Baca, Block Square Off in Videotaped Debate

In a debate that might well qualify as the best bit of political theater so far in this somewhat moribund campaign season, Sherman Block, L.A. County’s powerful incumbent sheriff, and his challenger Lee Baca faced off for the fourth time Wednesday at the studios of KTLA-TV, Channel 5, in Hollywood.

Enter first the 74-year-old sheriff, slightly frail and moving carefully, guided solicitously to his seat by the floor director, who warned him about a bump in the carpet and respectfully pushed in his chair.

Enter second retired sheriff’s chief Baca, forgotten in the back row of the audience, who, when he saw the sheriff led to the set where the debate was to be taped, hurried forward with an armful of papers. After a certain amount of bustling and a signal from the program’s host, someone came to pull out Baca’s chair as well.

The two sat side by side. Baca, without turning his head to look at the sheriff, offered a limpish hand. Block, not deigning to turn to face the challenger who once called him a mentor, took it gingerly, then dropped it.

The race was on.

It was the kind of debate you might expect on the sitcom “Frasier,” if the psychiatrist played by Kelsey Grammer were to be running for office against his opinionated father.

At one point, when host Ray Gonzales asked Block to pose a question to Baca, the sheriff asked his challenger why he allowed a defense attorney who has represented accused drug dealers to host a fund-raiser for him.

“Sheriff,” Baca responded indignantly, “I have no control over who organizes a fund-raising event for me. And, furthermore, I don’t do background checks on all of my supporters.”

With that, Baca raised a sheaf of papers from a file he had brought on the set and said that, anyway, he had proof that the sheriff accepted money from gambling interests.

Block said that the contributors, including the Bicycle Club Casino, were legitimate businesses. Baca did not mention that some of the contribution reports he was waving dated back to 1990, long before campaign finance reform reduced the amount of money that individuals and businesses could give to candidates--and significantly before these two candidates ever squared off in an electoral race.

The two went back and forth. Block accused Baca of poor management during his days as a division chief, and said the former chief of one of the department’s most troubled divisions improperly injected himself into a sexual harassment case.

Baca charged that the sheriff--whose supporters began at least two investigations of the challenger during the past year --engaged in witch hunts in an effort to derail his candidacy.

“For those of you in the department listening,” Baca said in his closing remarks, “Consider the mudslinging in this campaign. It could happen to you if you decide to run for sheriff.”

The debate will air Sunday at 6 a.m.