ELECTIONS / CAMPAIGN MAILERS : Voters Receive 11th-Hour Flurry of Negative Political Messages

Following Sunday services at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Santa Paula, worshipers found a political pamphlet stuffed under their windshield wipers that declared: “To vote for Bill Clinton is to sin against God.”

Thousands of voters recently received a mailer taunting Republican Rep. Elton Gallegly as “a bad little congressman. Because what he’s been doing in Congress is worse than misbehavior . . . it’s practically criminal.” The “Bad Boy!” flyer, with pictures of a young man literally rolling in dollars, was mailed by Democratic challenger Anita Perez Ferguson.

In Thousand Oaks, voters received a mailer depicting Republican Assemblyman Tom McClintock peeking out of a jeans pocket labeled PACS. Sent by his congressional opponent, Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson, the pamphlet said that “McClintock is in the pockets of special interests and PACs.”

These are examples of the genre known as the political attack mailer.

As the days before the Nov. 3 general election wind down to a precious few, mailers with aggressive--if not mean-spirited--messages are being received by Ventura County’s 359,000 registered voters.

Clinton Reilly, a veteran political consultant, said many voters have a cynical view of politics and are hard to impress with flyers touting a candidate’s accomplishments.

“What happens is that voters tend to disbelieve positives and they’re more predisposed to believe negatives,” said Reilly, who is based in San Francisco and has managed many campaigns in California.

“So now consultants are throwing their hands up and saying, ‘Why tell the voters something positive which they won’t believe; so we’ll do something negative and see if it sticks to the wall.’ ”

The vehicle for such messages is the campaign flyer, which, by the thousands, has been landing in mailboxes throughout Ventura County. Sometimes they land on car windshields.

For example, the pamphlet condemning a vote for Clinton as a sin blanketed cars at a Catholic church in Santa Paula. It contained no identification whatsoever as to its source and excoriated the Democratic presidential contender for promoting “rebellion against the 10 Commandments.”

One Santa Paula woman was outraged by the message on the single-sheet flyer and its anonymous authors. “It’s ugly. They’re sick people,” she said.

Political hit mail often takes the form of a colorful pamphlet providing information on a candidate or issues. Or, as happens with increasing frequency, it can contain unflattering photos of opposition candidates with accusations of impropriety or unseemly behavior.

Postage and production costs can be steep. A widely distributed mailer in Ventura County can cost as much as $30,000. But campaign strategists say such devices can be persuasive, especially during the last few days of a close race when they land in the hands of undecided voters.

This year’s batch of flyers advances a myriad of charges of unethical and potentially illegal practices. Indeed, some allege that the opposition candidate is practically a crook.

In one case, a campaign manager apologized for a mailer containing an outright untruth. But the voters won’t know about the apology because a correction won’t be in the mail.

Politicians making the most aggressive charges invariably declare that they have taken the high road; and if they had to hit back, they say it’s because the other side started the mailer war.

Few races in California have been as hotly contested as the congressional race in the 23rd District, representing all of Ventura County except most of Thousand Oaks.

Stung by a late-September fund-raising letter that called Perez Ferguson a surrogate for “ultra-left, pro-illegal alien groups,” her campaign launched a withering attack on Gallegly, a three-term incumbent from Simi Valley.

One Perez Ferguson mailer features a man with a leering smile fanning a stack of dollar bills to illustrate how Gallegly, according to the flyer, misused congressional perks. Another features the same character in a series of film strips talking incessantly on the telephone to underscore Perez Ferguson’s allegation that Gallegly abused his congressional telephone privileges.

More than anything else, a Perez Ferguson accusation that Gallegly’s conduct is “practically criminal” raised tempers in his campaign office.

“A mudslinging, gutter campaign designed to cut down Elton Gallegly is the only way Perez Ferguson can win,” said spokesman John Frith.

Perez Ferguson said on Thursday that she has no regrets. Characterizing them as “factual and attention-grabbing,” she said that during the last five weeks her campaign mailers have emphasized her background, the political issues and Gallegly’s record.

“I feel the combination is very good,” Perez Ferguson said. “It gives a full range of information.”

For his part, Gallegly responded with mailers that, among other things, point out the candidates’ ideological differences and suggested that Perez Ferguson is a carpetbagger for moving from Santa Barbara earlier this year to challenge him in the Ventura County district.

Both have sharply criticized each other for bending, if not breaking, federal campaign regulations.

Gallegly said he could have stepped up his criticism in the waning days of the campaign, but rejected the maneuver. Instead, his campaign sent a letter this week on pink stationery signed by his wife Janice that bemoaned “the half-truths and lies about Elton’s record.”

“Elton has thick skin and doesn’t let this kind of campaign bother him, but it’s difficult to explain to our four children why someone would lower themselves to this level of campaigning.” The letter does not mention that the four Gallegly children are 22 to 26 years old.

Another dogfight surfaced in the 24th Congressional District, which covers Thousand Oaks, the western San Fernando Valley and Malibu.

In a mailer, Beilenson called his opponent “a right-wing extremist” financed by special interests. Beilenson emphasizes that he never accepts such cash offered by political action committees.

McClintock, a conservative, has characterized Beilenson as a big spender who has no regard for the nation’s mounting debts. One of his mailers showed a naked voter covered only by a barrel. “Congressman Anthony Beilenson thinks we need to pay higher taxes!” says the caption.

McClintock and his aides exploded in outrage over a recent Beilenson mailer with the unfounded accusation: “Assemblyman Tom McClintock continues to accept honoraria.” A state ballot measure approved by California voters two years ago outlawed accepting such fees for speaking engagements.

“He accused Tom of a criminal act,” said an angry Greg Maw, McClintock’s campaign manager.

“If we were mistaken, we regret it,” responded his counterpart, Craig Miller. “We made a very minor error.”

Will there be a corrective mailing to voters? “Absolutely not,” he said.

Local mailers zeroing in on grass-roots issues can be controversial too.

When it took Thomas Cushman nearly 17 months to get Moorpark officials to approve a sign for his carwash, he vowed to do something about it. This week, Cushman and a few supporters reached into their pockets for $2,000 to finance a flyer mailed to 7,800 Moorpark households. The mailer urged voters not to reelect Mayor Paul Lawrason and two city councilmen.

“I thought a lot of people needed to know what was going on in local politics and that it was time for a change,” Cushman said.

In Ventura, voters have been besieged with a flurry of flyers over Measure O, a ballot measure that asks voters to choose between a desalination plant or a state water pipeline to boost the city’s water supply.

Timothy Downey, spokesman for Desal Water, said a flyer sent by state water proponents was “obviously misleading” because it alleged that a desalination plant would dump tons of salt into the ocean instead of salty brine waste that looks like seawater. “They will take Venturans’ votes any way they can scare them out of them,” he said.

Dana Weber Young, a spokeswoman for Venturans for State Water, charged that Desal Water’s mailers have incorrectly asserted that farmers in the Santa Clara River Valley, who back the pipeline, would gain financially because it would allow them to develop their agricultural land.

“It’s unfortunate they have tried to paint farmers in a bad picture,” she said.

Times staff writer Joanna M. Miller and correspondent James Maiella Jr. contributed to this story.