Bland Role in San Diego Drama Fine With Mayor

Like the father of the bride at an expensive wedding, Mayor Dick Murphy is often overlooked in the current controversy over this city’s disputed mayoral election.

Attention from far and near has focused on Councilwoman Donna Frye, whose write-in candidacy captured more votes election day than Murphy or county Supervisor Ron Roberts.

But 5,500 people who wrote in Frye’s name did not darken the oval on the same line. As a result, those votes are not part of the official tally, which has Murphy the winner by 2,108 votes.

Frye supporters are preparing a possible lawsuit to persuade a judge that the state law requiring darkened ovals is less important than the recognition of voters’ intent.

For much of the media, Frye remains “the story” and Murphy a bit player. If this bothers him, he is not letting on.

Frye is a maverick, a “surfer chick,” a gadfly turned politician. She has a colorful personal history and an often-endearing way of expressing herself, including her call for a return of the “aloha spirit” to San Diego.

Murphy is none of those things and has none of Frye’s pizazz. She hugs, he shakes hands. She’s Sierra Club, he’s Rotary.

He’s earnest, cordial, detail-oriented, a straight-A student from the Midwest from his button-down-collar blue shirts to his oxblood loafers. He sees politics as a calling, not a crusade.

“I am not a flamboyant, charismatic politician, so I’m not surprised that the out-of-town press has little interest in me,” he said matter-of-factly during an interview at City Hall.

Frye, 52, a Democrat, has a perpetual tan from years at the beach. She and her husband, legendary surfer Skip Frye, own a surfboard shop.

Murphy, 62, a Republican, is suburban and square and lives in a modestly upscale neighborhood far from the water. A remake of “Leave It to Beaver” could be filmed there. Murphy and his wife, Jan, have three grown children, all graduates of good colleges and launched on solid careers.

Murphy believes in rules, schedules and incremental change. Big pronouncements make him nervous.

He listed 10 goals when he first ran for mayor in 2000 and has stuck to them, despite calls to be more aggressive in tackling the city’s $2-billion pension deficit and the legal, political and financial problems it has spawned.

“Bold, dramatic stands are often counterproductive,” he said.

Frye’s resume is a bumpy road: a failed first marriage, recovery from alcoholism, a series of low-paying jobs and years in the political wilderness pestering officials on environmental issues.

Her first taste of City Hall came a decade ago, when she pleaded with council members to combat water pollution and was brushed off.

Murphy’s life story is straight from an establishment script: bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois, MBA from Harvard, law degree from Stanford, a hitch in the Army (as an officer, naturally) and then jobs at Bank of America and a blue-chip law firm.

He was appointed to the City Council in 1981, sponsored by then-Mayor Pete Wilson. From there, it was a short jump in 1985 to a gubernatorial appointment to the San Diego bench, where he spent 15 years.

As a judge, he was a stickler for procedure: Woe betide a lawyer in his court who was late or unprepared. In murder cases, he imposed the death penalty without reluctance or anger.

“He looks at home in a sweater,” said Tim McClain, editor of San Diego Metropolitan magazine. “He’s un-dynamic, to be sure.”

When his only opponent was Roberts, Murphy’s supporters believed that the so-called likability factor was their secret weapon and that voters would prefer the mild, low-key Murphy to the hard-charging, combative supervisor.

In San Diego, bland sells. Wilson, the most successful politician in city history, was among its least colorful. Wilson loyalists even made a cult of his one-dimensional personality.

“Pete is a pair of brown shoes in a tuxedo world” was a common refrain.

Much the same is said of Murphy, although there are differences: Wilson’s blandness masked vaulting political ambition and a talent for hardball politicking.

“I have no political aspirations beyond being mayor,” Murphy said.

In fact, he initially said he would not seek reelection, and changed his mind only when boosters said they would take care of fundraising and campaigning details, the sort of activity that Murphy views as a distraction from his mayoral duties.

Murphy skipped the Republican National Convention this year -- the kind of event that draws other big-city mayors in hopes of media coverage. He had too much work to do, he said.

These days, he is untroubled by the dispute that pits the oval requirement against the intent of the voters.

The Frye voters who did not darken the ovals did not follow the rules; their votes should not count. End of story, as far as Murphy is concerned.

“Dick does not feel comfortable deviating from a script,” said attorney Michael McDade, who was a Wilson insider and chief of staff to former Mayor Roger Hedgecock.

The dispute over the ballots is not Murphy’s kind of fight, McDade said, adding: “This is guerrilla warfare. Dick is more of an English general. He prefers sending his troops marching to war in straight rows.”

Even some supporters wish that Murphy had more outward passion and a willingness to take risks. The city’s pension debacle, for example, may require a confrontation with public employee labor unions that Murphy has sought to avoid, preferring negotiation and compromise.

John Hawkins, owner of Cloud-9 Shuttle, said he and some other Murphy backers on the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce plan to talk to the mayor about raising his political temperature.

“I really hope he receives the message in the way we mean it: We’re behind him,” Hawkins said. “We’re his soldiers; so don’t be afraid to send in the paratroopers. We want him to be our Eisenhower and get mad on occasion.”

During last year’s wildfires, as flames raced across the county for nearly a week, Murphy held multiple news conferences to report the progress of firefighters in saving homes.

Wearing a yellow Fire Department slicker, he was unwavering in his message: It’s a dangerous situation, but we have good people working on it.

No one would confuse Murphy with Rudolph Giuliani’s commanding performance in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, but Murphy’s steady message of “Don’t panic; we’ll get through this” was later praised.

The same approach, however, has not worked as well in explaining the city’s financial problems. “The public has never gotten their arms around the pension thing, so it’s very frustrating to them,” he said.

There also is a stubbornness to Murphy and it emerges from time to time.

Caught between shoring up the pension plan and pushing ahead for a downtown library, he chose the latter. “I’m resolute on the library,” he said. “I refuse to give up on my vision for San Diego.”

He also refused to distance himself from three council members indicted on federal charges for allegedly taking bribes from a strip joint. Recently he appointed one of them, Michael Zucchet, as deputy mayor.

Lately, the closest Murphy has come to anger was when a group of protesters camped on the sidewalk in front of his house for several weeks, accusing him of not doing enough for the homeless population.

Another husband and father might have taken physical action. Another mayor might have called the police to move the protesters out. Murphy did neither.

“That would have been counterproductive,” he said.

Though his family found the activists unsettling, Murphy just waited for the protesters to finally leave.

His lack of flamboyance has been a kind of gentle joke at City Hall, brought up by reporters at news conferences and even by City Council members during their inaugural speeches.

“If the only criticism I ever got was that I’m boring,” Murphy said, “I could live with that.”