Torres Responds Angrily to Calderon Attack Flyer

As candidates dispatched a flurry of campaign mailers in the 1st District Supervisor’s race, state Sens. Charles Calderon and Art Torres clashed Friday over a Calderon mailer that noted Torres has been arrested twice for drunk driving.

Torres, confronting Calderon in a Hollywood TV studio for the first time since the mailing, told his fellow Democrat: “You knew that I had a drinking problem over a year and a half ago, and you knew that I talked about it publicly. . . . Yet, you’ve chosen to attack me with a nasty letter as if I had been hiding this information from the public.”

Calderon responded: “There is nothing in that letter that is untrue. . . . What is in question here is that you drove drunk not once but twice. That says something about the judgment of the candidates.”

The brochure was among the last-minute mailings before Tuesday’s election that is expected to place the first Latino this century on the powerful county board.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Gloria Molina and Torres, who has raised more than $500,000 to lead the other candidates in fund raising, carefully chose their final mailers to deal with any last-minute attack, according to campaign aides.

“She’s run a clean campaign,” says Molina’s final mailer. “Please distrust any last-minute attack on any candidate that does not allow time for a response.”

Pat Bond, campaign strategist for Molina, bought $15,000 in stamps and arranged for a printer to stand by so Molina could respond instantly to any attack.

Anticipating the possibility of a rival exploiting the 1987 and 1989 drunk driving arrests, Torres features his support from law enforcement in his final mailer.

“It’s like bringing along your gas mask,” Dee Dee Myers, spokesperson for Torres, said of the campaign’s final mailer.

While the other leading candidates loaded mailboxes with their final messages, the Sarah Flores campaign had finished sending out the bulk of its 14 mailers by Tuesday.

“The majority of our mail went out prior to the 15th of January . . . because of the crisis in the Middle East,” said Eric Rose, campaign manager for Flores.

The Calderon mailer, designed by Sacramento political consultant Richie Ross, quotes a sheriff’s deputy saying, “Sen. Art Torres has been involved in three incidents related to drinking and driving.”

The mailer does not urge the election of Calderon, whose name only appears in small letters on the envelope. Campaign officials would not disclose how many copies of the mailer were sent.

Torres pleaded no contest to drunk driving charges in 1987 and 1989.

The third incident to which Calderon said he was referring in his mailer was a March, 1988, accident in which Torres was a passenger. The driver was arrested on drunk driving charges.

In declaring his candidacy for supervisor, Torres said: “I am a man who has made mistakes in the past. I am a man who has grown and confronted those mistakes. I believe they have made me a stronger individual.” Torres last year completed a 25-day treatment program for alcoholics and said he has not had a drink since the September, 1989, incident.

The exchange between Calderon and Torres took place during the taping of a candidates’ forum on KCBS-TV that is scheduled to air Sunday.

The election was ordered by a federal judge who ruled that the current supervisors denied the county’s three million Latinos political representation on the county board. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, the top two vote-getters will meet Feb. 19.