Campaigns Get an Overhaul After the Riots : Politics: Three weeks before the primary, candidates scramble to respond to the upheaval. But some are accused of opportunism.

As Los Angeles burned in the nation’s worst urban riots this century, many a carefully laid campaign plan also went up in smoke, leaving legislative and congressional candidates scrambling to find ways to respond to the upheaval.

Campaign consultants say the rioting, looting and burning have so altered the political landscape that the unrest must be addressed in the last three weeks before the June 2 primary.

But there are indications that candidates’ responses to the rioting will vary dramatically from the untouched suburban communities to devastated areas, where emotions are running particularly high.

In a predominantly black and Latino, Compton-based congressional district that was battered by the riots, candidate Walter R. Tucker, Compton’s mayor, finds himself the target of a vitriolic attack by his opponents who say he exploited the crisis to win votes, a charge Tucker vehemently denies.

Along the coast, in a largely white, Republican-leaning congressional district stretching from San Pedro to Venice, several GOP candidates say law and order will become the foremost issue in the contest. Joan Milke Flores, a Los Angeles city councilwoman, canceled a planned mailer last week and is rushing into print a substitute piece that describes the actions she took after the rioting broke out.

Meanwhile, in a liberal, heavily Democratic state Senate district that stretches from burned-out businesses in Hollywood to quiet subdivisions along the Ventura County line, Democratic Assemblyman Tom Hayden of Santa Monica is offering his thoughts on “rebuilding our future.” The district-wide mailer sent to voters this weekend pictures fire-ravaged stores and cleanup efforts.

In campaign after campaign, the events sparked by the four white Los Angeles police officers’ not guilty verdicts in the beating of black motorist Rodney G. King have left candidates searching for new themes.

“I don’t believe you can avoid the riots,” said Republican political consultant Allan Hoffenblum. “The electorate has been traumatized. It’s not the time to send out a mailer on tax policy or foreign affairs.”

But Hoffenblum admits that “campaign consultants are as shellshocked as everyone else” and are unsure how to respond to the sensitive issues raised by the riots.

Sid Galanty, a Democratic campaign consultant, agreed that there are risks in responding. To rush in with a riot message can “turn voters off because it can be seen as opportunism,” he said. “There’s a very thin line. . . . I would say be cautious about it.”

Some of the most intense political fallout has occurred in the new 37th Congressional District, Compton-based turf where widespread rioting took place.

Congressman Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton), whose decision to retire created an open race for the seat, has launched a blistering attack on Tucker. He accuses the Compton mayor of grandstanding during the crisis by appearing frequently on radio and television and touring the area with Jesse Jackson.

“There he was in Long Beach chasing Jackson, in South-Central chasing Jackson,” Dymally said. “I have a message from Jackson sitting on my desk right now. If I wanted to be a TV whore I could be following Jackson around, too.”

Tucker says he played a key role in getting National Guard troops dispatched to Compton the day after rioting broke out, partly by making appeals on television. “I don’t have to defend what I’ve done for the city of Compton,” Tucker said. “If I hadn’t done what I did, the whole damn community would have burned down.”

He also points out that Dymally’s daughter, Lynn Dymally, is his chief Democratic rival in the congressional race. Tucker said: “I don’t know why the congressman doesn’t just come out and say it. He wants to penalize me because I’m running against his daughter, and they are running scared.”

In upscale districts largely insulated from the rioting, the political gears are grinding nevertheless as campaigns shift to issues that have become more prominent after the violence.

Some Republican candidates say the looting and arson have made law and order the issue of the day in the coastal 36th Congressional District.

“People in this district are afraid (crime) is creeping into the Palos Verdes Peninsula and creeping into the beach cities,” said Republican candidate John Barbieri, a San Pedro consultant. “They are scared to death.”

Anticipating such sentiment, the Flores campaign canceled a mass mailing last Monday and is replacing it with a riot piece in an attempt to address what is uppermost in voters’ minds.

“It was like the assassination of a political leader,” said Hoffenblum, Flores’ campaign consultant. “Obviously this puts the whole issue of law and order back on the front burner. Candidates will have to prove they are tough on crime.”

Maureen Reagan, the former President’s daughter and a contender for the GOP nomination in the 36th District, said she decided a special mailing on the riots would be opportunistic because it would “play on somebody’s pain.”

But Reagan said she has had to talk about the riots frequently in public appearances. “I found on the first day that if you didn’t talk about the riots, you got asked about it,” she said. She said the answer is not only more police protection, but also such steps as welfare reform and enterprise zones to encourage development in low-income areas.

Democrat Hayden is taking a different approach in the liberal 23rd Senate District of the Westside and San Fernando Valley.

His mailing tells Democrats how they can help rebuild Los Angeles by providing food and clothing for riot victims. It also offers several longer-term solutions, including expansion of the California Conservation Corps to provide jobs for inner-city youth, a teacher corps to enhance educational opportunities, and police reform.

Hayden’s opponents in the hotly contested Democratic primary race, veteran Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles) and Pacific Palisades businesswoman Catherine O’Neill, had no immediate plans to respond to the riot in campaign mailers.

Rosenthal and O’Neill said they will continue to talk about jobs, housing, education, and fighting drug and gang problems. O’Neill also plans to continue to speak out about children and families, welfare reform and tougher laws to seize the weapons of heavily armed gang members.

Lynette Stevens, Rosenthal’s campaign manager, said issues raised by the riot will have to be addressed. “It would be out in orbit not to acknowledge that something like this happened,” she said, noting that voters will be demanding answers. “What are you going to do to fix it?” she said. “What are you going to do to make our streets safer?”

In the heavily minority and solidly Democratic 55th Assembly District, which runs from Compton to Wilmington, two Democratic lawmakers in a head-to-head fight say jobs will remain the key issue despite the riots.

Assemblyman Dave Elder (D-San Pedro) says his calls to reopen the closed Todd Shipyards in San Pedro will serve him well in the aftermath of the riots, arguing that preserving jobs will help ease social pressures.

Rival Assemblyman Richard Floyd (D-Carson) accuses Elder of promising something he knows cannot be accomplished, an especially onerous move in light of the pain caused by the riots.

“I think it’s pandering to people,” says Floyd, arguing that politicians in recent days have overstated the economic relief government can give. “My advice to Elder is if he wants to sell a dream, sell people a lottery ticket.”

Floyd acknowledges that a third Democratic candidate in the contest, Carson City Councilwoman Juanita MacDonald, may benefit by tapping an anti-incumbent mood that he believes has intensified as a result of the riots.

“Maybe none of us have taken the lead we should,” Floyd said. “Her big advantage is that she’s new.”

In the San Fernando Valley, fallout from the rioting has crept into a special election battle in the 20th Senate District where Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) is fighting for his political life against Carol Rowen, a Republican abortion rights activist.

Roberti, whose sponsorship of legislation outlawing the sale of assault weapons has triggered a fierce political attack by gun owners, was quick to respond to the riot. “It’s the premiere civic event of the last 10 years,” he said. “How can it not be a factor in people’s minds when they cast their votes?”

At a press conference in front of a burned out deli in Panorama City last week, the Senate leader called for tougher criminal penalties for arsonists and looters.

Roberti said, however, the event does not signal a change in the direction of his campaign. “I would do that if I were running or not running,” he said. “I’d make my response to the major law-and-order event of the last 10 years. As leader of the Senate, am I going to just stay silent and not respond? No.”

GOP rival Rowen is calling for LAPD Chief Daryl Gates to step down immediately in the wake of the riots. “We should make that changeover as quickly as possible. Today,” she said. “We need to restore confidence to the Police Department. We must restore some sanity to the city.”

Times staff writers Jack Cheevers, Tina Griego and Nancy Hill-Holtzman contributed to this report.