Davis Revives Ad Attacking Simon

By Matea Gold

Oct. 26, 2002 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

A week after yanking all his television commercials attacking Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon Jr., Gov. Gray Davis quietly began rerunning an ad Friday that criticizes Simon’s service on the board of a failed savings and loan.

Davis political strategist Garry South said last week that the governor would run only positive commercials for the rest of the campaign because he was confident in his lead over Simon, who has stumbled repeatedly since the Republican primary.

On Friday, Simon’s campaign officials seized on their opponent’s return to negative advertising as evidence that Davis’ upbeat tactic had failed.

It “backfired on him, so he’s gone back to what he tried earlier, which is attacking,” said Simon senior strategist Ed Rollins.

But South said the governor remains confident of victory, and he disputed suggestions that the margin between the two was shrinking. He noted that the Davis campaign is still running two positive spots.

The Davis campaign put a negative commercial back on the air in response to several recent Simon ads attacking the governor’s fund-raising and handling of the state’s energy crisis, South said.

“We will stay mostly positive, but we’re not going to let this guy smack us around without reminding voters of who he is,” South said, adding: “You have to do everything in a campaign within your power to protect your lead.”

Simon said Davis’ return to negative ads demonstrated his inability to win with positive advertising.

“Obviously, Mr. Davis is worried he’s going to lose, and he should be,” Simon told reporters after addressing the state National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People convention in Burbank Friday.

Earlier, Simon visited three classrooms at Harbor Summit Elementary School in downtown San Diego, which serves homeless children in an industrial neighborhood just south of the city’s glistening high-rises.

The candidate quizzed the students about their Halloween costumes and favorite candy, and told them he planned to dress as a vampire and escort his children trick-or-treating in Los Angeles.

Afterward, Simon told reporters that, if elected, he would create more schools like Harbor Summit by giving campuses more control and developing public-private partnerships.

“Education is going to be very important in a Simon administration, and I believe education is one area where Mr. Davis has fallen down,” he said, standing at the edge of a playground full of squealing 5- and 6-year-olds. “We have not made the kind of progress that we should have made.”

South said the governor has made steady progress in improving California’s schools.

“No one is going to believe [Simon] is going to be better on education,” he said.

During his speech to the NAACP, Simon promised that he would improve the school system and create more jobs. He charged the governor with taking black voters for granted.

“Are African American children really getting a better education in our public schools than they were four years ago?” Simon asked.

“Do you have faith in our elected leaders to look out for your interests rather than just for those of big-name campaign contributors?”

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, who addressed the audience of 100 people after Simon, said the Republican candidate would not fight for issues important to blacks.

“He says he’s a proud conservative, and he is,” Bustamante said. “If you like Newt, Ronnie and Pete, you’re going to love Bill.”

Also on Friday, the former head of a police organization pictured giving a check to Davis in a 1998 photo sued Simon for claiming that the exchange happened in the lieutenant governor’s office. That turned out to be false, and Simon expressed regret about the incident.

But Al Angele, the onetime head of the California Organization of Police and Sheriffs, said he never received a letter of apology Simon said he sent him. Angele, a Davis appointee to the Board of Prison Terms, filed a $100-million defamation suit against the candidate, claiming the false charge has caused him emotional distress.

Simon attorney Neil Shapiro dismissed the suit as baseless, saying the GOP candidate didn’t know the charge was untrue when he made it. Shapiro said he expects the suit to be thrown out.

Simon himself called the lawsuit “a political stunt engineered by the Davis campaign.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Davis holds wide campaign cash lead

As the governor’s race entered the final stretch, Gov. Gray Davis had 10 times more cash in his campaign treasury than Republican challenger Bill Simon Jr. The war chest will allow Democrat Davis to spend heavily on TV ads in the campaign’s closing days. Figures from the latest reporting period:

Gray Davis campaign

Amount raised: $3,462,597

Amount spent: $12,226,414

Cash on hand: $12,102,019

Top contributors:

CA State Council of Service Employees -- $300,000

Communications Workers of America -- $200,000

Professional Engineers in CA Government PAC -- $120,000

District Council of Iron Workers -- $100,000

David J. Shimmon -- $100,000

Jerry Perenchio -- $100,000

California School Employees Assn. -- $100,000