Burke’s Ad Attacks Watson’s Campaign on Tie-In to Karlin : Politics: Rivals for the 2nd District supervisorial seat challenge each other’s commitment to the recall of the embattled judge.

The recall effort against embattled Judge Joyce A. Karlin crept into the 2nd Supervisorial District race Friday, with Yvonne Brathwaite Burke airing a radio commercial attacking rival Diane Watson for hiring a political consultant who works for Karlin’s husband.

“The mudslinging has started,” Watson said. She added that she was unaware that her consultant, Harvey Englander, worked for Karlin’s husband, Bill Fahey, a candidate for Congress.

Watson said she was an early proponent of the recall of Karlin, the target of community outrage after she granted probation to Korean-born grocer Soon Ja Du, convicted of killing Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old black girl.

Questioning Burke’s commitment to the recall effort, Watson added a sarcastic reference to Burke’s move into the district in order to run for the supervisorial seat: “I didn’t have to come from Brentwood and jump in (to the recall effort) at the last minute.”

Burke responded that she had supported the recall “from the very first.”

Burke, a former appointed member of the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, and Watson, a Democratic state senator, are among a dozen candidates running in the June 2 election. The balloting is likely to result in the election of the county’s first black supervisor. Burke and Watson are running in the predominantly black South-Central Los Angeles district that has been represented for 40 years by Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who is retiring.

Watson first raised the Karlin sentencing in the supervisorial race. She sent out absentee ballots that carried the message: “Remember Latasha Harlins--The life of a child must be worth more than a $1.79 bottle of orange juice.”

Watson said Karlin’s recall is an issue because “it is an issue on the way justice is dispensed in our community.”

But Burke’s commercial, which began airing Friday on radio stations with large audiences in South-Central, features a Burke supporter asking: “Diane Watson . . . Where do you really stand on the Latasha Harlins case?”

The 60-second spot then castigates Watson for hiring Englander.

Burke’s ad also assails Englander for running a City Council campaign last year that played to the “racial fears” of San Fernando Valley voters by attacking a candidate for being a “Jesse Jackson presidential delegate.”

Ironically, Councilman Hal Bernson, for whom Englander was working at the time, was listed as co-chairman of a Burke fund-raiser Thursday night.

Political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe called the commercial a “reverse Willie Horton,” a reference to the TV ad used by George Bush in the 1988 presidential campaign against Michael S. Dukakis. The ad featured families of victims who had been attacked by Horton, a black inmate serving time for murder, after he fled authorities while on furlough from a Massachusetts prison.

“I don’t see how this a reverse Willie Horton,” Burke replied, insisting that her ad has no racial overtones. “The issue is hypocrisy and inconsistency.”

Jeffe, who teaches at the Claremont Graduate School’s Center for Politics and Policy, said Burke’s commercial offers a “partisan message” in the nonpartisan race by referring to Karlin’s husband as a “Republican running for Congress.” She noted that Burke and Watson are competing for votes from a Democratic constituency.