Riordan Trailing, Goes On Attack

The increasingly bitter race for California governor caromed into its final weekend Friday, with Republican Richard Riordan assailing Bill Simon Jr. as an unelectable extremist and Simon looking past Tuesday’s primary to a general election contest against Democrat Gray Davis.

As the candidates locked in their final advertising of the campaign--a mix of positive and negative spots--the three top GOP hopefuls staged a final debate of sorts, appearing one after the other in the studio of Adelphia Cable in Santa Monica.

Significantly, Friday’s deadline to buy weekend advertising passed without any candidate upping his buy or altering his strategy for the final days. That was particularly notable for Riordan, who has fallen in recent polls after leading the race for months.

While Riordan did not boost his advertising, he lashed out at Simon with new vehemence in conversations with reporters.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Riordan said Simon--whom he once urged to run for governor--was too extreme to win. He followed up at a Hollywood stop by calling his friend and fellow parishioner a “sanctimonious hypocrite.”

Suddenly cast in the role of front-runner, Simon stayed above the day’s give-and-take, discussing how he hoped to broaden his support in November among Californians who are more moderate than Republican primary voters on issues such as abortion and gun control.

“The social issues to me are not the centerpiece of my agenda,” Simon said. “My ideology is of smaller government, local government, focusing on our people, individual empowerment and opportunity.”

The first-time candidate further asserted that his amateur status would be a plus against Gov. Davis, whose winning slogan in the 1998 Democratic primary was “experience money can’t buy.”

“If Gray Davis has experience money can’t buy, and now we’ve had his leadership for the last four years, I think we got experience we don’t want to pay for,” Simon said.

The third top GOP hopeful, Secretary of State Bill Jones, continued to question his opponents’ party loyalty.

Focusing chiefly on Simon, Jones criticized the Pacific Palisades businessman for donating $5,000 to a Democrat running for governor in New York and for a $95,000 contribution to the reelection of San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. The latter was given by a partnership of Simon’s investment company.

“If that’s a conservative, Reagan Republican record, then that’s turned upside-down,” Jones said. “I don’t remember Reagan doing that, and I was there when he started out.”

The harsh tones from two of the candidates contrasted with a softening of the paid advertising. Riordan and Simon planned to end on television with a gradual reduction of vitriol over the next several days.

So, too, did Davis, who began the primary’s advertising onslaught with a spot six weeks ago attacking Riordan’s position on abortion--a bit of intraparty meddling that helped open the way for Simon’s surge.

Each of the major gubernatorial candidates made their final purchase of ad time earlier this week; Riordan, Simon and Davis were all spending roughly the same amount, $1.5 million apiece.

But Friday was significant because it marked the last time candidates could shuffle their ads--or fine-tune their strategies--before ads were locked in over the final crucial weekend of campaigning.

Despite his slide in polls, Riordan chose not to amplify his attacks on Simon or increase his ad buy, a sign he was determined not to invest any personal money in the campaign--as he vowed all along.

Riordan, a multimillionaire who spent $6 million of his own money on his first mayoral campaign in 1993, also promised Friday not to spend any of his cash in the general election if he emerges victorious from Tuesday’s primary. He made his pledge while criticizing Davis’ prodigious fund-raising.

“You couldn’t buy Dick Riordan’s vote,” he said. “But you can buy Gray Davis’.”

Later, Riordan said he regretted spending his own money in his 1993 run. “It’s certainly healthier to have many people involved rather than one person trying to buy an election,” Riordan said.

Jones, who has struggled financially throughout the race, bought about $300,000 worth of ads over the final week. His lone spot features former Republican Gov. George Deukmejian endorsing Jones and assailing Riordan.

By contrast, Riordan, Simon and Davis were all following roughly the same strategies for the weekend’s final push. The candidates will start the weekend with a mixture of positive and negative spots, the latter reprising familiar charges and countercharges over trustworthiness and party loyalty (in the case of Simon and Riordan).

The ad mix will slowly change over the weekend until all three candidates have nothing but positive spots running Monday. Such a move is typical, as candidates seek to finish their campaigns with a message they hope will leave voters feeling friendly as they head to the polls.

But the move to a more elevated tone on the airwaves was not matched by increased goodwill on the campaign trail.

During an appearance Friday at the recently opened Hollywood & Highland shopping center, Riordan would not even deign to call Simon a friend.

Noting that the two men attend the same church in Santa Monica, Riordan told reporters: “I had a respect for him from a distance. I’ve lost that respect in this campaign.”

Calling his rival “an ultra-ultraconservative,” Riordan went on to suggest Simon had no chance of winning over women and minority voters--a key to any successful Republican campaign in November.

“He is for [an antiabortion] platform that excludes over half the women in this state,” Riordan said. “There is no way he’s going to get the women’s vote.”

Simon chose not to address the evident rupture in his relationship with Riordan, leaving the response to a spokesman, Bob Taylor.

“It’s understandable that emotions can reach a fever pitch in the closing days of a race like this,” Taylor said. “But while Bill’s focused on issues people really care about, it seems that Dick Riordan can’t handle the fact that his campaign is really unraveling.”

With the polls showing Simon rising and Riordan falling, the two men traveled at oddly contrasting paces Friday.

Simon started his day with a 7:30 a.m. breakfast appearance in San Diego, dashed to Santa Monica for the cable appearance, toured an animation studio, then flew north for a five-city sprint through the top half of the state today.

Riordan kept a more limited public schedule. After the cable show and his stop in Hollywood, Riordanheaded to San Francisco for an appearance in a comedy show he planned to reprise tonight. He had only one public event scheduled for Sunday.

Campaign aides denied, however, that Riordan was slackening his pace or taking it easy at a time when candidates usually embark on the most punishing part of their campaign schedules. Riordan has done many radio interviews by telephone, and aides said he was keeping up a frenetic pace of fund-raising behind closed doors.

Jones, meanwhile, hopscotched from the Central Coast to San Diego and the Inland Empire. He delivered a selective and decidedly negative overview of Riordan’s eight years as Los Angeles mayor, concluding: “It is a record of mismanagement that Gray Davis will use to destroy the Republican Party if our nominee is Dick Riordan.”

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