L.A. ELECTIONS / 5TH DISTRICT : Dueling Consultants Match Wits in Hard-Fought Runoff : Rick Taylor, master of ‘going negative,’ injects aggression into Yaroslavsky effort.

Behind 13 percentage points in the April primary, Barbara Yaroslavsky’s bid to fill the 5th District City Council seat once held by her husband, Zev, seemed in trouble.

Despite her name recognition and a fund-raising lead of at least $100,000 over all her opponents, Yaroslavsky came in a distant second to Mike Feuer, a relatively unknown former director of a legal-aid agency.

To win in the June runoff, the campaign needed new life, a change in direction, a tougher, more aggressive tack.

Enter Rick Taylor, a longtime Yaroslavsky friend and street-savvy political consultant who by his own admission favors only one campaign strategy: the full-throttle attack.

Since Taylor joined Yaroslavsky’s camp in April, she has used campaign mailers and public appearances to launch bruising attacks on Feuer in an attempt to paint him as a liberal extremist who is willing to say anything to win votes--charges that Feuer adamantly rejects.

As the hotly contested race nears Election Day, much of the focus has turned to Taylor and the campaign’s new, combative tone. Although he insists that the strategy is as much Yaroslavsky’s idea as his own, other consultants and former political opponents say the style is typical Taylor: creative, aggressive and sometimes malicious.

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Even critics concede that Taylor is a talented, seasoned strategist who brings boundless energy and sharp focus to a campaign.

“He’s won some good races,” said head Feuer strategist Larry Levine, who has known Taylor for more than 20 years. “You don’t last in this business as long he has without knowing the business.”

But others, including former opponents, use such terms as “erratic,” “annoying” and “immature” to describe Taylor.

A stocky, mustachioed man with a self-deprecating sense of humor, Taylor makes no apology for running an aggressive, even combative, campaign. But he says he always abides by two rules: “I never lie and I never break the law.”

But critics say he is willing to play fast and loose with the truth.

When Taylor worked on the unsuccessful campaign of City Council candidate Tom LaBonge in 1993, he helped create a mailer suggesting that the son of former school board member and City Council candidate Jackie Goldberg was driven to school in a limousine paid for by the district--an assertion Goldberg vehemently denied.

“They put out some sleazy, misleading mailers,” said Sharon Delugach, who worked on Goldberg’s campaign and is now her chief of staff.

LaBonge lost that race but Taylor stands by the accusation.

In the race with Feuer, Levine said Taylor lied recently when he accused Feuer of planting a spy in Yaroslavsky’s camp and accepting stolen poll information.

“The Yaroslavsky campaign has done some things that I would not do,” Levine said. “The total fabrication of information goes a step beyond anything that I would do.”

For his part, Taylor defends his strategy and his campaign literature, saying he simply is trying to define Feuer for the voters.

“They may not like what I say but they can’t say it isn’t true,” he said. “At least they can’t prove me wrong.”

Some have lauded Taylor for employing creative campaign tactics. But others call it simple gimmickry.

For example, when Taylor worked on the campaign of school board candidate Mark Slavkin in 1989, the campaign hired a man dressed in a chicken costume to appear at a fund-raiser for incumbent Alan Gershman, to challenge him to a debate.

“It was one of the most hysterical scenes,” said Taylor, describing Gershman running down the street, chased by the chicken as television news cameras captured the event.

Slavkin won, and Gershman failed to see the humor in the incident. “I have never seen anything so negative--I would not participate in it,” he said after the race.

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Some critics have accused Taylor of being immature--a charge that may go to his offbeat sense of humor and his proclivity for wearing jeans and tennis shoes even in formal settings.

He says, however: “I’m a 41-year-old guy and I think I’m pretty mature for my age.”

Taylor entered his first political battle when he was 18 years old at Venice High School, when he grew a scraggly beard to challenge a school district dress code that prohibited facial hair, T-shirts and shorts on campus. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, Taylor’s challenge forced the district to repeal the dress code.

A few years later, as he faced the prospect of being drafted into the Vietnam War, he dropped out of Santa Monica College to work on the presidential campaign of George McGovern, who Taylor hoped would end the war. McGovern lost but due to a family crisis, Taylor wasn’t drafted.

Addicted to the excitement of the rough-and-tumble world of campaign politics, Taylor spent the next two decades working on dozens of campaigns throughout the country, including Tom Bradley’s successful bid for mayor of Los Angeles, a Senate race in Vermont and the campaign for the minister of transportation in Canada.

“Not bad for a guy with a 2.3 grade-point average from Venice High,” Taylor likes to say.

In the mid- and late 1970s, he took a hiatus from the campaigns to manage the council offices of Zev Yaroslavsky and Robert Farrell. He also headed the public affairs operation for council President John Ferraro.

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Most recently, Taylor ran Ferraro’s successful City Council reelection bid in April and worked on the campaign to win voter approval of eight charter amendments that supporters say will improve efficiency and accountability at City Hall. Although one of the measures had been rejected by voters four times in the past 15 years, all eight were adopted.

Some observers said the success of the amendments was largely due to the overwhelming popularity of the measure’s main backer, Mayor Richard Riordan. But others said Taylor’s energy and ideas played a significant role. He produced the motto and logo for the campaign: a picture of City Hall wrapped in red tape with the message: “Cut the Red Tape.”

“Someone had to package it,” said Robin Kramer, a top Riordan aide. “They say ideas need wings but they also need feet. He provided the feet.”

Although Riordan is a Republican, Taylor said he normally works for Democratic candidates. But even among Democrats, there are some candidates whose personal or political philosophies he couldn’t support. “I’m no mercenary,” he said.

A divorced father of two teen-age boys, Taylor said despite the mudslinging and character attacks that have become almost commonplace in politics today, he still enjoys the fight. But most of all, he is hooked on the thrill of victory.

“Winning is an unbelievable feeling,” he said. “When I don’t enjoy it anymore, I’ll quit.”