Fiedler : Out of Office Does Not Mean Out of Sight in the Case of Northridge Conservative; : Some Say Her Heart Is in the Ring, Even If Her Hat Isn’t

When former Rep. Bobbi Fiedler lost last June’s Republican U.S. Senate primary, it appeared that the curtain had suddenly dropped on the stormy political career of the suburban housewife who went to Washington.

After all, she had relinquished her “safe” congressional seat to run for the Senate. She had finished a disappointing fourth and won a mere 15% of the vote in her San Fernando Valley base. And, although eventually exonerated, she had suffered through a nationally publicized indictment for allegedly trying to illegally induce state Sen. Ed Davis to leave the race.

No wonder, then, that one pundit wrote: “Her raucous, populist political life may have ended as the U.S. Senate primary ballots were counted.”

But nearly a year after the primary debacle, those who expected the combative Fiedler to go quietly into the political night appear mistaken. In fact, a 1989 Los Angeles mayoral race may be in the offing.

Here, for instance, is Fiedler publicly blasting Metro Rail as a boondoggle that “will never be built.” There she is at a news conference joining city school board candidate Barbara Romey in denouncing “the school board’s backdoor effort to bring back forced busing,” the issue that launched Fiedler’s political career. Here she is again, encouraging a group of residents who have gathered to fight prostitution on Sepulveda Boulevard.

Highly Visible

The Northridge conservative is most visible, however, in about 630,000 living rooms across Southern California twice a week on KABC-TV’s top-rated 5 p.m. news show. Since January, she has been verbally dueling liberal commentator Bill Press on issues ranging from a proposed tax to add police in South-Central Los Angeles to surrogate motherhood.

Always the consummate broadcast politician, Fiedler is reaping the kind of media exposure few public figures could readily afford. And she’s getting paid to do it.

A year from now, no one will ask, “What’s Bobbi Fiedler doing these days?” said Los Angeles-based political consultant Allan Hoffenblum. “You turn on Channel 7 and you see her.”

Adds Fiedler: “I get a pretty good reaction from my constituency base, so to speak.”

Fiedler’s high profile is augmented by the behind-the-scenes role of her partner, Paul Clarke, who is also a paid campaign consultant for Romey and City Councilman Hal Bernson. The media-savvy Clarke, formerly Fiedler’s campaign manager, top congressional aide and house mate, became her husband Feb. 16. Each had been married once before.

“Bobbi and I have been doing things as a team for 10 years,” said Clarke, a 41-year-old former radio reporter with an impish wit who met Fiedler during the anti-busing movement and who now works alongside her in a cramped office at their three-bedroom home. “So it’s a little hard to do something totally separate from each other.”

Time of Transition

Fiedler, who left Congress in early January, is at a crossroads. Or, as Roberta Weintraub, a Los Angeles school board member and friend, put it, “a lull between the storms.”

Fiedler had hoped to join several corporate boards of directors but said the firms that made her offers were too small and paid too little. She is lobbying for National Technical Systems, a Los Angeles engineering firm that has defense contracts, and Conejo Circuits Inc., a Ventura County circuit-board manufacturer, but says she’s not seeking more lobbying clients. She receives honoraria for speaking engagements, although she won’t disclose her rates. And she appears on KABC-TV for three to five minutes, usually on Mondays and Wednesdays, but she won’t discuss the terms of her contract.

Since leaving Washington, she says, she has also enjoyed more time with her two young grandsons. Despite her graying pageboy, she only recently turned 50, a relatively young age for a woman whom friends and foes alike call “a political animal.”

Amid much media speculation and urging by supporters, Fiedler says she is weighing a return to elective politics--less than four months after she cleaned out her congressional desk.

“It’s something I think about,” she said with typical earnestness during a recent interview, conducted with Clarke at her side. “And I have been thinking about it a lot.”

The office most on her mind these days is mayor. Though she says she’s six months away from seriously weighing a 1989 candidacy, when she discusses Tom Bradley, who has announced he’ll seek a fifth term, Fiedler sounds like she can’t wait to take him on.

“I think he’s vulnerable,” she said. “He has a certain amount of personal popularity because of mere exposure over a lot of years, but I think that’s wearing thin at this point, and people no longer feel a strong sense of loyalty to him. Personally, I have always been appalled by his lack of leadership.”

She reeled off a litany of charges against Democrat Bradley: He “sat on the fence” during the school busing battles. He has “diverted” too much to the downtown area--his stronghold--to the detriment of other areas, including parts of the Valley. He is “the world’s greatest ribbon cutter, a ceremonial mayor,” she said.

Of Fiedler’s remarks, Deputy Mayor Tom K. Houston said: “We could not possibly take these comments by Bobbi Fiedler seriously. She has a great lack of credibility.”

Another top Bradley aide, who asked not to be named, said of Fiedler: “What has she done all these years except for being negative in everything she touched? The only thing you ever hear is criticism about other people and other issues.”

If she runs, Fiedler would expect to attract citywide large numbers of Valley followers and conservatives and women. But, despite this base of support and her ability to generate media attention, she would face an uphill battle, various political observers and participants say.

Bradley is seen as a formidable incumbent. Democrats hold a 2-to-1 advantage among Los Angeles’ 1.3 million registered voters, an indication of the city’s liberal leanings even though the mayoral race is nonpartisan. Further, Fiedler’s critics say, she would have limited appeal in the black community and the growing Asian-American and Latino communities.

“If she thinks she can be mayor, she’s really mistaken,” said Rep. Howard L. Berman, a Panorama City Democrat who is expected to be a key supporter of City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky for mayor. “Los Angeles is too Democratic, and there are enough people who don’t like her positions or her party.”

Berman added that Fiedler would be a viable candidate for other offices, such as county supervisor or a return to Congress if those seats open up.

If she opts to re-enter the fray and forgoes the mayoral race, she says “it’s possible” that she would seek statewide office. She leaves the door ajar for a return to Congress--”not right now”--but rules out a state Senate or Assembly bid.

Her local options appear limited, at least temporarily, by the presence in her district of Councilman Bernson and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, fellow Republicans she says she would not oppose. She would consider a state or federal appointment but says she is not seeking one.

The underdog role has never deterred Fiedler. Riding the crest of heated opposition to mandatory busing to achieve desegregation, she defeated pro-busing Board of Education President Robert Doctor in 1977 to win a citywide school board seat. She made the issue paramount again in 1980 when she edged out 10-term Democratic Rep. James C. Corman.

After three terms, to seek the Senate nomination, she left a congressional seat redrawn in 1981 to give her a solidly Republican district. Ed Zschau won that race and lost to incumbent Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston in November.

But her victories predated “the incident,” as her brain trust called the indictment. What lingering impact, if any, it has had on the public image of the citizen activist turned politician remains to be seen.

The Davis Incident

In January, 1986, the Los Angeles County Grand Jury accused Fiedler and Clarke of trying to bribe rival San Fernando Valley-area candidate Davis to drop out of the Senate race with an offer of $100,000 to help cover Davis’ campaign debts. A judge subsequently threw out the indictments as groundless. But the publicity changed the chemistry of the 13-candidate GOP field. It also left Fiedler, renowned for her toughness, bitter.

“I feel I was very unfairly treated by a very hard process,” she said, leaning forward in her antique-filled living room, her hands clasped. “But it’s somewhat like a death in the family. Over a period of time, those feelings subside, as long as you’re being productive. . . . I’m really in the healing process.”

Bernson, one of Fiedler’s closest friends, said: “It’s still very near to her and still a very sore spot.”

She’s not alone. “I was 100% with Bobbi,” said Shirley Whitney, a veteran GOP activist and Republican chairwoman of the 43rd Assembly District. “I don’t believe there was anything wrong in anything they did. It was a very unfortunate situation, and it shouldn’t have happened.”

There is also the nagging question of what might have been. “I believe I would have been one of the top two vote-getters,” Fiedler responded when asked how her million-dollar campaign would have fared without the indictment. “I could have won.”

Dispassionate analysts agree that Fiedler’s primary campaign would at least have been competitive without the stigma of the Davis controversy.

And she and Clarke insist that she would have beaten Cranston if she had been the GOP nominee because they would have run a harder-hitting campaign than Zschau conducted. Further, Fiedler, who is Jewish, maintains that she would have eroded Cranston’s large Jewish base.

“I won two campaigns just like it,” she said, alluding to the Doctor and Corman upsets.

Nevertheless, Fiedler said she doesn’t believe the indictment would hamstring her in a future race. Arnold Steinberg, her longtime pollster, said that, although the indictment may cause some voters to be wary of Fiedler, she can dispel the doubts by “being positive, accomplishing things and being herself.”

No Comment

Fiedler refuses to discuss Davis or even mention his name. But her silence is telling. Asked how she felt about him, her eyes narrowed: “I don’t have anything to say about him.”

The question is not academic. The prospect looms of another high-stakes clash with the former Los Angeles police chief, albeit indirectly. Fiedler and Clarke say they will actively support Assemblywoman Cathie Wright, a Simi Valley Republican, if she challenges Davis in the 1988 GOP Senate primary. Wright, a Fiedler ally, says she is considering the race and cites the Davis-Fiedler split as the reason.

Davis, 70, says Clarke and Fiedler have already fired the opening salvo. In a controversial 11th-hour mailing that Clarke produced before the April 14 school board election, candidate Romey said one of her opponents, George St. Johns, had been endorsed by an unnamed community leader who was a “prominent gay-rights supporter.”

The reference was to Davis, who voted several years ago to prohibit job discrimination against homosexuals. Davis, a law-and-order conservative who backed St. Johns, said: “Calling me a gay-rights supporter was utterly dishonest.” For instance, he said, he opposes gay marriages and would not permit gays to adopt a baby.

St. Johns was joined by fellow candidates Bunny Field and Julie Korenstein at a pre-election news conference, where the three said Romey’s mailer had misstated or distorted their views. Clarke responded by calling the mailing “fair comment” and accurate. Romey and Korenstein are now embroiled in a June 2 runoff.

Ads at Issue

Clarke, who is generally respected as a political tactician, is also no stranger to campaign controversy.

During the closing weeks of the Senate primary, for instance, he aired radio ads for Fiedler featuring President Reagan saying: “Do me a favor on Election Day--send Bobbi back to Washington.” Reagan was neutral in the GOP contest; the message had been taped at a rally in Fiedler’s 1984 general election campaign.

Clarke called it “the audio equivalent of everyone having their picture with Reagan in their brochures.” Republican opponents, including Antonovich and Davis, said it was an unethical attempt to mislead voters.

And Fiedler herself remains a lightning rod, in her own words, someone who engenders strong feelings in others. “At least they know I stand for something,” she said.

In addition to the anti-busing battle, she has championed opposition to Metro Rail and has been an outspoken critic of the Southern California Rapid Transit District. Generally conservative on economic and defense matters, she nonetheless supported publicly funded abortions, the equal rights amendment and tougher child-support laws. Though a strong Ronald Reagan backer, she is more pragmatist than hard-right ideologue, Fiedler watchers say.

What she represents is a matter of intense dispute.

Base of Support

Former City Councilman Bob Ronka, an East Valley Democrat, said Fiedler remains popular in part because “many homeowners, particularly in the Valley, who don’t consider themselves politically partisan, believe her to be first a concerned citizen and a politician second.”

Former opponent Doctor, who is a professor at California State University, Northridge, offers a different assessment. “Her appeal seems to be to the worst elements of the human spirit,” he said. “Each election is sort of a referendum not on ideas but on some emotional ‘crisis’ facing the general public.”

Fiedler has not forgotten Doctor, either. She recently complained to a reporter about the press’ lack of interest in a news conference she held during the 1977 contest to accuse Doctor and the rest of the board of using “Indochinese brainwashing techniques” in dealing with the public.

Whether she climbs back into the ring as a candidate or remains merely a commentator and activist, Fiedler is sure to retain her pugnacious style, befitting the daughter of an ex-prizefighter. But most of those interviewed in recent weeks surmise that her name will appear on the ballot again, for one office or another, because she remains so politically charged.

“It’s something that would be hard for anyone to get out of their system,” said Rep. Elton Gallegly, a Simi Valley Republican who succeeded Fiedler in Congress this year. “It’s not something you just get over on any given Tuesday.”