Work Away From Home Paid Off for Candidates

Success in the county’s two supervisorial races came to candidates who nailed down strong vote totals in their hometowns and then reached into unfamiliar territory to steal votes from their rivals, according to the final vote breakdowns released by the registrar of voters this week.

That often meant pounding the pavement in neighborhoods where they were not well known or somehow reaching the voters in large districts by mail or telephone, the leading candidates said.

“I went to every forum. If there was an invitation, I went. If somebody asked me to speak, I was there,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer, who finished what many observers considered a surprising second to Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Huntington Beach) in a field of eight candidates in the 3rd District race. The two will face each other in a November runoff for the seat now held by Supervisor Don Saltarelli.

Westminster Mayor Charles V. Smith faced a similar task in the 1st District, taking on a field of five that included Garden Grove Councilman Mark Leyes, who has the backing of the Republican Party leadership, starting with Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove).

“We did a lot of precinct walking in all of our cities,” said Smith, who finished first and will face Leyes in November. “We also won the backing of a very good cross section of community leaders.”

Smith and Leyes will compete for the seat now held by Supervisor Roger R. Stanton.

Based on the final numbers, the formula for success in the two races boiled down to commanding the vote on the home turf while finishing among the top three in all other communities in the district.

For candidates operating on a tight budget, that meant picking their spots precisely, particularly in the sprawling 3rd District, which winds from La Habra to the South County city of Mission Viejo and the community of Rancho Santa Margarita.

Conroy, for instance, a member of the Assembly from Orange for the past four years, concentrated his campaign mailing efforts in La Habra, Brea and Fullerton, in the home bases of Spitzer and another candidate, activist Bruce Whitaker.

The strategy paid off. Conroy finished second in each of those three cities and first in Yorba Linda--ahead of Spitzer, who lives in Brea, and Whitaker, a Fullerton resident.

“We knew with our limited budget, we had to make our effort in North County,” said Mark Thompson, Conroy’s Irvine-based campaign consultant. “Mickey has had a recognizable constituency in the Orange area for four years now.”

Thompson attributed Conroy’s success in the South County to his longtime opposition to the controversial proposal for a commercial airport at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. Measure S, which would have repealed plans to place a commercial airport at the air base, was on the same ballot but was rejected by county voters.

Conroy finished second in Mission Viejo, where Mayor Susan Withrow led the field, and third in Lake Forest behind top vote-winner Councilwoman Helen Wilson.

“We did phone banks in the areas near the base, reminding people Mickey was a supporter of Measure S,” Thompson said.

Spitzer, however, contends he is the candidate who ran the better overall campaign, saying he was a virtually unknown school trustee before the race.

“All the pundits were saying it was going to be Mickey and one of the women from the South County and we proved them wrong,” Spitzer said.

A broad-based message was his strategy from the onset of the campaign, Spitzer said.

“I thought I was the kind of candidate who could get support from the whole district because, even though I sit on the school board in Brea, my occupation as a deputy district attorney serves the whole county,” he said.

The 1st District actually had three strong candidates who were favorite sons: Smith, Leyes and George Scott, the mayor of Fountain Valley. If all carried their own cities, the question became who would do best in Santa Ana, the other major city in the district, Leyes said.

“Santa Ana helped determine who made the runoff,” said Leyes, who finished first there. “I wound up carrying my own city and the one without a favorite son. Now I expect to do very well in Fountain Valley in November and I don’t even concede Westminster.”