Ad Blitz Attacks Hahn’s Record

Los Angeles mayoral challenger Antonio Villaraigosa opened the final week of campaigning Monday with a TV ad blitz attacking Mayor James K. Hahn’s record.

“We all know the things Jim Hahn is accused of doing -- corruption, grand jury investigations, subpoenas of his own records,” a narrator says in the 30-second spot. “But it’s really the things he hasn’t done that argue strongest for a change.”

The ad goes on to accuse Hahn of showing “almost no interest in improving our schools,” of breaking “his promise to hire 1,000 new police” and of being “outmaneuvered by other mayors for stem cell research jobs.” The ad also claims that Hahn “shrank from sight while others settled the MTA strike.”

On cable television, meanwhile, the Villaraigosa campaign also released two upbeat ads, one featuring an endorsement by former state Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg and another starring basketball legend Magic Johnson talking about why he supports the councilman.

The Hahn campaign continued to air an ad that accuses Villaraigosa of doing “special favors” at City Hall for Florida campaign donors. That ad went up last week in response to a scorched-earth spot by Villaraigosa that slammed Hahn for alleged corruption at City Hall.

In a sprawling city where voter interest in the race appears low, television ads are the most important, and most expensive, tool in the campaign toolbox, the primary way that campaigns have of reaching most voters.

Villaraigosa, who had raised $1.7 million more than Hahn as of the last reporting period, took to the airwaves sooner, debuting an ad April 26 that talked about education. He followed May 2 with the second, more negative ad. Hahn hit the airwaves the following day with the “special favors” spot.

Hahn campaign strategist Bill Carrick interpreted Villaraigosa’s tactic as a sign that the councilman’s campaign believes momentum is swinging away from it. A Times poll released today shows that Villaraigosa leads Hahn by 11 points, down from his 18-point lead in a Times poll last month. “The Villaraigosa people are clearly running negative ads because they think they have to,” Carrick said. “People don’t run negative ads when they think they are way ahead.”

Carrick said Villaraigosa put out the cheery cable ads “just so he can say he’s running nice ads.”

But Parke Skelton, Villaraigosa’s strategist, said the new ads are “a natural progression.” First, the campaign hit Hahn for being “paralyzed by scandal,” he said. Now, Skelton said, this ad shows “what does that mean for people?”

The new cable TV ads will be targeted to specific areas -- those with Hertzberg, who won strong support in the San Fernando valley, will air there. Spots with Johnson will run in South Los Angeles. Both will replace ads that focused on Villaraigosa’s record and featured supporters such as City Controller Laura Chick, Councilman Bernard C. Parks and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles).

Darry Sragow, a political strategist who is unaligned in this race, said Villaraigosa’s TV strategy is following a time-tested pattern: starting out positive and then going negative to raise questions about Hahn.

This third wave of ads, Sragow said, speak to the question of job performance. “To a voter ... job performance is, ‘What is the mayor doing for me?’ ” Sragow said. “Are you taking care of my needs? Preventing crime, filling potholes, creating jobs?”

Some good-government activists were not impressed.

“The big problem with it is that it just depresses people, and it depresses turnout,” said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies.

But Stern conceded that negative ads work. And in a nonpartisan campaign that features two Democrats who do not differ wildly on the issues, it is perhaps even more likely that negative ads would play a big role, some strategists said.

In a campaign appearance, meanwhile, Hahn called on Villaraigosa to persuade one of his top campaign contributors to “stop standing in the way” of a much-needed school project in the Glassell Park area.

The Los Angeles Unified School District authorized its negotiators to purchase the land for a new school for $29.6 million in March, Hahn said. That same month, Hahn said, developer Richard Meruelo “swooped in, paying just a few hundreds of thousands of dollars more for that property, denying the students and denying the school district a site for their new high school.”

Records show that Meruelo and his family have spent more than $103,000 to support Villaraigosa’s election bid. Hahn made the remarks at the city’s Cypress Park Branch Library, which is near the disputed land site. “It’s time to stand up for your constituents, it’s time to stand up for the students [and] stand up to your campaign contributor,” Hahn said.

Asked about the donations, which Hahn has highlighted before, Villaraigosa responded Monday: “I’ve said before that I don’t agree that he purchased land that could’ve gone to building a school. I know how to say no to my friends, and I will.”

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Times staff writer Daniel Hernandez contributed to this report.