Mayor’s Race Gets Its First Television Ad

With the Los Angeles mayoral election five weeks away, the campaign to capture the public’s attention starts in earnest today, as Sherman Oaks lawyer Bob Hertzberg becomes the first candidate to begin advertising on television.

The top mayoral hopefuls are expected to spend millions on television ads, the main vehicle for reaching Los Angeles voters. The spots will raise the profile of a campaign that has yet to draw wide public interest and are certain to influence the outcome of the March 8 election.

Hertzberg’s 30-second spot opens the television competition on a positive note. It highlights the former state Assembly speaker’s major pledges: to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District, ease traffic by banning rush-hour road work and hire new police officers without raising taxes.

But it also follows months of Hertzberg attacks on Mayor James K. Hahn, who is running for reelection. And it comes as Hertzberg advisors say he is mailing tens of thousands of glossy eight-page fliers telling voters that the city needs “more cops -- not more free cars for City Hall staff or multimillion-dollar public relations contracts to promote the mayor’s political career.”

Hertzberg’s decision to start TV advertising before his rivals reflects the main strategic challenge he faces as one of the least known of the well-financed candidates: He hopes to introduce himself to voters on his own terms before Hahn or the other candidates do it for him.

Hertzberg strategist John Shallman said the ad would show “that he has ideas to move this city in a new direction.”

“We believe that it’s important for voters to know early that there’s a real alternative to this do-nothing mayor,” he said.

The early advertising also enables Hertzberg to reach out to voters citywide before absentee balloting begins. Next Monday is the first day to apply for vote-by-mail ballots.

“You want to try to reach these people,” said Arnold Steinberg, a Republican strategist who advised Richard Riordan in his successful 1993 run for mayor.

Hertzberg’s move is not without risk. Given the city’s limits on campaign contributions and spending, he could wind up short of cash in the last few weeks of the race just as his rivals reach peak levels of TV advertising.

Hahn media strategist Bill Carrick called Hertzberg’s ad purchase “too little, too early.”

“We’ve seen this before in the past when people panic, buy time too early, at low levels, and then don’t have enough advertising time at the end,” he said. “I think at the end of the day, they’ll probably regret they spent this money early.”

Hertzberg bought a week of advertising time on broadcast and cable television for roughly $250,000, Shallman said.

Hertzberg’s opening television ad could prove problematic for his opponents, particularly Hahn. Strategists for several campaigns believe that any inroads that Hertzberg makes in expanding his most likely voting base -- Valley voters, Jews and Republicans -- would come at Hahn’s expense.

Yet if Hahn were to start running ads that criticize Hertz- berg, (the mayor’s advisors have been caustic in their public remarks), he could trigger a drop in his own popularity.

“Whenever you go on the attack, you run the risk of hurting yourself,” Steinberg said.

Carrick said Hertzberg’s ads would not affect the Hahn campaign’s plans. He also took issue with Hertzberg’s main campaign themes, which are the focus of both his television spot and the mailing. Specifically, Carrick said Hertzberg opposed a school district breakup and supported higher taxes when he was in the Legislature.

Hertzberg denies pushing for higher taxes.

“It’s part of this whole redo of Bob Hertzberg,” Carrick said. “I mean we’re all supposed to have amnesia.”

As for the attack on Hahn in the mailing, Carrick said: “It’s preposterous for him to be giving anybody lectures on ethics. This is a guy who was taking thousands of dollars from Enron and then cozying up to them during the energy crisis.”

David Doak, challenger Antonio Villaraigosa’s media strategist, said the Eastside City Council member would also stick to his plans to wait until later in the campaign to begin television advertising.

“Our candidate is better known and better liked than anyone else in the field, and it provides us with the luxury of not having to do early television to get in the race,” Doak said.

Two other candidates, City Councilman Bernard Parks and state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sun Valley), have not raised enough money to run extensive television advertising.

But Alarcon has booked some broadcast television time for a more limited ad push in the final two weeks of the race. And Jewett Walker, manager of the Parks campaign, said the former Los Angeles police chief hopes to run some cable television advertising -- and to expand that to more costly broadcast stations if possible.

“It’s just a function of money,” he said.