Flurry of PR Sends Chill Through GOP Candidates

By PATT MORRISON

Dec. 17, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

You want a white Christmas? You got one.

Nearly three months before the primary election, a white-out December blizzard of faxes and e-mails has been whirling among the Republican candidates for governor, accusing, demurring, thrusting and parrying.

They’ve bickered over how to interpret poll numbers.

They’ve gone back and forth over debates. The Big Three--Secretary of State Bill Jones, former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan and Bill Simon Jr.--agreed to debate in January and again in February, and then Riordan told reporters he might consider a third debate, but then his campaign said firmly, no, we said two, and two it is.

Riordan, an ardent bicyclist, accused Gov. Gray Davis of contributing to the fat-kid epidemic in California by so ignoring his own Council on Physical Fitness and Sports that it closed up shop last month to reinvent itself as a nonprofit. Simon was right behind, airing his concern and touting his family’s “Sound Body/Sound Mind” program, founded in 1999 on the premise that fitter kids make better scholars.

And Simon and Riordan both announced their opposition to Proposition 45, which would extend legislative term limits, whereupon Jones’ campaign whipped out a press release quoting Riordan as saying something rather different, that “current term limits on elected officials is not a magic formula. Legislators may serve people better by continuing their current term or extending their terms. I am open to debate on this subject.” Jones, who is not open to debate in his opposition to altering term limits, declares this to be a “clear indication that Mayor Riordan is not ready for prime time.” Oh yeah? retorted Riordan’s people; so why did Jones once contribute $2,500 to a committee “committed to defeating” the original term-limits initiative?

And a press release finally issued forth from the Simon campaign, wherein that candidate advised his two opponents to end their “dueling press conferences” and “stop squabbling and start focusing on the critical issues facing California.”

March, the month of the primary, is the month that comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb--not, the primary winner will hope, like a lamb to the slaughter.

Ah, Bread--the Staff of Political Life

In its feature called “the daily bread,” Sacramento’s Capitol Morning Report notes that two galas last week celebrating the birthday of Gov. Gray Davis must have made it a memorable one. At the San Francisco event, the top contributor ticket prices were $25,000, which got the gift-giver five great seats at dinner, photos, a cocktail reception and an ad in a tribute book. At the Sacramento event, a $25,000 “sponsor” got a place in the photo line, at the VIP reception and an ad in the “tribute book.”

The governor’s 59th birthday is Dec. 26, a day celebrated in England as “Boxing Day,” which has nothing to do with pugilism, but with a tradition of giving Christmas boxes to staff and employees. Davis’ campaign did not say how much the birthday parties raised, but at those prices, it might take a box to haul it all away.

Shocking Swapping in Orange County

“It’s just a scheme by two politicians to swap jobs.”

So begins a ballot argument against a new Orange County charter whose sole purpose is to deny Gov. Gray Davis the chance to fill vacancies on the Board of Supervisors.

Under state law, unless a county charter says otherwise, a governor may appoint anyone of his or her choosing to fill an empty place at a supervisorial table, and Orange County, as a general law county, abides by state law.

That terrifies Orange County political elite, afraid that a Democratic governor will crack their GOP clubhouse with an appointment of his own party--hence the ballot measure.

But the “job swap” argument against the measure refers to board member Todd Spitzer and Assemblyman Bill Campbell. Campbell is termed out and wants Spitzer’s job, and Spitzer, as we said, is angling for Campbell’s.

As it stands, if Spitzer were to leave Orange County for Sacramento, Davis would choose someone to fill the balance of Spitzer’s term. Under the Spitzer/Campbell measure, county supervisors would have to hold a special election within 70 days to put someone new in the empty chair.

“Say No to the political elite,” the argument ends. “Don’t let them do an end run on term limits.” The men who wrote those lines are attorney Richard Taylor and GOP consultant Dave Ellis, who split with Spitzer and Campbell on another matter--the only matter that seems to matter in Orange County these days: whether to put an airport on the old El Toro Marine base. Spitzer and Campbell vote nay, Taylor and Ellis vote yea.

So when they say it isn’t about money--it’s about money. And when they say it isn’t about the airport--it’s about the airport.

Our Lady of Spring Street

Janice Hahn, the newly elected Los Angeles City Council member from the Harbor area and sister of the mayor, got her council colleagues to approve unanimously her proposal for weekly invocations from religious and other inspirational figures, including poets and athletes, rather than the monthly invocations given heretofore.

It raised a minor kerfuffle when Hahn circulated an invitation throughout the council’s chambers inviting members and staff to events surrounding the council going on location for a meeting in Wilmington. The events included a service at a Wilmington Catholic church, and advised churchgoers to park at a local museum and “we will provide a shuttle to the church.”

The “we” raised the church eyebrow and the state eyebrow, but not of course together: Would the city be paying to drive people to church? A Hahn spokesman hastened to reassert the separation: it was not a city shuttle, nor did the city pay for it; a constituent donated the use of a van, which ferried council members Nick Pacheco and Dennis Zine and a few staffers to church before council members breakfasted en masse with the leadership of the city’s first two certified neighborhood councils.

Amen.

Quick Hits

* L.A.’s city attorney, Rocky Delgadillo, spoke last week to a breakfast meeting sponsored by three Jewish legal groups--one of them Bet Tzedek, whose longtime executive director was none other than Mike Feuer, the man Delgadillo beat to get his job.

* Republican political advisor Stu Spencer, who broke into the big time launching Ronald Reagan’s governorship in 1966, this year celebrated his 40th annual “Wheelspinners” holiday party, a political gossip-fest of GOP politicos and advisors and--in an evening of truce--the press.

* In a decision ending Brian Setencich’s right to vote or hold public office, a federal appeals court upheld the tax-evasion conviction of the man who served briefly as Assembly speaker in 1995.

* Among $2 million in “Rural e-Commerce” state grants to 17 nonprofit, government and educational institutions is $250,000 earmarked for the Milken Institute of Santa Monica, the economic think tank established by former junk-bond tycoon Michael Milken.

* Where Richard Riordan played Christmas carols on the piano at the annual City Hall Christmas party for the press, Jim Hahn, at the newly renovated Getty House, gave his top 10 reasons why aides tried to talk him out of giving the party, number one being, “They were convinced that my top-10 list would not distract you from noticing that the events of Sept. 11 cut deeply into the alcohol budget.”

* Campaign & Elections magazine--don’t all of you rush out to subscribe at once--has bestowed upon Gray Davis’ Web site, https://www.graydavis.com, its “Site of the Month” honors for showing “a sense of humor when it comes to politics.”

Word Perfect

“The city attorney’s office has a long-standing policy of not prosecuting any members of the most famous band in the world, except of course for Ringo.”

--Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, speaking drolly after it emerged that the family of ex-Beatle George Harrison had put down a nonexistent address as the place of Harrison’s recent death in L.A. Deliberately filing a false address on a death certificate is a misdemeanor. Three years ago, a spokesman for ex-Beatle Paul McCartney’s wife, Linda, told the world that she had died in Santa Barbara when in fact she died in Arizona.

Columnist Patt Morrison’s e-mail is [email protected]. This week’s contributors include Mark Z. Barabak, Dan Morain, Jean O. Pasco and Beth Shuster.