June 4, 1981
By JOSH GETLIN, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
As Howard Finn savored Tuesday´s victory over Jim keysor in the Los Angeles City Council´s 1st District, he admitted his controversial mail campaign had made a decisive difference in the race.
Finn, 63, a Sunland businessman, said "quite a bit" of the credit for this election in the northeast San Fernando Valley should go to the hard-hitting mailers designed by Harvey Englander, a veteran political consultant.
Englander´s mail campaign attacked Keysor, a former Democratic assemblyman, as a liberal out of touch with district voters. Most notably, Englander produced a last-minute "electiongram" falsely suggesting that Keysor had withdrawn from the race.
The ploy caused Finn to lose the editorial endorsement of the Daily News and heated the election´s waning hours. Keysor´s aides believe the tactic may have confused enough voters to deny them victory.
But Finn insisted that the letter " was not intended to mislead anyone" and merely reminded voters that Keysor had withdrawn from the 1st District race in 1977.
"I´m a Grass-Roots Candidate"
Denying that Mailers alone brought him victory, Finn said, "I´m not a politician in the normal sense?I really feel that I´m a grass-roots candidate and I had backing from the community to win. That´s what won this race."
With heavy support in the conservative Sunland-Tujunga area, Finn snared 54% of the vote, beating Keysor by 1,700 votes. Besides his aggressive mail campaign, he walked the district and held community meetings.
The defeat was a shock to Keysor, who had been favored after leading eight others in the primary. He outspent Finn almost 2 to 1 and garnered impressive endorsements, including those of the Police Protective League, the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City and the Building Industry Assn.
Keysor´s aides blamed defeat on low turnout in minority precincts, which gave Keysor strong support in the primary. Buty they also criticized the negative tone of Finn´s campaign.
Impact of Mail Campaigns
Craig Miller, Keysor´s campaign manager, speculated that mailers played "a major role in depressing voter turnout throughout the district?and people who were undecided got so turned off by Finn´s negative material, that they just decided to sit the election out."
Keysor was unavailable for comment.
At a city Hall press conference Wednesday, Finn suggested Englander´s mailers might have taken some votes away from his campaign "because some people?may have gotten turned off."
But Englander said that the mailers had a "clear, unmistakable effect" on the race. At Finn´s victory party Tuesday, he said, "We looked at Keysor as a big, fat punching bag ? and every time one of our mailers hit, you could hear the thud slamming into that punching bag."
Finn´s aggressive mail effort was in sharp contrast to his personal campaign style. A mild-mannered, avuncular figure, he seemed more comfortable in the campaign discussing land-use issues and zoning problems than attacking his opponent. Finn ran unsuccessfully for the seat in 1973 and 1977.
Finn said that as a councilman he hoped to involve himself with growth and development issues, as well as the problems of crime and "proper use of our limited fiscal resources."
