LOCAL ELECTIONS / L.A. MAYOR : Ex-Aide to Riordan Joins Woo Campaign

A campaign official who helped Richard Riordan’s victory in the Los Angeles mayoral primary has defected to Michael Woo’s camp, maintaining that he was uncomfortable with the conservative tenor of Riordan’s campaign.

In an interview arranged by the Woo campaign, Michael Dolan spoke Tuesday about his defection and acknowledged that he was let go by Riordan’s operation before he jumped ship.

Dolan, who was director of field operations for Riordan, said his termination capped a growing mutual dissatisfaction.

“I wasn’t doing a very good job of stroking Dick’s rich friends,” Dolan said.

Riordan officials had another explanation for what happened.

“I fired him because he was doing a lousy job,” said Jadine Nielsen, Riordan’s campaign manager. “I fired him because I didn’t trust him.”

Dolan, 37, said he was not doing the job expected of him because he was turned off by the campaign’s preoccupation with courting right-wing voters, among them anti-abortionists and gun enthusiasts.

During the campaign, Riordan said he believed in a woman’s right to have an abortion. But in the past he has contributed $10,000 to the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life. He has opposed the enactment of new gun control laws and said he did not want to interfere with the rights of citizens to legally own firearms.

“I’m a Democratic consultant--I like working with people at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum and getting them out to vote,” said Dolan, who went to work for Riordan after serving as California scheduling director for Bill Clinton during the 1992 presidential race.

Dolan said that Riordan’s successful primary strategy was based on targeting about 600,000 voters--”all Republicans and Democrats who are also white, non-Jewish, homeowners of any age and renters over the age of 50.”

Dolan conceded that he helped with the strategy and that he did so based on his initial attraction to Riordan as a businessman who had distinguished himself through philanthropic efforts for inner-city educational projects. It was only after going to work for Riordan, Dolan said, that he learned details about Riordan that he did not like.

“I didn’t know Riordan had contributed money to anti-abortionist groups and or that he had canned a lot of people in the process of restructuring various companies.”

Dolan was referring to jobs lost when Mattel, which Riordan helped reorganize, moved manufacturing operations to Mexico.

Riordan officials disputed Dolan’s assertion that the campaign set out to attract right-wingers.

“We did target Republicans, along with Democrats and Independents,” said Nielsen, who is one of several working Democrats for Riordan, a Republican.

Nielsen also released a prepared statement in which she said: “I am disappointed that Michael Dolan has jumped to the Woo campaign, and I am frankly surprised that the Woo campaign hired him. After all, just a week ago, Dolan was fully engaged in trashing Woo.”

Meanwhile, the Riordan campaign will air its first television ad of the runoff campaign today.

With images of crime and decay in Hollywood, the ad marks a continuation of Riordan’s effort to attack his opponent as a failed Hollywood councilman.

Featuring pictures of a smiling Woo interspersed with shots of a police arrest, boarded-up stores and homeless people on the Walk of Fame, the ad says: “Mike Woo: Eight years on L.A.’s City Council. Eight years of failed policies.” Referring to Hollywood Boulevard, the commercial says: “Once a boulevard of dreams. Today, a symbol of decay.”

Woo spokesman Garry South said in response to the ad: “This is the guy who on election night challenged us to run a positive campaign, and his first spot on the air after the primary is a trash spot.”

The Woo campaign has yet to decide when it will begin running TV ads, South said.

In other campaign developments, radio station KFWB and television station KCAL released a poll showing Woo holding a slight lead over Riordan--47% to 36% among all registered voters and 50% to 42% among likely voters. The survey of 600 voters was taken Friday, Saturday and Sunday, just a few days after Riordan finished ahead of Woo in the 24-candidate primary, 33% to 24%.