Political animal: consultant Harvey Englander, who has spent his career running and winning L.A.

HARVEY Englander has run campaigns for a host of current and former local officials including L.A. City councilmembers Joel Wachs and Hal Bernson, City Controller Laura Chick and L.A. County Supervisor Don Knabe. He's also run campaigns for several current and former state legislators, including

Englander got his start in politics in 1968 volunteering for the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy. After a stint with campaign consultant Joe Cerrell, Englander ran the campaign for Proposition 13, the Howard Jarvisled property tax cut initiative. Eventually, he sold his consulting firm to the Democratic powerhouse Kamber Group, but disillusioned with his role in that firm, he bought his company back and sold it again in 1999 to MWW Group. He has gradually eased out of the campaign business and focused more on corporate clients.

Question: The Republican Party in California is on the verge of irrelevance. Why can't more Republicans get elected?

Answer: It's not that Republicans can't get elected. I ran the campaign for Keith Richman, who got elected to the Assembly two years ago. I'm proud to say he's been chosen as the rookie legislator of the year by the California Journal. If the Republican Party would nominate more Keith Richmans for office, they would become a party in contention. He's a mainstream conservative Republican in the mold of Richard Nixon. He's got some extremely creative ideas. The problem with the Republicans is that they elect conservatives who tend to be naysayers, not doers. They have very narrow appeal. So now, when they need to have people ready to move up to statewide office, they don't have a farm system.

Q: If you were running Bill Simon's campaign for governor, what would you have him do to regain some momentum and have a fighting chance to win?

A: I would have Bill Simon take a bold step. First, I would hire the best speechwriter in the country and have him craft a 30-minute speech. The speech must define who Bill Simon is, address head-on all of his problems and failings, lay out his vision for California and draw vivid comparisons between what he would do and how Gray Davis has governed. Then, with that speech in hand, I would buy 30 minutes of prime time on every major station in every major California TV market as soon as possible after Labor Day. This is Bill Simon's only hope to salvage his campaign.

Q: And what would your advice be for the pro-secession campaigns, which also seem to be faltering?

A: The secession campaign has lost its focus. The anti-secession side has taken control of the campaign. Assuming the pro-secession campaigns have the money, they must step up their efforts to get their message out. And to do that, they need a respected statesman to lead the campaign. Richard Katz is respected -- but he's a politician, not a statesman. Once the secession campaign gets a statesman, they then need to convince voters in other parts of the city that having the Valley secede will benefit them -- smaller council districts, closer to the people, etc. ... They have not made this case so far, which I find surprising.

Q: Can this work?

A: It's definitely an uphill battle. And the position they're in now I believe is the result of a fundamental strategic mistake the secession advocates made in the very beginning. They should have focused first on breaking up the L.A. Unified School District, which has generated a lot more antipathy over the years. Then, with that foundation laid, they could build the case for secession.

Q: You have represented both Democrats and Republicans. What do you look for in a candidate before you decide to run their campaign?

A: Party labels have meant less and less to me over the years. I really work for people who have qualities I admire. I want to elect people who aren't just naysayers but actually offer solutions to problems, regardless of party affiliation. Everybody can talk about the problems, but few people can actually offer solutions.

Q: How did you first get involved with political campaigns?

A: I volunteered for Bobby Kennedy, and that changed my life. Prior to that, I was going to be a history teacher. But that whole experience so energized me that I decided that's what I wanted to do. I went to work for the Hubert Humphrey campaign. That's where I really learned all the mechanics of campaigns: I drove in the motorcade, I did scheduling, I learned how to become an advance man.

Q: What's been the most satisfying campaign you've run?

A: I'd probably start with L.A. City Councilman Howard Finn. His was the first campaign I ran with my own campaign firm back in 1981. He ended up in a runoff against a former state Assemblyman who was heavily favored to win. We were outspent but pulled off a huge upset victory. There have been two or three like that. In Orange County, I elected Todd Spitzer as county supervisor against a much better known and better-funded candidate, then-state Assemblyman Mickey Conroy. No one gave Todd any chance to win.

Q: Weren't there some allegations of sexual harassment that came out against Conroy during that race?

A: Yes there were. And we helped fuel them. That's what a good campaign does.

Q: But isn't that dirty campaigning?

A: All we were doing was taking stuff that was already in the papers up in Sacramento and making sure that the voters knew about it. Mickey Conroy certainly wasn't going to tell the voters about it. This was all readily available information. But in the world of politics, you don't assume that just because it's appeared in print somewhere that everybody knows about it. You keep reminding people of the good stuff about your candidate and the negative stuff readily available about your opponent.

Q: So you relish the role of underdog?

A: Actually, one of the hallmarks of my campaigns is that we don't have to spend more money than the other guy. We just have to spend enough to get our message out.

Q: What was your most disappointing race?

A: The 1998 contest between Assemblyman Richard Katz and L.A. City Councilman Richard Alarcon for state Senate. I ran the Katz campaign. Our polling showed us winning all the way through. Our field operation was good, our direct mail was terrific and our campaign themes were great. Unofficially, we lost that race by seven votes. The official numbers were 30 or 60 or something like that. We called off the recount when we were seven votes down and we didn't think it was going to change.

Q: How have campaigns changed?

A: When I started, the campaigns used to start in February, you'd have a June primary and then a lull before things started up again at the end of the summer. Now, with the primary in March, it's truly a year-round campaign. Mother change has been the increasing difficulty in getting the message out. When I first started, the media actually covered each and every campaign. The L.A. Times actually assigned reporters to individual contests for the state Legislature or the City Council. It was easier to get the word out. Now, people are bombarded by so many messages from the media. This means the candidate has to have more frequent commercials and those commercials must be hard-hitting to grab people's attention.

Q: Hasn't the tone of campaigns changed?

A: Yes it has. Before Watergate, when a candidate ran an ad, it usually focused on the qualities that he or occasionally she would bring to the office. Then it became "What I would do if elected, and, oh, by the way, my opponent is bad." Now, it's simply, "My opponent is bad."

RELATED ARTICLE: INTERVIEW

Harvey A. Englander

Title: Senior Vice President, General Manager

Organization: MWW Group, a unit of Chicago-based Golin/Harris International

Born: New York, 1950

Education: Bachelor's degree in political science from University of California, Los Angeles.

Career Turning Point: Volunteering for Robert F. Kennedy as part of a class project.

Most Admired People: Hubert Humphrey, Golda Meir and Bill Schlessinger (Englander's political science professor when he was at L.A. City College)

Hobbies: Golf, collecting contemporary art.

Personal: Divorced, two sons in college.