LOCAL ELECTIONS / COUNTY SUPERVISORS : Candidates Go Down Into the Trenches

At the Cockatoo Inn in Hawthorne on Saturday, where lunch for Democratic Party regulars meant turkey-and-swiss-cheese sandwiches served by union waiters, one might have expected outrage over last week’s revelations that county supervisors have been dining on $40 catered lunches of freshly grilled fish.

But these activists, who gathered to grill candidates in the upcoming election for the 2nd District seat on the County Board of Supervisors, were more worried about bread-and-butter issues inside the county’s poorest district than the luncheon fare at the Hall of Administration.

“Sure, we are concerned about the $40 gourmet lunches down at the Board of Supervisors,” Quincy Beaver, a 70-year-old retired rubber worker who is entering his fourth decade as a Democratic activist, said with the smile of a skeptic who is used to looking up from the trenches. “But we’re not surprised.”

Beaver is vice president of the California Democratic Council, a grass-roots Democratic organization that has for 40 years considered itself the “conscience of the Democratic Party.”

On Saturday, in an example of grass-roots politicking that sometimes gets lost in the blur of slick, Hollywood-style campaigns, this group staged the first real forum for candidates in the 2nd District supervisorial race--a contest that is expected to produce the board’s first elected black member. Campaign season does not officially open until Monday.

Ten candidates gave five-minute pitches and two-minute answers to questions posed by the members. Questions from the audience did not deal with whether Chief Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon exceeded his power by authorizing gourmet meals and remodeling his office; they asked about jobs, pensions, and health insurance.

“People have had it with politicians redecorating their offices when parents can’t afford to inoculate their kids,” said lifelong Democrat Marlene Kagan, 55. “But we’re more worried about jobs.” She said she had to close two small surplus stores she ran in Maywood and Norwalk because people in the district have been losing jobs.

Out in the racially mixed district--an expanse of 1.8 million people in South Los Angeles--economic worries make keeping a job an everyday problem. Political campaigns are not run by fax and car phone. And “economic conversion,” or shifting defense jobs to peacetime purposes without sending them overseas, is talked about over Cheerios in the morning.

Those Democratic Council members who showed up for the candidate forum included teachers and letter carriers, activists and union leaders. Members of largely liberal Democratic clubs, they are most likely to be seen registering voters in front of supermarkets, or sporting Tom Harkin buttons because they believe in the Iowa senator even if he trails in the presidential polls.

The candidates who appeared included hopefuls who repeat their names frequently to make them known, who remind themselves to make eye contact with voters. Their audience, at least this one, was willing to applaud other people’s candidates for what they say--not merely who they are.

Ruth Jernigan, an activist with the United Auto Workers who fervently pledged to “bring back American jobs,” got the most applause--until state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) stood up and demanded: “Are they (the supervisors) going to allow Martin Luther King (Hospital) to collapse under its own weight? I say no!”

Watson and former Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite-Burke, both pioneering black women politicians, are the most prominent candidates in the crowded race. Brathwaite-Burke, who grew up in the district but has recently been living in Brentwood, is expected to be endorsed by Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who is retiring in December after near four decades in office.

“We need to bring accountability back to the supervisors,” Brathwaite-Burke told the crowd. “We need to give jobs back to this county.”

But Watson, with her powerful voice and 20 uninterrupted years in and around this district, was scarcely a surprise winner when she was endorsed by the crowd. Burke was second and Jernigan a distant third.

But this is just the beginning, not the end of the campaign. And the Hollywood ads and star-spangled posters have yet to be brought out.