Contenders in Mayoral Race Hone Strategies : Politics: Hedgecock is entertaining overtures that he seek office he once held.

Stripped of the pretenders of the early political season, the race to become San Diego’s 32nd mayor gets under way in earnest this month with four serious contenders and one local heavyweight whose mysterious intentions could keep the field guessing right up to the March 5 filing deadline.

County Supervisor Susan Golding, City Councilman Ron Roberts and growth management advocate Peter Navarro lead the field as the three most prominent candidates for the city’s top post. Financier Tom Carter, the lone Democrat in the nonpartisan race, plans to raise enough money to run a serious campaign, but many analysts do not give him much hope of sticking with the pack.

The wild card is Roger Hedgecock, the former mayor turned acerbic radio talk show host who has eagerly whipped up talk of a political comeback by acknowledging on the air that he is considering the entreaties of a “draft Roger” committee.

But few who are following the race believe that Hedgecock will trade his six-figure salary, celebrity and unfettered public influence for the political wars and $65,300 paycheck of the mayor’s office--even if winning the election would vindicate the man who was forced to step down from office in 1985 after his conviction for campaign-law violations. The conviction was later overturned.

“I’m sure there’s a part of Roger that would just love to redeem himself,” political consultant David Lewis said. “But the practical part of him just won’t let him do that.”

Golding is generally acknowledged as the early front-runner because of her high name recognition among voters. That advantage may not mean much five months before the June 2 primary and 10 months before the Nov. 3 runoff election that will be held between the top two vote-getters if no candidate receives 50% in the first contest.

Articulate and hard-working, the 46-year-old supervisor has the kind of mayoral presence that some voters may be seeking after six years of Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s mercurial leadership, many say. She has served on the City Council, the Board of Supervisors and in state government, and can appeal to a broad array of city constituencies.

Golding also has amassed a fund-raising advantage, in part by beginning her campaign long before her opponents. She estimated that she has raised more than $150,000 in a year when recession is expected to cut into campaign donations, and reapportionment will increase the number of candidates in races at all levels. Golding also has locked up promises of support from a long list of influential community leaders.

“The city is drifting,” Golding said when asked why she is the best choice for mayor. “I think there’s a feeling that no one on the City Council really is able to create a coalition that’s going to be decisive and get things moving.

“I’m not part of the City Council, and I’m not part of the city,” she added.

But Golding is not running under normal circumstances. With anti-politician sentiment still considered strong, tenure in an elected office may be a liability and outsider status an advantage, some suggest.

“She is the archetypal ambitious politician,” said Michael Shames, chairman of the Sierra Club’s political committee.

Perhaps more importantly, Golding will carry the millstone of her husband’s 1990 conviction for his role in a scheme to launder $300,000 that he believed was drug money. Richard Silberman, a one-time aide to former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., is serving 46 months in federal prison after being caught in an FBI sting. The couple is in the midst of divorce proceedings.

Though nothing came out at Silberman’s trial to implicate Golding, voters also will consider whether she should have known of her husband’s activities, how she handled the highly publicized test of her character and whether they want a mayor whose spouse--or ex-spouse--is behind bars, political analysts say.

“The question is how much guilt by marital association is there,” said Steve Erie, a UC San Diego political scientist who has been part of Navarro’s strategy sessions and may advise Golding on infrastructure issues. “The question is how compartmentalized is the mind of the voter.”

Opponents--or their surrogates--are expected to remind voters of Silberman, though not in a style so overt as to cause a backlash against them for dirty politicking. Roberts, who pledged to rid communities of “money-launderers” in a television ad during his recent City Council reelection campaign, is most often mentioned as the candidate who will play the Silberman card.

“The fact that it just so happens (that Silberman) provided a lot of money to (Golding) over the years for her campaigning, and that we later found out that maybe some of that money was maybe ill-gotten--however she wants to play it, that’s her issue,” Roberts said. “We’re not going to get into that. We’re going to get into her record.”

Golding responds that she has nothing to hide and wouldn’t go to the effort and expense of running for office if she were not confident of winning.

“I think it was made very, very clear that I was not involved with whatever happened,” Golding said. “If Ron has something he would like to assert, he should assert it and stop running a whisper campaign, which I think should be beneath anyone who wants to hold the office of mayor.”

Roberts, 49, is a former architect who has tried to stake out a centrist, moderately pro-development stance in his four years on the City Council. In announcing his candidacy Saturday, Roberts stressed his commitment to traditional values, his efforts to fight crime and plans to create jobs.

“He’s right in the middle,” Shames said. “For anyone who wants to play it safe, he’s the right choice.”

“I think my experience . . . first for 20 years outside of government, and here with a few years inside of government, gives me something quite different than any of the other candidates,” Roberts said.

As a businessman, Roberts said, he learned to look ahead and solve problems. “You’ve got to get out there and create solutions. You’ve got to fill out that blank sheet of paper, show people what can be.”

Roberts is expected to seek many of the same mainstream middle-class votes that Golding will try to woo, though his staunchest backers may come from sections of his 2nd District--mainly consisting of the beach areas and Point Loma--and the downtown business community, which became part of his district during reapportionment last year.

Many observers suggest that Roberts will have to battle the public perception of the City Council as a collection of ineffective, bickering politicians, perhaps by continuing the “Getting Things Done” theme he used in winning reelection to his council seat in September.

Last week, Roberts announced his support for a Police Officers Assn. ballot initiative that would dramatically increase the number of city police. He has labored for years to replace Lindbergh Field with an Otay Mesa airport. He already has begun attacking Golding and the supervisors for failing to provide more jail space.

Some also believe that Roberts must overcome his own bland persona to win.

“You put Ron and Susan in a room, Susan shines,” said Kevin McNamara, chairman of the Rancho Penasquitos planning board. “Ron’s gray.”

Early polls show Roberts and Navarro with roughly equal name identification, though both trail Golding by a significant margin. Roberts said he will have little trouble raising the considerable money needed to put his name and platform into the homes of targeted voters citywide.

Navarro, 42, is best known as the outspoken, controversial leader of the city’s growth control movement and chairman of Prevent Los Angelization Now!, the organization he founded. But, in an effort to broaden his appeal, Navarro, an associate professor of economics and public policy at UC Irvine, is highlighting his Harvard doctorate, his public policy work and his outsider status.

His prospects for success are the most difficult to gauge. To some, he is a gadfly on an underfunded ego trip; to others, he is standard-bearer for a broad swath of the population fed up with the evils of growth and business as usual.

“Peter Navarro is past his prime,” said Lewis, who served as Golding’s political consultant in her 1984 race for supervisor. “Peter should have had this race going in 1987 or 1988. But not in 1992.”

But McNamara, the planning board chairman, disagrees. “A lot of people are going to look at Peter (Navarro) like, ‘OK, let’s see what he can do. This City Council isn’t doing anything we want them to do anyway,’ ”.

As a leader of the now-defunct Citizens for Limited Growth, Navarro lost a bruising 1988 campaign to impose a strict cap on city home building that would have limited construction to as few as 4,000 homes annually. The building industry spent more than $2 million to defeat four measures, two written by the slow-growth group, one authored by the City Council and one devised by the Supervisors.

PLAN’s bid to place a growth-management initiative on the ballot this year was thrown out by a Superior Court judge, who said it violated laws limiting such measures to single subjects. The group announced last week that it will circulate petitions on yet another initiative that would require new growth to pay for the additional police protection it demands.

With the economy in a deep slump, Navarro’s opponents will undoubtedly paint him as an extremist, single-issue candidate whose policies would raise unemployment and housing prices. Navarro said he will stress his commitment to fight crime and provide education, create jobs with decent wages and give the public more access to the city’s decision-making boards and commissions.

“I’m not going to run against Ron and Susan and Tom. Those people are just different facades of the same power structure,” said Navarro, who last month changed his registration from Republican to independent. “I’m running against that same power structure that is destroying this city and denying people a voice.”

Navarro may have more difficulty than any of his opponents raising the money to disseminate his message, unless he can draw on personal wealth to contribute to the race. His mother heavily funded PLAN!’s 1991 signature-gathering campaign.

Few give Carter, 51, a member of the board of directors of the city’s downtown redevelopment agency, much chance of competing on an equal footing with his three better-recognized opponents.

In addition to being a political unknown, Carter may have trouble raising money and will be forced to explain his past as an executive of the failed savings and loan, Great American Bank, observers say. Carter also could be tagged for his current job as a housing developer. Some predict that he will drop out before the primary.

“I don’t know if Tom Carter will even make it to Election Day,” said political consultant Chris Crotty, a former O’Connor aide with ties to the Democratic Party.

But others say that it is too early to write off any legitimate candidate. “It’s 150 days until the (primary) election,” said consultant John Kern. “That’s practically an eternity in politics. Anything can happen.”

Carter maintains that he will win acceptance as he explains that he is a builder of low- and moderate-income housing, and that he attempted to return Great American to its traditional philosophy of supporting home buyers. He contends that, in his polls, outsiders like himself and Navarro enjoy an advantage over Golding and Roberts.

Endorsed by popular State Sen. Lucy Killea, Carter said he expects the support of traditional Democrats and others whom the other three candidates do not appeal to. He said that he already has enjoyed some fund-raising success and is prepared to contribute a substantial amount of his own money to the race.

Carter said he will stress the need to preserve and create jobs, the need to build more affordable housing and his outsider status.

“We’re in one hell of a mess here,” he said. “I think most people believe it’s because of people that have gone into politics and stayed there and not been willing to make the decisions that we need to make to change things.”

Although the prevailing wisdom is that Hedgecock is merely boosting ratings with his ruminations about entering the race, his candidacy could seriously damage the prospects of the current crop of candidates.

Many believe he would win. At the least, he is forcing potential opponents to plot strategy with an eye in his direction.

“If he’d make the primary, he’d be the next mayor,” said Jim Madaffer, chairman of the Tierrasanta Community Council and a Golding supporter.

Hedgecock, who said he would want to stay on the air in some fashion if elected, would have to find a way around a City Charter provision requiring the mayor and council members to “devote full-time to the duties of their office and not engage in any outside employment, trade, business or profession which interferes or conflicts with those duties.”

“There is nothing in his contract that allows him to run for mayor,” said Mike Shields, general manager of KSDO-AM (1130), where the former mayor has become the city’s top radio talk show host in his six years on the air. “I feel confident he is not going to run. He has not said anything to me indicating he intends to run.” Hedgecock also hosts an afternoon call-in show on KNSD-TV (Channel 39).

Hedgecock said he may soon approach Shields about discussing a leave of absence that might be needed to run for the mayor’s office.

“At this point, I’m not saying yes, and I’m not saying no,” Hedgecock said. “The question would be in what way could I do it so I could maintain involvement with the voters” through the radio show.

“I’m a recovering politician,” he added. “It would really have to be the right set of circumstances to attract me to it.”