Scrapping for Votes, Dollars in 1st District : Campaign: The leading candidates for supervisorial seat are running the old-fashioned way, with public appearances and countless phone calls.

The fight for the new 1st District supervisorial seat has been frenetic. For the past nine weeks, four major candidates and five less well-known contenders have campaigned across a wide, varied swath of Los Angeles County.

The first round ends with a Jan. 22 election. If none of the nine candidates receives a simple majority of the vote, as is generally expected, the two top finishers face a Feb. 19 runoff.

The election is expected to produce the county’s first Latino supervisor in a century. State Sens. Charles Calderon and Art Torres, former county aide Sarah Flores and Los Angeles City Councilwoman Gloria Molina are widely considered the major contenders. The newly redrawn district--created by federal court order after a legal challenge to the old boundaries--contains 1.8 million residents, 70% of them Latino, and the would-be supervisors have been struggling to reach as many of them as possible.

Without television advertising, in-depth polls and other tools of modern politicking readily available for many reasons, the candidates have been forced to rely on more basic tactics: direct mail, group endorsements and public appearances at any place where voters or the media might gather. What has emerged is a rather old-fashioned grass-roots campaign, in which barbershop meetings and neighborhood contacts replace market research and political action committees as major campaign elements.

Here are some snapshots taken from a single routine campaign day last week:

10:20 a.m.

People are just starting to make up their minds. The only poll that counts is on Jan. 22.

--State Sen. Charles Calderon at a private address in Whittier.

Chuck Calderon cuts a solitary figure, sitting at the dinette in his empty home, dressed in khakis and shirt sleeves and doing the thing candidates hate most: Dialing for dollars.

Through the kitchen window, one can hear the outdoor spa gurgling, affording the only sound in this hillside Whittier neighborhood, where most other residents have already left for work.

Calderon wishes for one brief moment that he, too, could head to some normal job in some normal office. Instead, he has just called a high school friend, who has given him names of six other businessmen to contact for contributions.

On this morning, the candidate is excited, upbeat, maybe because he has raised $10,000 since 9 a.m. and people are saying kind things to him. Or maybe it’s the coffee, which he chug-a-lugs from a mug reading “I my Dad.”

“Chris, how you doin’, this is Chuck Calderon! Well I’m knee-deep in this race, up to my neck, ha! ha! Did you go to Sacramento for the festivities? You’re through with those days huh? Mmm hmm. Well, I’m raising dollars. I’m cold-calling. I’m calling everyone I’ve ever met in my life. Do you have any ideas?”

Like other candidates, if Calderon gets a free hour, he calls--from his car, from his office, from his home.

“This is the loneliest part of the campaign and we all hate it,” Calderon said. “The consultants are expert at spending money, but only we can raise it.”

On each call, he manages to mention his law and order background as a former prosecutor and his endorsement from the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs. Last weekend, Calderon’s 100 precinct walkers reported to him that 1st District residents are, above all, sick of crime.

He dials.

“Wade, please. Sen. Calderon. Hi Wade. Ha, ha, what do you mean, who’s this?”

12:50 p.m.

I became an executive secretary in a short nine years .

--Sarah Flores at a downtown Central City Assn. luncheon.

It is one of those rare gatherings at which the candidates are as generous and friendly to one another as college chums.

In a ballroom at the Hilton Hotel, downtown’s power brokers are supping on nicely turned-out walnut salads while the candidates explain how they would change things.

Gloria Molina is hoarse as an old trombone, fighting a nasty cold and fever. Sitting to her right, Calderon politely inquires after her health and pours her a glass of water.

Just this week, Calderon sent out a mailer criticizing her. But Molina gratefully accepts the water and flashes him a broad smile, which he returns. Seasoned politicians know when to be diplomatic.

Molina outlines her plan to expand the county board from five to seven. She discusses her belief that the powerful board cannot remain aloof from crises in housing, smog, transportation and health care that loom in the growing basin.

Her delivery contrasts sharply with that of Flores.

As the only candidate among the four leaders who has never held public office, Flores--longtime aide to retiring Supervisor Pete Schabarum--believes she must explain what sort of person she is, something the longtime politicians are not worried about.

And so she tells how she was raised in the tattered Temple-Beaudry district by a single mother who, sickly and alone, struggled on a tiny income from a job in the garment district.

“You know who’s working on my campaign?” she asks the crowd of 120. “Gang leaders. Fancy ladies from West Covina.”

Flores’ voice ebbs and swells with emotion. She isn’t talking issues, but she is delivering a pretty good speech. Somebody snickers when she stumbles briefly in her thoughts and declares: “I was born in a, uh, house.” Yet, she seems unruffled.

“My feet are on the ground,” she says. “My ethics are hard work and communication.”

3:20 p.m.

Hello, Mrs. Baumgartner. Are you still supporting state Sen. Art Torres for supervisor? Great. Do you think you’ll vote at the polls or by mail?”

--Derrick Alatorre, volunteer working on an Art Torres phone bank in Montebello.

Volunteers are people who work 12 hours a day and believe that a victory for any of the opponents would be disastrous.

At a rental house with bars on the windows in Montebello, seven Torres volunteers toil away, warmed by two space heaters and sustained by Cokes.

“I was supposed to go to Cal State L.A. but I gave up a quarter to work on the election,” says Alatorre, 26, son of Los Angeles Councilman Richard Alatorre. “It’s going to be a historic election, and I want to be part of history.”

He estimates that by day’s end, he will have placed 800 to 1,000 phone calls. “The receiver,” he says, “becomes a part of your head.”

5 p.m.

My daughter started her little ballet class today and all I could think of was, I wish I were there .

--City Councilwoman Gloria Molina at her El Monte campaign headquarters.

On the wall, scores of newspaper clippings are pasted up, the left side labeled “Them,” the right side “Us.” There are more “Us” clippings than “Them”--and that says something about Gloria Molina’s campaign.

Molina has enjoyed relatively high visibility in the news media, in part because of her activities on the City Council and her endorsement by the Mexican American Political Assn. While media coverage can improve name recognition, Molina agrees with the other candidates that the race is impossible to call.

“We have no idea where we stand because there’s no money or way, really, to do a poll,” Molina reminds her staff this evening. “All we know is we can’t take any votes for granted.”

Tonight, she is working on a mailer tailored to Republican households concentrated in the San Gabriel Valley’s bedroom communities, and minor crises keep getting in the way.

Her field workers have brought back conflicting reports about which potential voters still need to be contacted. Such lists are important, because in a race this short a candidate can’t afford to kiss the same baby three times.

“Do these people have phones,” Molina asks campaign manager Alma Martinez, “or do we need to see them in person?” “How many do we have yet to call?”

7:55 p.m.

“My parents were farm workers. They did it the hard way and got out of the barrio.”

--Flores supporter Linda Lopez-Kiran at a $5,000-a-person Flores fund-raiser at the Regency Club, Westwood.

A glittering crowd shows up, even though Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp had to cancel when a relative was injured skiing. Among the well-cut suits and silk dresses are Richard Riordan, a key Flores backer and Los Angeles power broker, and conservative Supervisors Deane Dana and Mike D. Antonovich.

Supporters, checks in hand, mill on Oriental rugs that dot the private club, pouring in $149,000. Flores tells a supporter waiting for a snapshot with her that 61 elected city officials in the district have endorsed her.

It has been a hectic week, and Flores, who had her hair done earlier this day for the second time in the campaign, confides to a reporter that her brown suit was bought at Ross, a discount store, her shoes at Payless.

“This is a far cry from where I was a few days ago, in a home filled with bullet holes in Cypress Park,” she says.

10:10 p.m.

There’s 130 hours of voter contact left in this election, so let’s go for it.

--Torres field manager Dean Florez at Torres campaign headquarters in Monterey Park.

Despite the hour, Art Torres still has not loosened his tie as he strides into his headquarters, minutes after a lengthy panel discussion with seven other candidates at Temple B’nai Bene.

He draws up his chair to hear from his 25 field organizers.

“OK, folks, what are the issues you’re hearing? What are people worried about?”

“In Westlake,” says one organizer, “they’re concerned about even going to church, afraid to walk during the day, and others are elderly and not very mobile and they need Meals on Wheels.”

“Have you got some names and numbers--people I can call there?” asks Torres.

“Virgil and Hoover is under siege,” says another. “The kids have nothing to do, no open space, but there’s a two-acre vacant lot near there.”

“It’s vacant?” asks Torres, entertaining visions of a playground. “Well let’s look into it. Maybe we can step on it.”

All the candidates know that in a race with only 20% voter turnout, as is widely expected in this one-issue special election, the winner will be decided by just 1,000 or 2,000 votes. Torres reminds each organizer to mention his recent endorsement from the Sierra Club. But he knows that endorsements don’t influence everyone. One personalized contact with a voter, however, can turn into 50 votes by their friends and neighbors.

The clock strikes 11 p.m. as the last bleary-eyed organizer finishes reporting. Nearby, a stack of pizzas has grown cold.