Sizing Up the People Behind the Candidates

My assignment was to write an essay about the issues in the June 7 state primary and how they affect Southern California.

You’ll read my essay next Sunday in a special section devoted to the election. But before I sat down at my computer to write it, I had to see for myself how the candidates act on the campaign trail, to get a sense of them as people.

It’s been many years since I first engaged in the odd mixture of friendliness and hostility, trust and suspicion that makes up the relationship between a candidate and a reporter. Although I’ve gone through the exercise many times, I felt the same sense of challenge, mystery and adventure as I began my four days of chasing candidates.

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I started with Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, one of the Democratic candidates.

Garamendi is running for governor as if he were cutting trees at his Mokelumne Hill ranch with a big ax, heavy-handed, dogged, one tree at a time. But instead of cutting trees, his task in this campaign is visiting every county, even the most lightly populated and remote.

I caught him on a Saturday when he was helping Pastor Clevester Williams and congregants of the Assembly Church of God in Christ cook the delicious barbecue they sell each Saturday at the church, which is on East El Segundo Boulevard in the Watts-Willowbrook area.

Garamendi is obsessed with facts, figures and policies. In that respect, he’s like Bill Clinton, but without the President’s charm, country-boy smile and quick moves. Nor can the short-funded Garamendi campaign afford the image makers who translated Clinton’s data-packed thoughts into understandable English.

Garamendi, a big, friendly man in small groups, communicated well at the church as he listened to troubles and offered solutions. But on another day, at a meeting of the Valley Industrial and Commerce Assn. at Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City, his speech was dull and nothing could stop the steady clanking of luncheon knives and forks. At such events, Garamendi often sounds angry and frustrated, bellowing his message at people rather than talking to them.

In contrast, state Sen. Tom Hayden, another Democratic candidate, has figured out the art of communication.

Although he came out of his divorce from Jane Fonda with a bundle to ease the pain, Hayden has the face and manner of a man who’s been beat up by life. His manner has changed, and the old arrogance is gone.

He’s as obsessed with data as Clinton or Garamendi, but understands how to communicate it. When he was talking about malathion spraying to some San Gabriel Valley Democrats, you’d think his own car and back yard had been sprayed. But his real medium is television. The screen is perfect for his soft delivery. Although Hayden is too far to the left, and too underfunded, to win the nomination, he’s my long shot to win this week’s debates between the Democratic candidates.

It’s easy to cover an underdog such as Hayden, who had time to drop me off at The Times parking structure when we returned from the San Gabriel Valley. Catching up with the favorite in the Democratic race, Kathleen Brown, is another matter.

Her campaign manager, Clint Reilly, specializes in giving his candidates the appearance of accessibility while hiding them from situations that might imperil their lead. That’s what he did with Mayor Richard Riordan during last year’s mayoral election. A Reilly candidate tends to bustle from one out-of-the-way spot to another, avoiding big news conferences and debates. My interview with Brown was at 9:30 p.m. Thursday in San Francisco--not exactly convenient.

I asked Brown the same question I posed to the others: What would she tell a 52-year-old Redondo Beach aerospace engineer who can’t find a job. She told me she’d suggest a community college job training program or “opening up his mind and vision” to new job opportunities. That sounds like career counseling, I told her, not gubernatorial action. It took her a moment to figure out what I was after and then she changed gears, launching into a description of her jobs program.

Later, I wondered about this answer. Why was Brown being so literal-minded? Was she finding it difficult to picture herself as governor? Or was this narrow answer just an example of the famous Brown caution?

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While Brown is playing defense, the man she hopes to defeat, Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, is playing the role of a killer. Or, as the law-and-order governor might put it, the role of an executioner.

Wilson has changed over the years. As mayor of San Diego in the ‘70s, he was fun to write about--an upbeat young reformer taking on the corrupt troglodytes who ran the city. He’s become grim, unforgiving of opponents.

During our conversation at the J.W. Marriott in Century City last week, he spoke in a flat, joyless voice. He only smiled at the end, when we talked about a mutual friend, Zan Thompson. He was very tough. I wouldn’t want to run against him.

And finally, there’s Ron Unz, a 32-year-old Silicon Valley computer software entrepreneur who decided to invest some of his substantial wealth in a race against Wilson.

Unz sounds like a computer nerd who, in his late 20s, began reading the newspapers and listening to Rush Limbaugh. I can imagine his shock when he read about workers’ comp: What? he said. They pay people who aren’t working?

I don’t know much about him, except that he’s very pleasant. After our interview, he gave his beeper number, then sent me a fax with a friendly note and more information. If I had asked, I’m sure he would have given me his E-mail address.

Now that’s being accessible.