Clinton’s Route Illustrates Some of Woo’s Troubles

On Tuesday, President Clinton happened to drive through San Fernando Valley neighborhoods that illustrate some of the deepest problems facing his designated candidate for mayor, Councilman Michael Woo.

His route took him east on Hatteras Street toward the Fulton Avenue entrance to Valley College. There, he defended his economic policies and urged Angelenos to vote for Woo, a fellow Democrat, over attorney Richard Riordan, who is a Republican.

The site was well-chosen. On both sides of Hatteras Street, and in other areas around the college, are neighborhoods where Woo badly needs Clinton’s help. This neighborhood is representative of what should be Woo’s Valley base--heavily Democratic, middle-class, mostly rank-and-file workers who voted overwhelmingly for Clinton.

It should be his base, but that clearly wasn’t the case in the April primary.

In this area, Woo trailed Riordan and two other challengers--Valleyites Councilman Joel Wachs and Assemblyman Richard Katz. Woo must get a substantial number of the Katz and Wachs votes, and Wachs has endorsed Riordan.

It would take a major transfer of affection for Clinton’s endorsement to help Woo--provided, of course, that these people still like the President.

Statistics are just part of the story. Intangibles shape political campaigns and as I waited at the college entrance for the presidential party to arrive, I saw some hard-to-measure factors that may be as perilous to Woo as the stats. If Clinton looked out the window of his limo, he must have seen them too.

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The intangibles were in the form of demonstrators waiting at the Fulton Avenue entrance.

Editors warn reporters to be wary of demonstrations, that they may be staged and phony. Exercising such caution early in my career, I dismissed the importance of the first demonstrations against the Vietnam War. Since then, I’ve tried to hear demonstrators out and pay attention to their signs.

Anti-Woo protesters lined Fulton Avenue for about a block on each side of the campus entrance, outnumbering the handful of Woo supporters who showed up.

Most prominent among them was a group opposing illegal immigration. One said, “L.A. Is A Third World Cesspool. Who Is Responsible?” Another demanded, “Deport Illegal Aliens Now.”

I talked to one of the leaders, Glenn Spencer of Sherman Oaks, a member of Voice of Citizens Together, which campaigns against illegal immigration. He said he was angered that Woo had favored sanctuary for political refugees in the mid-’80s and sticks up for street vendors. “He has established a pattern of opening L.A. to the Third World,” he said.

Another large anti-Woo group consisted of Ross Perot supporters. I ran into two I met last year at the Perot headquarters in Sherman Oaks, Brent Davis and Joe Wouk. “We Perotians are protesting the President endorsing a mayoral candidate,” Davis said.

Davis, who is a Riordan volunteer, said he had helped organize the demonstration. He said he had talked to Riordan campaign people and “they wanted to have a show.” He called Perot veterans and anti-immigrant groups, supplementing the crowd by notifying Serbian-Americans and Croatian-Americans who wanted to press their opposing views on the President.

Anger was the common theme of the demonstrators. What was intangible was the extent of this anger--how far it reaches out beyond the demonstrators. If it does, the anger plus Woo’s low primary vote in these Clinton precincts means trouble for him.

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The most recent Times Poll confirms Woo’s troubles in the Valley. Only 38% of the registered Valley voters responding to the poll viewed him favorably. Republicans, the heart of Riordan’s Valley base, are more interested in the mayoral race than are Democrats.

But with 21 days to go, the Woo team figures it has time to win. One reason is that the Clinton visit focuses attention on a race that has been largely ignored by television.

Even though Clinton may not change votes directly, his endorsement of Woo “can raise the overall visibility of the campaign in peoples’ minds,” said John Brennan, director of The Times Poll.

Woo moved immediately to take advantage of the visit. As Clinton spoke, his precinct walking teams were hitting Valley sidewalks. Elsewhere in the city, Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas is organizing a voter drive in his heavily Democratic, predominantly African-American and Latino district in South-Central L.A.

Although a minority in the city, Republicans are expected to vote in much higher numbers. Every percentage increase in turnout helps Woo in this heavily Democratic city, for it means more Democrats have gone to the polls.

Clinton’s brief appearance was a small but important part of that effort.