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ELECTIONS : Hayden, Rosenthal Lead Barrage of Last-Minute Attacks in Mail

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

In the final days before voters cast their ballots, the bitter and expensive primary battle between three liberal Democrats over a new state Senate district has come down to the mailbox.

Unable to reach vast numbers of voters in the Westside-Valley 23rd District any other way, Assemblyman Tom Hayden, state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal and Pacific Palisades businesswoman Catherine O’Neill are doing battle through the mail.

The heaviest barrage by far has come from Hayden, whose political future after 10 years in the Assembly is on the line in the Senate contest. He has been firing off mailers sharply attacking both opponents.

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After weeks of preliminary skirmishes, Rosenthal, who has never faced a serious challenge during his 18 years in the Legislature, is responding with his own assault on Hayden.

The avalanche of slick hit pieces is the fallout from a head-on clash between Hayden’s Santa Monica-based political movement and the Westside Democratic political organization headed by Reps. Henry Waxman and Howard Berman.

With far less money, O’Neill has sent her final mailer mocking the tactics of the two lawmakers, who have spent a combined 28 years in Sacramento, and portraying herself as the alternative.

At stake in the race is a prime piece of political turf so Democratic in registration that no Republican bothered to venture on to the ballot. That means the winner of Tuesday’s election will face only minor party opposition in November.

All three candidates are making an intensive effort in the San Fernando Valley portion of the district, where Hayden and Rosenthal are not as well-known and Democratic votes are considered up for grabs. All have sent targeted mailings tailored to Valley concerns. Hayden and O’Neill have scheduled extensive personal appearances there over the weekend.

After redistricting erased his safe Assembly seat, Hayden decided to bet his legislative career on a race for the Senate. It was a gamble. But with deep pockets from his former marriage to actress Jane Fonda, Hayden had the financial wherewithal to battle for the seat.

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By Thursday, Hayden had committed more than $700,000 in personal loans and transfers from his political organizations to the Senate race.

With it, he has unleashed a flood of mailers that hammer Rosenthal over everything from political action committee contributions to overseas trips financed by special interests.

Rosenthal said he has been forced to make fund-raising calls to lobbyists and interest groups to combat Hayden’s personal wealth. He defends his travels, saying the special interests who paid for the travel got nothing in return.

The latest contribution reports show Rosenthal had raised more than $500,000 since the beginning of the year, aided by more than $275,000 from political action committees with an interest in the Legislature and $172,000 in cash contributions and loans from a dozen Senate Democrats.

That money is financing the senator’s own onslaught of mailers to Democrats that feature endorsements from some of Rosenthal’s political brethren--Reps. Berman, Waxman, Mel Levine and Anthony Beilenson, plus Assemblymen Burt Margolin and Terry Friedman.

Although both Hayden and Rosenthal have 100% environmental voting records in the Legislature and both have been backed by the Sierra Club, one Rosenthal mailer featuring a color photo of the Santa Monica Mountains seeks to portray the senator as the best environmentalist in the race.

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Another Rosenthal brochure suggests that Hayden and President Bush have one thing in common--they will do anything to get elected. Rosenthal said he believes that Hayden is “so possessed with hunger to be in public office that he is willing to lie to get elected.”

As the weekend began, Rosenthal’s campaign had ignored O’Neill entirely.

“We’re not going to make a personal attack on her,” said Rosenthal’s campaign manager, Lynnette Stevens. “She has no record to run against.”

But O’Neill has received concentrated attention from Hayden, especially in the final days of the campaign.

Concerned about her potential in a year when anti-incumbent sentiment is running high and female candidates have scored upset victories, Hayden is clearly taking aim at O’Neill.

“We have to show the difference equally between myself and Rosenthal and myself and O’Neill,” Hayden said. “I don’t want votes to go from one to the other.”

The latest mailers brand O’Neill as a carpetbagger for entering the Senate race only months after moving back to Los Angeles last October. One of the hit pieces shows O’Neill’s home in Sag Harbor, N.Y., and questions her commitment to California.

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O’Neill has said she and her family returned to California after an absence of more than 10 years and intend to make Pacific Palisades their home. She points to her longstanding connections to the community, including her unsuccessful 1972 campaign to become the first woman elected to the state Senate.

Hayden is targeting both renters and women with mailers warning them about O’Neill’s positions. He is taking her to task for receiving the support of ACT-PAC, a Santa Monica landlords’ group and her support for “vacancy decontrol,” a hot issue in Santa Monica, where voluntarily vacated apartments remain subject to the city’s tough rent controls.

And he criticized O’Neill for indicating that she would have supported a controversial beachfront luxury hotel planned by Santa Monica restaurateur Michael McCarty. The Santa Monica City Council’s approval of the project was overturned by the city’s voters in 1990. McCarty has provided O’Neill’s campaign with nearly $2,500 in food and beverages for two fund-raising receptions.

O’Neill’s campaign manager, Fran Diamond, said the Hayden mailers may be backfiring. “A lot of people call in disgust over the number of negative pieces,” she said.

Short on funds, O’Neill and her volunteers are planning to work through the weekend to meet voters at shopping centers and movie lines. A half-hour commercial continues to be broadcast on local cable television systems.

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