Arts Advocates’ Cable TV Ads Target Rohrabacher

Cable Attack: Would-be political giant-killers, seeking the maximum bang for their limited campaign bucks, are turning to cable television.

In the 42nd Congressional District, arts supporters upset with U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher’s drive to rein in the National Endowment for the Arts are putting the finishing touches on two cable ads targeting the Lomita Republican.

The ads, tentatively set to air starting Oct. 20, do not address the NEA debate. One features a recent Money Magazine voting comparison that gives Rohrabacher an “F” on economic issues.

Another takes Rohrabacher to task for recommending new oil drilling off the California coast. The script calls for shots of the oil spill this year off Huntington Beach that came ashore in Orange County. The voice-over calls Rohrabacher a congressman “the California coastline can’t afford.”

Cable Attack II: In the part-South Bay/part-Westside 27th Congressional District, Republican David Barrett Cohen is already airing a trio of cable TV ads attacking four-term incumbent Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica).

Now running in the beach cities and slated to start elsewhere in the South Bay on Monday, the ads blast Levine for accepting campaign cash from the savings and loan industry, failing to support defense programs and ducking face-to-face debate.

In each, a photo of a smiling Levine appears while an off-screen voice takes aim with such political poetics as “S & L Mel” and “If your job is on the line, thank Mel Levine.”

Tough to Stomach: The president of an Inglewood political club hopes to throw the city’s mayoral race into chaos with some curious advice: He’s urging the club’s 125 members not to vote for any of the five candidates.

“If you go to a restaurant and you don’t like what’s on the menu, what do you do?” Terry Coleman, president of the United Democratic Club of Inglewood, asked in the latest club newsletter. “I would go to another restaurant with better food.”

Coleman said two-term Mayor Edward Vincent has been in office too long and that his four rivals--Virgle Benson, John Murphy, Carl McGill and Councilman Anthony Scardenzan--lack what it takes to be mayor.

He urges a write-in campaign for Councilman Garland Hardeman, the club’s past president and a Vincent critic who won a seat on the council earlier this year after a two-year court fight. Coleman was a key aide in Hardeman’s council campaign.

Quoth Hardeman: “If it’s the will of the people, I’m not opposed to it.”

Racism Charged: Speaking of the 27th, Cohen has provoked an angry rebuke from Levine by sending out a campaign mailer that portrays the incumbent’s Westside political machine as racist.

Addressing black voters in Inglewood, the mailer says Levine and other members of the liberal Waxman-Berman machine “take you and your vote for granted and treat Inglewood like a voting plantation for Mel Levine.”

The 27th was redrawn to include part of Inglewood just before Levine made his first run for Congress.

The mailer describes Cohen’s campaign as a “coalition that rejects both the hostile racism of the extreme right and the condescending racism of rich, white liberals.”

Levine brands the mailer “an unfortunate effort by a desperate political candidate to dream up some wild charges.” Terming his record on civil rights “solid,” Levine adds: “He is suggesting I am a liberal racist, which is an absurd and outrageous charge.”

Answers Cohen: “I in no way shape or form called him a racist.” What he did, he says, is call Levine’s political machine racist.

Designer Pols: What better place to do your political shopping than Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance?

Local chapters of the League of Women Voters plan to hold a Candidate Fair there from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Nov. 3--just three days before the general election.

Shoppers will be able to browse among the latest lines of South Bay candidates for Assembly, state Senate and Congress. But though at least 10 challengers are scheduled to be on display, entrenched incumbents may be in short supply.

So far only two officeholders up for reelection have agreed to appear: Assemblyman Gerald N. Felando (R-San Pedro) and state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles).

Still, organizers consider the fair a good way to combat voter apathy. Says Cindi Hammond of the Torrance League of Women Voters: “We’re going where the people are. On Saturday, everybody is shopping.”

And, they hope, shopping for candidates too.