Decision ’96 / Key issues and races in the California vote : Can Garcetti Stay Out of a Runoff?

He enjoys enviable name recognition.

He’s the only one in the race with a regular schedule of ads on network TV.

And with convictions in the Menendez murder case, he finally has a victory in a headline-grabbing murder trial--diminishing the impact of the constant knock against him, that his office couldn’t win the big ones.

That’s why political analysts say Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti stands as the odds-on favorite to defeat five challengers in Tuesday’s countywide election.

The intrigue, however, is whether he will win outright--or be forced into a November runoff.

“I think he goes into a runoff,” said Dick Rosengarten, editor of the California Political Week newsletter. He and other experts said that either Deputy Dist. Atty. Malcolm Jordan, the leading fund-raiser among the challengers, or Deputy Dist. Atty. John F. Lynch, a veteran who heads the district attorney’s Norwalk office, seem the likeliest bets to make a runoff.

Neither has the name recognition or money that Garcetti has.

Last month, Rosengarten had predicted that Garcetti stood a 70% chance of winning outright in the primary, primarily because of an overwhelming fund-raising advantage. To win outright, a candidate must draw 50% of the vote plus one.

Over the past few weeks, however, Garcetti has had to fend off steady criticism, Rosengarten and others noted. They said he also may suffer from low turnout and a lack of voter focus on the primary.

The only real passion in the race, Rosengarten said, seems to be from voters who have told him they feel that “ABG” is the best candidate in the race: “Anyone but Gil.”

“There’s sentiment out there against Garcetti,” Rosengarten said last week. “I don’t know why, necessarily. I assume it has more to do with Simpson than anything.”

In large part, the campaign has revolved around attacks on Garcetti for his office’s failure to win a conviction in the O.J. Simpson case. Challengers also seized on the issue of whether the incumbent has demonstrated political favoritism to campaign donors.

In particular, Garcetti has been criticized for a “three strikes” case that ended last November with reduced charges and a 16-month prison term for the grandson of Westside businessman B.J. McMorrow. The elder McMorrow donated $13,000 to Garcetti’s 1992 campaign and $1,000 in recent weeks.

The deputies who approved the younger McMorrow’s plea bargain have said repeatedly that Garcetti played no role in it. “The challengers have raised the specter of influence,” Garcetti said. “The facts prove otherwise.”

Garcetti has run a smooth campaign, Rosengarten and others said.

According to county records, Garcetti spent $595,085 from Feb. 11 through March 9, including $423,511 on television ads. Those sums far outstripped any of his challengers’ outlays.

And, though the race is technically nonpartisan, he has assiduously courted traditional Democratic constituencies in hopes that habitual voters will troop to the polls, noted Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, senior associate at the Center for Politics and Economics at the Claremont Graduate School.

“The critically important factor is going to be the turnout, how high--or low--it is, and what it consists of,” Jeffe said. “If conservative voters are coming out to vote either for Bob Dole or Pat Buchanan, that could be very dangerous for Gil. He is, in the end, a Democrat, and has relied on basic Democratic constituencies.”

Garcetti, however, said he has always run well among Republicans. Nonetheless, he said, the “political pundits tell me, ‘you’re probably in a runoff.”’

“We know there’s more anger out there about Simpson than there was the week after the verdict,” he said, adding, “I only know one way when I’m focused: I’m going all-out. I’m confident of ultimately winning. Be it in March or November, I don’t know.”

Among the five challengers, only Jordan has run a full-time campaign. He has spent about $100,000 on television ads, most of it on cable TV spots.

“The [challenger] who’s run the best campaign is obviously Jordan,” Rosengarten said.

But Lynch has picked up some key endorsements and Jeffe said he may be gaining momentum.

Jordan has keyed his campaign to the headline-grabbing losses by the district attorney’s office. Lynch has vigorously pressed the issues raised by the McMorrow case.

Lawyer Harold Greenberg, who boasted that his name went out on 1.6 million mailers, has also focused on what he calls Garcetti’s failings.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Sterling “Ernie” Norris, who ran in 1992 and finished fourth, has raised only a few thousand dollars. He is well known for successfully prosecuting William Bonin, the so-called Freeway Killer, who was executed last month.

Encino attorney Steve Zand, who has said that the “real issue” in the race is how tight budgets should be properly spent, rounds out the field.