CAMPAIGN JOURNAL : Candidates and Careers: It’s a Balancing Act

Matt Fong traveled to Asia six times last year on business for his clients. So far this year, he has had time for just two trips.

“It has been very difficult, but I am working part-time,” said Fong, a Los Angeles attorney and Republican candidate for state controller. “As long as you have a big mortgage, a small house and a couple of kids in school, you have to keep working.”

Running a statewide campaign can be a grueling, time-consuming ordeal that stretches the limits of any conventional job.

For those who have their own careers outside politics, campaigning also can be a tightrope walk. There are briefings, speeches, fund-raisers, press conferences, debates, telephone calls and strategy sessions--sometimes around the clock.

“I find myself getting up in the middle of the night writing notes to people that I had forgotten to write,” said Joan Milke Flores, a Los Angeles councilwoman who is the Republican candidate for secretary of state. “I think I will sleep a week when this is over.”

Fong, meanwhile, has relied on co-workers to carry some of his clients, although he takes a briefcase stuffed with paperwork whenever he travels.

For candidates like Flores who also hold public office, the balancing act can be even more precarious. Going on the campaign trail often means missing official business, and that can be instant fodder for a political rival.

Campaign obligations forced Flores to miss two of six Los Angeles City Council meetings last month, and she has been officially excused from four more meetings in the coming weeks. In a move that helps him deflect criticism, Republican Treasurer Thomas W. Hayes sets aside a half-hour each morning--from 7 to 7:30--to discuss daily investments with his staff--regardless of where his campaign has taken him. Hayes’ staff also keeps a standard rejection letter in the office computer for requests for campaign appearances that conflict with his job.

“Any speaking engagements must be set without disrupting his official duties,” the letter states.

Democratic Secretary of State March Fong Eu has managed to weave the demands of her campaign into her official responsibilities as the state’s chief elections officer. Aside from fund-raisers and Democratic Party events, Eu has not scheduled a single campaign appearance--not as risky as it might seem since she has been enjoying a strong lead in the polls against Republican Flores.

Eu is on the road as much as any other candidate, nonetheless, promoting voter registration at shopping malls, community centers and press conferences--and reminding her audience of her accomplishments.

For other statewide candidates, the demands of a “second job” are simply too great. They don’t even try to hold employment.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dianne Feinstein has been without a job since retiring as mayor of San Francisco two years ago. Kathleen Brown, Democratic candidate for treasurer, quit her post with the city of Los Angeles 15 months ago to launch her campaign.

“There was no way I could do both,” Brown said. “I felt that I would best serve the citizens by not trying to juggle and do both, because I would have had to take time off without pay when I would be involved in campaign activities.”

Employed or not, job performance has been a hot topic on the campaign trail. Incumbent Hayes has branded Brown a quitter for leaving her city job last year, while Brown has accused Hayes of missing an important state budget hearing to attend a Republican fund-raiser with President George Bush.

In the gubernatorial contest, Feinstein has repeatedly criticized Republican Sen. Pete Wilson for failing to return to Washington for Senate votes and has called on him to return his salary. Wilson in turn has derisively characterized Feinstein as a full-time fund-raiser.

State Sen. Marian Bergeson, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, has tried to make an issue of incumbent Leo McCarthy’s job performance two years ago. Bergeson has dubbed McCarthy “a stealth lieutenant governor” because of his poor attendance record at various state boards and commissions during his unsuccessful Senate bid in 1988.

In the race for attorney general, Republican Dan Lungren has gone so far as to suggest that San Franciscans demand a tax refund from his Democratic opponent, San Francisco Dist. Atty. Arlo Smith.

“Somebody ought to ask if he’s going to give money back to the taxpayers of San Francisco for the last two years,” Lungren told reporters recently. “He’s had the luxury of being the phantom D.A. in San Francisco for two years. He’s never been there.”

While the job attacks have grabbed headlines, most candidates accused of not tending shop because of electioneering usually dismiss the criticism as an anachronism of campaigns past. Candidates of the 1990s have cellular telephones in their cars, fax machines in their homes and lap-top computers in their briefcases to keep up with both work and politics, they say.

“Because of technology, distance is really not that important anymore,” said Bill Livingstone, Wilson’s press secretary.

Livingstone made that remark before Wilson missed a decisive vote Friday on a Senate amendment requiring parental notification in some abortions. A senator, it turns out, is not allowed to vote by phone or fax machine.