Grass-Roots Campaign Mows Down Competitor : Hardeman’s Election Victory Credited to Good Organization

It was old-fashioned grass-roots campaigning that brought Garland Hardeman his long-sought seat on the Inglewood City Council in a landslide victory over Ervin (Tony) Thomas.

Both campaigns outlined similar strategies for victory, but campaign workers on both sides in the two-year election fight said the Hardeman camp had a larger organization that simply did a better job of identifying supporters scattered throughout the 4th District and getting them to the polls.

Parke Skelton, a Hardeman political consultant who has worked on campaigns in Torrance, Carson, Inglewood and throughout the state, said Hardeman’s victory was no different from most successful local campaigns.

The Clearest Message

The winner is the one who sends out the clearest message and spends the most time out in the field, he said. Hardeman’s camp had identified 973 supporters among the district’s nearly 7,600 registered voters before Election Day. He received 943 votes to Thomas’ 421, winning in every one of seven precincts.

Thomas admitted that he was simply out-organized. “If all the people who supported me got out there, I would have been victorious,” he said on Tuesday evening from his storefront campaign headquarters on Prairie Avenue.

District 4, Hardeman’s turf when his council term begins Oct. 15, stretches from The Forum in the heart of Inglewood to its southern border with Lennox and Hawthorne. Most of its 25,000 residents are black or Latino.

Tuesday’s election marked the third time that Hardeman and Thomas have met at the polls. Hardeman beat Thomas and two other rivals the first time in April, 1987, but failed to win the required majority of the vote. Thomas edged Hardeman in the June, 1987, runoff 626 to 610. Hardeman crushed Thomas in their third meeting Tuesday.

Hardeman had carried strong leads in all three elections but in June, 1987, saw his 544-233 edge wiped out by a house-to-house absentee ballot drive led by Mayor Edward Vincent. Thomas’ 6-1 margin in absentee ballots gave him a 16-vote victory and led to a two-year legal battle.

Hardeman, questioning the absentee ballots, filed a lawsuit alleging Election Code violations that eventually forced Thomas from office and into Tuesday’s special election.

On Election Day the battle shifted to the streets and the phone banks.

Hardeman and his co-workers canvassed the district in the early morning hours, hanging reminder-to-vote signs on supporters’ door knobs. Thomas’ campaign hired volunteers who distributed handbills in some Thomas strongholds during the morning and early afternoon. Both campaigns used volunteers to telephone supporters in get-out-the-vote drives, and both candidates traversed the district, seeking last-minute support.

Hardeman’s victory tide swept the district and included Imperial Village, both candidates’ home turf where Hardeman won by a 3-1 margin, and Carlton Square, a Vincent stronghold where Thomas did his best with 109 votes to Hardeman’s 138.

The final tally gave Hardeman 69.1% of the vote to Thomas’ 30.9%.

Thomas, who was endorsed by the mayor in both elections, blamed his defeat on a publicity-hungry Hardeman who was quick to run to the courts, on the media who did not give him a fair shake and on his supporters who did not vote.

Rely on Disillusionment

He said his strategy was to identify supporters from the past and get them out to vote and to rely on disillusionment of Hardeman’s tactics over the last two years to win over former Hardeman supporters.

Absentee ballots played no role in the election.

Unlike June, 1987, when Thomas received 393 absentee-ballot votes to Hardeman’s 66, Tuesday’s absentees supported Hardeman, 164 to 56.

Thomas said he did not run an absentee-ballot drive this time because he thought after two years on the City Council his name recognition would be enough. But after his defeat Tuesday night, Thomas said he came across voters throughout the day who had not been able to break away from their families to go to the polls.

Another part of Thomas’ strategy was a late barrage of attack literature aimed at winning over Hardeman supporters and undecided voters.

Disowned Brochures

Although Thomas disowned brochures that called Hardeman a wife beater and advised voters on Election Day that Hardeman had pulled out of the election, other official campaign literature called Hardeman a racist for wanting to decrease the power of the city’s predominantly white administration and alleged that he accepted illegal campaign funds.

Hardeman, 32, a Los Angeles police officer, did not respond to the Thomas literature, which he called “an act of desperation.” Instead, he stressed the court case early in the campaign, and then switched to more issue-oriented appeals.

Thomas, 48, a manager with the 7-Up Bottling Corp., saw the election as a face-off between the city’s longtime residents and the younger generation that has moved into Inglewood.

“He’s a yuppie and I’m not,” said Thomas. “ . . . . The backbone of the city is mature, an older generation. He represents a young group that doesn’t make things happen.”

Hardeman’s supporters say his victory is the beginning of a new age in Inglewood politics in which Vincent’s influence is on the decline. They said that no matter how hard Thomas attempted to portray himself as a good neighbor who cared about the city, he could not shake his ties to Vincent.

Long Political Career

Vincent, who has won elections for school board, councilman and mayor over a political career stretching back two decades, could not be reached Wednesday for comment.

“I think this is one in a continuing series of events that shows that citizens are ready for some fundamental change in the form and content of our city government,” said Curren Price, a political activist who supported Hardeman.

Terry Coleman, who walked the streets for the Hardeman campaign, chanted: “Vincent’s next! Vincent’s next!” during the Hardeman victory celebration.