Weekends Will Never Be the Same

Since landing in the runoff campaign for mayor of Los Angeles, former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa has spent nearly twice as much money on broadcast television advertising as City Atty. James K. Hahn, according to a Times analysis of the advertising records at seven local stations.

Billing documents from Los Angeles’ broadcast stations reveal that Villaraigosa has aired 41% more spots than Hahn since early May, when the two candidates first started running television ads in this round of the election. Villaraigosa’s advertising advantage may be even greater than that because many of Hahn’s ads are shorter, 15-second spots.

Hahn conceded Friday that he has had a tougher challenge with respect to paying for his campaign, in part because Villaraigosa has been the beneficiary of outside expenditures by the state Democratic Party and organized labor.

“I’ve got to stretch my dollar farther,” said the city attorney. “I think we’ll be competitive with him the last two weeks.”

The records also revealed that neither candidate is advertising at the rate of previous mayoral campaigns--limiting the overall impact on viewers and, thus, Villaraigosa’s advantage. The most critical advertising period is yet to come, from now until voters go to the polls June 5.

Still, the reversal of fortunes from the early months of the year--when Hahn was the man to beat and his campaign expected to rule the airwaves in the spring--has been clear. And it served this week to reinforce another Villaraigosa victory--the endorsement of Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.

Just a day after he won Riordan’s backing Wednesday, the former assemblyman and the mayor were on screen together in Villaraigosa’s most recent television spot, which also touts his endorsement by Gov. Gray Davis.

Television images of Villaraigosa standing beside the moderate Republican mayor and moderate Democratic governor are intended, at least in part, to quell accusations that the candidate is too liberal for many Angelenos.

The election is expected to hinge largely on the many moderate to conservative voters whose first choices for mayor were eliminated in April’s first round of the race.

“Villaraigosa is definitely setting the pace at this point on television,” said an advertising executive for one Los Angeles television station. “He is forcing Hahn to react to him, instead of vice versa.”

Said John Shallman, a campaign consultant who represented Kathleen Connell in the first round of the mayor’s race: “It is a significant disadvantage to be outspent almost 2 to 1 on the most powerful medium to communicate with people in Los Angeles. And that is television.”

Neither candidate has yet bought radio advertising, mainly because it is an expensive way to make an impact in the diffuse Los Angeles market, which has dozens of stations. Also, consultants believe that radio generally attracts younger people, who might be less likely to vote.

Villaraigosa finished five percentage points ahead of Hahn in April, but independent polls have shown the race very close, with only a small percentage of voters undecided. Hahn’s campaign insists that the opponent’s television advantage is negligible, a gap the city attorney plans to close in the final, critical weeks of the race.

The Hahn camp says it has remained competitive by placing its ads strategically and by using shorter and cheaper 15-second spots that give the city attorney virtually the same television coverage as Villaraigosa. “We have about the same number of rating points,” said Hahn consultant Bill Carrick, using the ad buyer’s term that measures advertising exposure.

Although the Times did not measure the candidate’s advertising presence on cable television, the Villaraigosa advantage on Los Angeles’ seven principal broadcast television stations was striking.

The former legislator’s campaign first went on the air May 3, with an advertisement touting his public safety record, endorsement by California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer and rejection of Hahn’s claims that he was soft on crime.

A day later, Hahn responded with his first advertisement of the runoff, hammering his opponent’s “abysmal” record on crime and touting his own credentials as a “20-year prosecutor.”

Since then, both men’s ads have been on the air consistently. But while Villaraigosa had unleashed 558 spots and spent about $908,000 through The Times’ checks Thursday and Friday, Hahn had aired just 397, at a cost of about $499,000.

Both candidates’ ads tend to crop up during morning and evening news programs, although Villaraigosa’s appear more frequently. Other popular ad vehicles for both have been “Oprah,” “The Rosie O’Donnell Show,” “Extra” and “Access Hollywood.” But Villaraigosa placed more ads and sometimes on more expensive programs during prime time, including ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” at $14,000 for 30 seconds.

Villaraigosa has another structural advantage as the two candidates plot their television strategies. He is expecting support from the county Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, and from the California Democratic Party. With labor supplying phone banks and precinct walkers and the party delivering mailers, Villaraigosa has to spend less of his own money on organization. That leaves the lion’s share of the candidate’s own campaign funds free for television advertising.

Hahn, on the other hand, so far has received much more limited support from outside sources. A billboard company has posted $250,000 worth of free advertising, and another Hahn group has filed a notice to stage an independent campaign--but nothing of the magnitude available to Villaraigosa via labor and the Democrats. The Hahn campaign has trumpeted its limited outside ties as a virtue, but one practical consequence is that it will probably be forced to pay for mail, phone banks and ground operations that will cut into the budget for television ads.

Hahn has complained long and loud about the contributions from the Democratic Party, saying they subvert the city’s campaign contribution restrictions.

Villaraigosa has also used his relatively flush position and string of endorsements to reverse the tone of the on-air contest. While Hahn had directed the debate in the early days of the runoff, by focusing on Villaraigosa’s voting record on crime issues, the former assemblyman fought back by using television to question Hahn’s backing of a controversial three-day workweek for police officers.

This week, Villaraigosa got off the defensive track--with two spots that ignore his foe and tout his own virtues. In the first ad, the candidate appears at home with his wife and children and talks about the lessons in education he has learned from Corina Villaraigosa, a sixth-grade teacher in Montebello. The candidate promises to make education his top priority by helping build new schools, auditing the Los Angeles Unified School District and increasing parental involvement.

He does not indicate how he would achieve those goals. The Los Angeles mayor has no formal authority over schools.

In another spot that began airing Thursday, a narrator describes Villaraigosa’s qualifications, his ability to work with Republicans in the Legislature and, particularly, his support from “California’s Democratic governor and L.A.’s Republican mayor.”

“One nice thing about the Riordan endorsement is that we can take a break from this charge and countercharge and get back to where we really want to be, and that is discussing Antonio’s positive merits,” said Parke Skelton, Villaraigosa’s campaign consultant.

The Hahn campaign continues to air its 15-second spot that paints Villaraigosa as untrustworthy. The ad says Villaraigosa’s transportation plan would reduce policing and that he has flip-flopped on the contentious issue of compressed work schedules for officers.

Villaraigosa has said repeatedly in recent public appearances that he would support a four-day police schedule but not one that puts officers on the job only three days a week, 12 hours a day. He said that plan would cut police deployment.

The Hahn ad tries to prove that Villaraigosa changed his position, citing as evidence a story that The Times published in July. That story said Villaraigosa and other candidates in the mayor’s race supported the three-day police schedule. But a subsequent review of Villaraigosa’s statements revealed that he only supported “compressed” workweeks more generally.

The Hahn ad also claims that Villaraigosa’s plan for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority “takes police off the streets”--again citing The Times as a source of the information. The Times did not report the specific effect of Villaraigosa’s transit plan, instead saying that it would cut funding for police and sheriff’s deputies on the light rail system and buses by $57 million over four years.

Hahn says that would necessarily cut policing. Villaraigosa says he would let transit police focus on their law enforcement duties, saving the money by having other employees check passengers’ tickets, a duty officers currently fulfill.

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Big Spending for TV Ads

In the weeks since the April 10 election, City Atty. James K. Hahn and former Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa have waged much of their mayoral campaigns over the paid television airwaves. So far, Villaraigosa enjoys a commanding lead in that part of the campaign.

Villaraigosa

Total cost for ads: $908,199

Total number of ads for campaign: 558

Hahn

Total cost for ads: $499,552

Total number of ads for campaign: 397

Sources: KCBS, KNBC, KABC, KTLA, KCAL, KTTV and KCOP *

Television commercials from the Hahn and Villaraigosa campaigns can be viewed on The Times’ Web site at latimes.com/mayortv