Riordan Strategists Turn Right

With one week to go and a new poll showing a tight race, the three major candidates in the Republican gubernatorial campaign turned to their endgames Monday, reaching out to the conservative voters who may make the difference next Tuesday.

Richard Riordan, Bill Simon Jr. and Bill Jones plan to retool their ad strategies day by day, and the Riordan and Simon campaigns are polling nightly to figure out which messages are getting through to voters and which are not.

That task is vital to all three contenders, but it is particularly important to Riordan, who according to the latest Times poll, has seen his once-commanding lead slip away into a virtual tie. As a result, the former Los Angeles mayor now has the job of turning around his fortunes in the next seven days.

Riordan, who has irked conservatives by trumpeting his moderate views on abortion, gay rights and other social issues, pivoted Monday with a discernible rightward shift, particularly on crime.

“Let there be no doubt, I support the death penalty,” he said at a peace officers monument outside the state Capitol. Riordan also highlighted his efforts at fighting crime in Los Angeles and noted that a prominent group of California prosecutors was supporting his bid for governor.

Riordan’s need to solidify conservative support is largely the result of the unusual campaign that incumbent Gov. Gray Davis has waged against him in recent months.

Davis has inserted himself into the GOP primary with a withering ad campaign against Riordan--challenging the former mayor on abortion and the death penalty, among other issues. Davis plans to stay in the mix with more than $1 million worth of spots running statewide until Tuesday.

“We’ll finish with a flourish,” said Davis strategist Garry South.

The Davis ads have scrambled the dynamics of the GOP primary, giving a boost to the Simon campaign at Riordan’s expense. And even if Riordan wins the primary, Davis will have forced him to spend so much on television ads during the primary that he will be left “flat out of money” for the general election race, South said.

“We certainly threw a skunk into the Republican picnic, didn’t we?” South said.

Among other things, the Davis strategy has raised questions about whether Riordan, a multimillionaire, would spend his own money to win. If Riordan does reach into his own pocket, it might make it harder for him to tap others for support because they could see him as a self-supported candidate. On Monday, however, Riordan said he would not put any of his own money into the race before Tuesday’s primary.

In fact, Riordan bought $1 million worth of television ads for the final week, enough to sustain substantial exposure statewide, according to political director Kevin Spillane. That was helped by a late $500,000 donation from American Sterling Corp., a banking and mortgage lending company based in the Kansas City, Mo., area.

The impact of the Davis ad blitz was apparent at Riordan’s campaign event Monday in a park across from the state Capitol. Riordan rebutted charges in Davis’ ads that he flip-flopped on the death penalty and that crime rose on his watch as mayor. (Crime, in fact, declined markedly during Riordan’s two terms, though it increased somewhat in his final year.)

He recalled that he backed the effort to remove liberal Rose Bird from the state Supreme Court, largely because she would not enforce capital punishment. Riordan also accepted the endorsement of the California Assn. of Deputy Attorneys General.

“A safe California will be my No. 1 concern,” he said.

In a Sacramento radio interview, Riordan also distanced himself from his longtime support for gun control laws. He said he supports restrictions on “automatic assault weapons and Saturday night specials,” but supports the right to bear arms.

“We probably have too many laws on the books on guns right now,” Riordan said.

Spillane said Riordan was simply returning to core Republican primary issues for the final week: public safety, energy, the economy and fiscal management.

Not content to simply voice those views, the Riordan campaign also was preparing to step up its advertising assault against Simon in an effort to stop the novice candidate’s upward momentum. Aides said a new 15-second television ad would question Simon’s credentials as a Republican, quoting news reports that Simon was registered to vote as an independent in New York and did not register to vote while living in New Jersey in the 1980s. In the radio interview, Riordan said Monday that Simon “wasn’t a Republican until nine years ago.”

For Simon, however, the latest poll findings merely affirm his current course, and he stayed firmly on that conservative program Monday. Dashing across the state with his marquee supporter, former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Simon stuck to his familiar promises: no new taxes and an improved school system.

“We’ve spoken to thousands of Californians, and whether those issues are the budget or education of our quality of life--our roads, our water or our power--we all know these issues can be solved,” Simon said.

There was some irony in Simon’s renewed embrace of Giuliani, who endorsed and campaigned for Democrats in New York. Riordan’s support for Democrats has been the main subject of Simon’s attack ads; Simon asserts he is not “ashamed” to be a Republican.

From Orange County, Simon and Giuliani went on to campaign in Sacramento and San Francisco. It was part of a stepped-up schedule for Simon, who earlier in the race had few public appearances but now regularly travels the breadth of California each day.

Simon’s lead strategist, Sal Russo, said the candidate’s calendar would continue to be full until next Tuesday.

The Simon campaign has several additional attack ads ready to roll against Riordan if necessary.

“Dick Riordan’s campaign has been predominantly against the Republican Party and ‘trust me, I’ll tell you what I’ll do after I get elected,’ and that’s not a compelling message,” Russo said.

The third candidate, Secretary of State Jones, took another approach: He lashed out at his two opponents with blistering rhetoric--the kind that draws local television news coverage in the absence of funds for a substantial ad campaign. Jones also touted his support by the National Rifle Assn. and other conservative groups.

Jones is staying largely on the attack, hammering Riordan and Simon. Like Riordan, Jones criticized Simon on Monday for his repeated failure to vote in local, state and federal elections. “That’s just unacceptable in a candidate for higher office,” Jones said.

But on Monday, Jones devoted most of his time on the attack against the former mayor, accusing him of mismanaging Los Angeles as mayor and questioning his loyalty as a Republican.

Riordan tried to make light of the three-front assault.

“I feel,” he said, “like a pinata.”