votes and campaign contributions--was good.

“You identify your constituencies in a political sense as well as a financial sense,” he said. “You figure out what is available, what (Massachusetts Gov. Michael) Dukakis was able to do with the Greeks. In any group that feels it is outside the national political Establishment, there is a cohesiveness. You could not stimulate that kind of support for an Episcopalian. Episcopalians do not feel kept out.”

Playing to Ethnicity

In a way, that strategy seems particularly apt for present-day Los Angeles, the West’s great multi-ethnic city, with growing populations of Latinos and Asians joining the well-established Anglos, including a large Jewish population, and blacks. And there are growing numbers of European immigrants.

But Alan Baron said he believed that the Berman-D’Agostino stating of ethnic politics in such blunt terms went against Los Angeles residents’ view of themselves.

“People in California have a self-image that is different,” he said. “By the time you get to California, you get the most individualistic people in the country. They don’t like being treated as a group.”

Or at least being referred to in print as a group.

Add to that the increasing tension between blacks and Jews, the two groups featured in the memo, feelings that had been heightened during the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s campaign for the presidency. “I think the black-Jewish issue is a big one, particularly in L.A., which has a big Jewish community and a big black community and this thing (the memos) goes right at it, bares it as coldly as it can,” said consultant Sal Russo.

It was, all agreed, an instructive exercise for the political consulting business.

It did not teach the consultants to become serious propagandists for major issues.

Nor did it strip them of their cynicism or sense of humor.

But it did reinforce an old lesson, one as old as newspaper leaks: Don’t put it in writing.

THE BERMAN-D’AGOSTINO ADVICE TO ZEV YAROSLAVSKY

Excerpts from the March 29 memo:

There are two ways at looking at the possibilities for beating Bradley in 1989: THE WISTFUL APPROACH:

This approach assumes that Zev can defeat Bradley because . . .

Zev is able (by virtue of who he is and what he stands for) to excite Jews and tree-huggers to turn out even more disproportionately than normal. . . .

Bradley will be appointed by President Jesse Jackson as Ambassador to Israel and Zev will run unopposed. . . . THE REALITY-FIX APPROACH:

This approach acknowledges that Zev has an incredibly steep mountain to climb for the political fight of his life because . . .

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. . . .

President George Bush will not appoint Bradley as Ambassador to Uganda and Bradley will do everything in his power to avoid the humiliation of losing to Zev. . . .

Every minute you spend on a zoning dispute from your council district is a moment wasted from campaign goals. It must stop, cold turkey, now! That’s right, Zev, a source of great pride and political accomplishment is irrelevant to your political future--to be Mayor of all of L.A. . . .

The people of Los Angeles city pay your combined staff a lot more money than they pay you. It’s time they start earning it. They need to make all day-to-day decisions without your help, involvement, advice, etc. . . .

(Aide) Ann (Hollister) is the jockey, you are the horse. You cannot let yourself run around like a chicken with your head cut off, unfocused to your campaign and your personal priorities. It’s your job to massively expand your fund-raising base. It’s Ann’s job to tell you when you are wasting time--which is every moment you are not expanding your fund-raising base. . . .

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. . . .

Make a complete list of mainstream Jewish charities. Our first job Wednesday night is to list every possibility any of us can think of. . . . Zev begins dialing for dollars, calling each person blind and asking for 20 minutes of their time to come by and talk to them. . . . Make a list of 50 contributors to Zev who have not participated to their ability and who belong to every Jewish Country Club in the L.A. area. . . . Make a list of every studio, Hollywood PR firm and 100 top show business personalities in Jewish Los Angeles. . . . You must focus on meeting every one of them and getting them involved in your campaign. . . . You cannot let Bradley become the chi chi, in, campaign against the pushy Jew. . . .

(One pitch should be) I need your help. Tom Bradley has the power of his office, he gives out thousands of jobs and has control over millions of dollars in city contracts. He’s very famous and can count on loyal support from blacks. I’m just a poor boy who grew up in Boyle Heights and made a name for myself fighting for Soviet Jewry. . . .

Excerpts from the May 4 memo:

The real purpose of this memo is to put you inside of BAD’s collective and deranged head--so you can see the world as we do. Hopefully, you will then want to give instructions to your staff--both political and governmental--to hug every tree, moon every mountain and stop every building (or at least do your damnedest to stop every building) between now and June, 1989. . . .

You are well situated for the race if you can articulate, stick to and feel comfortable with a “VISION FOR L.A. IN THE 21ST CENTURY.”

Legalistic (“by right”), bureaucratic (“it never came up for a vote”) and defensive answers to questions (like you gave to (Times reporter Bill) Boyarsky) about zoning are not parts of the Yaroslavsky vision. . . .

If “by right” means that a multimillionaire developer has a constitutional right to screw up L.A. now, and for the future, a Yaroslavsky-style visionary leader should tell him, “No! . . .”

All of L.A. officialdom was asleep at the switch, pursuing politics as usual while ignoring or not understanding or not appreciating the fact that out-of-control population growth, traffic and smog were strangling L.A. All of L.A. officialdom--including Zev Yaroslavsky.

But Zev woke up! He had a dream! He has a vision! Bradley is still asleep, cow-towing to the pressures of big developers. . . .

There is no reason for guilt-ridden liberals to vote out of office that fine, dignified “person of color” except that your Vision is total, unwavering and convincing. You want to hug every tree, stop every new building, end the traffic jams and clean up the Bay. That’s the L.A. of the 21st Century. . . .

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’re 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. . . .

People who are anti-growth are also other things. Some are conservative Republicans who may 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.

You cannot get the overwhelming majority of a Jewish vote and the overwhelming majority of a non-Jewish West L.A. vote if their political calculation is as follows: Yaroslavsky is slightly better on traffic but Bradley is a decent person of color. Their calculation must be:

Bradley is decent and I’d like to vote for him but we must have Yaroslavsky to save our city. . . .

There is a point when you cross over the “rational line.” When a New York WASP wanted to stop immigration when New York had 4 million people--it was racist and Anti-Semitic. When Jerry Brown ranted against the Vietnamese boat people coming to California--it was evil. When L.A. city residents--dependent on cars and without any rapid transit and living in a smog belt--say that perhaps we can better plan how the next 4 million people come to the geography that abuts Los Angeles--it is right!