At the Audio Plant, House Hopeful Hails Loudly to the Chief

Officially, last week’s visit to a Northridge audio equipment manufacturer was a chance for President Clinton to highlight a good “corporate citizen” and tout the creation of 8 million jobs in the U.S. since his administration began.

Unofficially, it also presented Clinton with the opportunity to do a little stumping. And he got some vocal help from state Board of Equalization member and congressional candidate Brad Sherman.

As Clinton stepped up to the podium in the Harman International plant, Sherman stood up with the rest of the crowd, applauded, then burst into a full-throated chant: “Four more years! Four more years!”

Never mind that the cry was picked up by only a few of the 1,200 Harman employees present. Or that the other local dignitaries with Sherman in the front row--state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), school board member Julie Korenstein, Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman (D-North Hollywood), U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Rolling Hills), County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky--maintained decorum and declined to join in.

Sherman makes no bones about his support for Clinton. In fact, a photograph of Sherman with the President figures prominently in his campaign literature.

“I’m proud to be running with him,” Sherman said last week.

Dogg Days

Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) was not glued to the gavel-to-gavel coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial and he cannot hum a single Snoop Doggy Dogg tune.

But McKeon has focused some of his attention on the trials involving the two men. And he is holding Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti responsible for the not-guilty verdicts in both.

“O.J. Simpson, the Menendez brothers, Gangsta Rap singer Snoop Doggy Dogg, the McMartin child abuse case, Twilight Zone deaths . . . do they sound familiar?” McKeon asked in a recent letter to supporters. “They should. These are cases incumbent District Attorney Gil Garcetti was personally involved in losing--costing taxpayers over $30 million.”

Garcetti, of course, disagrees with McKeon’s analysis. His son and campaign manager, Eric Garcetti, points out that the office wins more than 90% of the 350,000 cases it handles every year--which is more important than focusing on “the headlines and the hype and the hysteria.”

Still, McKeon is departing from his usual practice of staying out of other electoral contests and is expected to endorse Deputy Dist. Atty. Malcolm Jordan, one of five challengers in the race. The others are attorney Harold Greenberg, Deputy Dist. Atty. Sterling E. Norris, attorney Steve S. Vand and Deputy Dist. Atty. John S. Lynch.

Law and Ardor

The city of Los Angeles--for many a locale synonymous with riots, celebrity murder trials, and drive-by shootings--has seen a significant drop in crime in recent years, statistics show.

That’s all well and good, but City Councilman Marvin Braude wants everyone to know that his district--stretching from the southwest San Fernando Valley to Pacific Palisades and West Los Angeles--is the safest among the city’s 15 council districts.

For the second time in as many months, Braude issued a news release touting his district as having the lowest overall crime tally and fewest serious felonies in the city.

In the first two months of 1996, his district had no homicides, seven rapes, 138 aggravated assaults, 293 burglaries, 96 thefts from automobiles and 337 auto thefts, according to his statement.

When asked how police and citizens in his district had achieved such good results, Braude could only guess that it has something to do with having a good number of constituents who actively fight crime and blight.

But he also took some of the credit, saying he has pushed for responsible planning, appointed the city’s first citizens advisory panel and kept his constituents abreast of police crime-fighting efforts.

He conceded that part of what’s behind the low crime stats may be that a large portion of the district comprises affluent hillside and beachfront communities that traditionally generate little crime and tend to employ expensive security systems and private guards.

And since Braude is gearing up for a reelection campaign next year, it doesn’t hurt to remind voters that on his watch, crime figures have been the lowest in the city, whether or not he has had anything to do with it.

Speaking of Crime

There is very little that will deter 40th Assembly District candidate Francine Oschin from her campaign agenda. Even bank robbers are no match for her persistence.

That was evident Thursday, when Oschin--longtime deputy to City Councilman Hal Bernson--was scheduled to speak at a luncheon of the San Fernando Valley chapter of the Jewish Women’s International, in a conference room adjacent to Glendale Federal Bank in Sherman Oaks.

But before she could make her pitch, she noticed through a glass partition that there was smoke drifting from the bank next door. And there didn’t appear to be any tellers or customers inside.

As it turned out, crooks had just robbed the branch, using a canister of tear gas as a diversion. The tellers were ordered to lie face down while the robbers made off with bags of cash.

Just before bank security guards could order the 30 women to evacuate the conference room, tear gas drifted in, inflicting headaches on some participants.

The women were forced to stand in the rain outside while police investigated the incident.

With a gaggle of potential voters in her midst, Oschin decided to make the most of the situation: She went ahead with her campaign speech, adding extra lines about her anti-crime stand.

“Hey, I had a captive audience,” Oschin explained.

Net Gain

U.S. presidential candidates aren’t the only ones trolling for votes on the Internet.

Surfers in cyberspace can now access World Wide Web sites touting local political groups and candidates like Bob Hertzberg, an attorney running for the Democratic nomination in the 40th Assembly District.

The Hertzberg campaign set up its home page last November, complete with biographical information (“About Bob,” offers one icon) and even a Hertzberg “pictorial” showing the candidate looking concerned beneath a Neighborhood Watch sign, looking busy at his desk, looking interested while talking with a shop owner and looking environmental out in the Santa Monica Mountains.

“We are having the best time with it,” campaign manager Nicole Goldner says.

Whether it will have any significant payoff in a district of 145,000 voters--most of whom are not hooked up to the information superhighway--is debatable. So far, the site has received about 2,700 visits, but there’s no knowing whether they are from the district or from Denmark.

“For this campaign, it’s probably not going to be the threshold of victory,” Goldner acknowledges. “But in the future, especially as more and more young people get on the Internet, it’s a way of communicating” with those who might not otherwise pay attention to politics.

The Web site cost Hertzberg’s campaign slightly more than $300 for a consultant and associated online costs, plus the time invested by the campaign’s 22-year-old field director and computer whiz, Russ Blank, Goldner says.

At current rates, being entirely dependent on outside consultants for high-tech politicking could get costly.

“I’m too poor to have an Internet [site],” says Hertzberg’s opponent, Francine Oschin. “I’m not financed by all those wealthy trial lawyers from the other side of the hill. You have limited funds, and you have to put your funds out where they’ll be most beneficial. It’s questionable how many people are really going to be fishing around on the Internet.”

Chu and Martin reported from Los Angeles, Lacey from Washington, D.C.