“Brown, Whitman campaign offices as different as their politics”

Brown, Whitman campaign offices as different as their politics

Posted: 18 Sep 2010 07:14 PM PDT

Ten miles apart by freeway but worlds apart in other ways, the headquarters where San Fernando Valley volunteers for Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman report for phone-bank duty reflect the gubernatorial campaigns' distinct images.

If you can't guess which headquarters is the Democrats' and which is the Republicans', you need to brush up on your political stereotypes. One office is on Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills, at the former address of a real-estate firm, tucked between a church and a bank. Its beige-walled cubicles keep the volunteers' minds on their tasks, as do neatly posted instruction sheets and phone-call tallies. Visitors are greeted by a full-time receptionist. This office has been up and running since April.

The rival office is on Van Nuys Boulevard in Van Nuys, in a former video store, next to a pizza joint across a parking lot from a Lucky market. Its open space and long tables encourage volunteers to hobnob, and Groucho Marx and a terrified Janet Leigh survey the scene from a movie mural. Visitors are greeted by a sign instructing, "Please use other door." This office officially opened on Labor Day.

"This may be the nicest (campaign) office in the area," said Merlin Froyd, a Republican candidate for Congress in the 28th District, who stopped by the Woodland Hills office to make phone calls to potential supporters of Whitman's campaign for governor.

"If we had (Whitman's) money, I'm sure we'd have that, too," said Sharon Ford, a 69-year-old Valley

Glen resident, as she did her part at the Van Nuys office for gubernatorial hopeful Brown and down-ticket Democrats.

A month and a half before the Nov. 2 election, grass-roots organizers for both campaigns say they're welcoming more volunteers every day: Republican activists excited about their candidates' strong showings in opinion polls, Democratic diehards fired up by fear of even worse losses than a president's party usually suffers in the first midterm balloting of a new administration.

The volunteers' get-out-the-vote phone calls to potential supporters, offering mail-in ballots and campaign information, are considered especially vital in a year when Democrats' statewide advantage in voter registration could be canceled out by Republicans' apparent edge in enthusiasm.

"If a candidate wins 60-40 (percent), it was fun for the volunteers, but they didn't have an impact on the outcome. If a candidate wins 51-49, they could have made the difference," said Allan Hoffenblum, who analyzes state politics as publisher of the California Target Book. "And most people expect this (Brown-Whitman) to be a close race."

A tale of two rooms

The blue team works in an airy, bright, 5,000-square-foot room rented by the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley, which runs a coordinated campaign for Brown, Sen. Barbara Boxer and other state and congressional candidates.

The red squad works in a businesslike, 2,500-square-foot suite that was rented by the Whitman campaign through the June primary, when the California Republican Party took over the payments and posters appeared for Senate candidate Carly Fiorina and other GOP hopefuls.

Neither side will say what it pays for its space.

These are rooms with a view obscured by the campaign posters taped to the windows. The Democrats' first act when they moved in was to dismantle the video racks in the middle of the room and cover the racks on the walls with Democratic club banners and candidates' signs. On a Hollywood Walk of Fame-style star, somebody used tape and ink to change the title of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's biggest movie to "The Terminated."

The Republicans filled 20 cubicles with folding tables, $39 each at Wal-Mart. A lot of cleaning-up was required.

The Democrats like to say the Republicans' posher digs confirm the fat-cat image of the GOP and the financial advantage of Whitman, who has set records by spending $119 million of her own $1.3 billion fortune on the campaign so far.

"It says she's not really reaching out to the average person. I think you need to be where real people live," said Susan Blanchard, a 63-year-old West Los Angeles resident, as she set up the snack table at the Democrats' office on Van Nuys Boulevard north of Sherman Way.

Don't get the wrong impression, the Republicans say.

"This took a lot of elbow grease (to make the office presentable)," said Maya Buki, 28, who is Whitman's Los Angeles County political director. "And strategic placement of signs."

Besides, the Republicans say, look at all these volunteers with their campaign-issued cell phones, call checklists and laptop computers. "People say (Whitman) has made strides because of all the money she's spent," said Wilma Bennett, 70, a West Hills resident who welcomes new arrivals at the GOP office on Ventura Boulevard west of De Soto Avenue.

"But by the end of the primary, she had 20,000 volunteers. And you don't buy 20,000 volunteers."

Many duties for volunteers

Most of the campaign volunteers are women; most are retirees, students and unemployed people; most seem to have donated time to their parties before; and most come to work sporting candidates' shirts or buttons.

Democrats say they've had as many as 40 to 50 volunteers in the office at once. Republicans say they counted 98 one day. They take on tasks that suit their skills.

For the Republicans, Jose Arevalo, 62, an unemployed accountant from Mission Hills, works the phones in English and Spanish; Doris Phillips, 81, of Woodland Hills, takes voter information gathered by the phone jockeys and puts it in a computer database; and Martina Temchenko, 59, of Canoga Park, is willing to do anything - but said she particularly enjoys shredding documents.

For the Democrats, Ford puts her art skills to use creating a photo-rich "call meter" that charts the party's drive to Sacramento; Judy Smith, 66, of Burbank, is an intrepid phone-caller; and Blanchard likes to do anything except work the phones.

Both sides try to recruit students from local high schools to help out on the phones. Devin Osiri, the Valley Democrats' youth outreach coordinator, said about 900 high school kids worked at the local Democratic office at one time or another in 2008.

Both sides use technology to track phone calls and voters' responses. Buki can tap on her computer and see exacly how many calls the Woodland Hills volunteers placed this week, this month or this year.

Veteran volunteers say things have changed.

Phillips remembers the old days when volunteers toiled side by side, hand-addressing envelopes. Now she works alone in a side office with a laptop and a bar-code sensor.

"It was a more congenial time (when) you would talk to people," Phillips said. "I miss that."

Peter Rothenberg, a 65-year-old Porter Ranch resident, said he did his first Democratic volunteer work as a kid handing out John F. Kennedy for President leaflets in his native Boston. Now he uses his iPad to schedule volunteers for phone banks.

Rothenberg expressed amused frustration at the ignorance of some would-be voters on the phone. "They say, 'Is Obama running again?' ... 'Who's my congressman?' ... They don't know the representatives run every (two years)," Rothenberg said. "Something's wrong with the civics classes."

Two different vibes

Smith, who was a Republican before she switched to support President Obama in 2008, said she tries to explain to her fellow volunteers at the Democrats' Van Nuys office why conservatives sound angry this year.

"I think I (understand)," Smith said last week, on a day that 20 or so volunteers rattled around the big Democratic office. "I think Obama brought out a lot of - how do I say this - people who don't accept our having a black president."

Smith said she remains optimistic about Democrats' chances in November, although recent polls show Whitman leading Brown by about 5 percentage points and Fiorina giving Boxer her strongest challenge yet.

"I think if I don't watch cable TV as much, I'll be happier," Smith said.

Blanchard said she's "worried" about the polls and campaign-finance reports that show Whitman outspending Brown by huge margins. "I have a real problem with Democrats' ability to select our candidates," Blanchard said. "I'm not personally sure Jerry Brown is a great candidate. But I'm not sure Meg Whitman is a great candidate. It shouldn't be (decided by) who's the best fundraiser."

Take the 405 and 101 Freeways to the Republicans' Woodland Hills hangout, and the vibe is different. Karen Brewster, 64, of Sherman Oaks, beamed as she recounted the last of her 45 phone conversations on a day when she was among a dozen volunteers and staffers on hand.

Brewster said a woman named Norma had said not only is she voting for Whitman, but "my husband is a liberal Democrat, and he's voting for Whitman."

Arevalo said he expects Whitman to prevail, and thinks the former eBay chief can help jobless people like him by restoring the California economy. "She knows the process of building a small company into a big company," Arevalo said.

Alex Free, 23, a Northridge resident who has been looking for a job since earning his college degree in international affairs, said he was closing in on his 200th phone call of the day.

He was energized, in part, by having seen Whitman in person for the first time when the candidate appeared in Culver City on Tuesday. "She was so smart, so able," Free said. "It excited me even more."

The campaign offices are the 2010 campaign's footprints in the San Fernando Valley, the places to go to find bumper stickers, lawn signs and true believers. "We're all committed," Bennett said in Woodland Hills.

"I don't respect people who just complain," Rothenberg said in Van Nuys. "I respect people who work for what they believe." 818-713-3616

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