Unfiltered: ‘Mayor Maker’ talks city issues, elections

This story was reported for the San Diego News Network on April 14, 2010.

He’s known as one of the most successful political campaign consultants in San Diego history. Not arguably. He just is.

With a 90-percent success rate, Tom Shepard has been the go-to guy for Republican candidates in town.

In fact, he said he rarely solicits candidates — they just come to him.

Shepard, former mayor of the city of Del Mar, has successfully run the campaigns of politicos such as San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, former Mayor Susan Golding and all five of the current supervisors for the county.

Though this year may be another election year for Shepard, new challenges are facing the region as a whole. Shepard took some time out of his election 2010 schedule to give SDNN the scoop on his life as the “Mayor Maker,” his thoughts on San Diego politics and what we can expect this campaign year.

SDNN: You’ve been labeled the “Mayor Maker” and the “King Maker.” I even heard a community leader say you are not someone to mess with. How does it make you feel to be given labels or hear comments like that?

Shepard: I’m not, by reason of personality, somebody who pursues coverage, so most of that stuff makes me feel uncomfortable and it overstates the role I play in campaigns. I’m basically a technical adviser for my clients and their success is mostly due to their accomplishments, leadership, and hard work – not necessarily my involvement. So I think, although I’m obviously flattered by things like that, it’s not an accurate representation of the role I play in campaigns.

Do you believe in each candidate/campaign you worked with/on?

In kind of cocktail-social talk, that’s a question I’m asked frequently. The best way I know of explaining it is, you have to ask yourself whether there is anybody you agree with on every issue and I think most people answering that honestly would say there is no one that matches them perfectly on everything. That’s the case for me and my clients. I don’t expect there to be complete congruence between their points of views and mine. They are people I have respect for but I obviously believe they are the best for the office.

Have you ever been disappointed in an elected official who was one of your clients?

Yes.

Can you name them?

No [laughs].

Not even a past example?

No [laughs]. They are still alive.

You told me, in the past, you still consider Mayor Jerry Sanders a client. Why is that? How would you rate how he’s done as Mayor?

He’s not a client, in a formal sense. The last time I had a contract with him was for the June 2008 primaries. He still occasionally asks me for advice and when he does, I give it to him.

I think given the cards he’s been dealt, he’s done a very good job and he’s clearly the right mayor of this time. In terms of keeping the city’s focus on resolving its financial problems and making a transition to a new form of municipal government, I think he has provided a steady influence. As we look back on it, that will be seen as having been a major contribution.

What do you think about the city government and their performance, given the difficult times we’re in? How do you feel about it all?

There are two things going on. First, the underlying financial issues have got to get resolved for the city to move forward. My observation as someone who’s been watching city government since the 1970s is that, for several decades, local elected officials did not have the courage to acknowledge to voters that there was a disconnect between the services they wanted and expected from city government and the amount of revenue that is available to city government. For the city to move forward, that basic conflict has got to resolved.

The second issue is kind of a bigger picture one. The cities I’ve seen, the big ones that have done good things, they have ongoing stable non-governmental leadership and it’s usually diverse. It’s the kind of leadership that is able to build consensus when there are really big issues that are on the table. Right now, there are several that are looming on the horizon and in a perfect world there would be the kind of infrastructure in a community where a consensus could be built quickly and supported.

As an example, I’ve been working on the plans for the expansion center and there are details of the expansion that you can argue with but in terms of the city’s future and the strength of this region’s economy, expansion of the convention center is really important. It’s been very difficult, frankly, to get everybody on the same page, agreeing that it’s a priority and focusing on it.

If we’re going to move forward as a community, we need to get to the point where we have that leadership infrastructure outside of government so when those moments come along where it’s important for everybody to come together, we can pull it off.

When I first started working for SDNN, a local leader said to me, “Get ready, the San Diego politicians make the Los Angeles ones look like angels.” What do you think of that comment?

I think maybe the level of cynicism is higher here but that’s not my observation. I know there’s a lot of ridicule and heat on elected officials but my experience is that local government is at least as transparent or more transparent as it is in Los Angeles or even in San Francisco. They make their mistakes here and there have been things that could have benefited from more scrutiny but by and large, I think most of the people are trying hard here and they get a rap sometimes.

How is that bad rap going to affect the strong-mayor ballot initiative?

I don’t know yet. First of all, the general public is not that aware of how the change has affected government so that’s a challenge for us. Confronted with a choice between maintaining the system we have now or going back to the one that created the problems to begin with – in the end, voters will support making it permanent. I don’t think anybody wants to go back to pre-2004 here.

Let’s have more campaign talk now. What does it take for a candidate to win besides money and a great personality? How much money will the challengers need to be competitive against Ron Roberts?

There are two campaigns: challenger and incumbent. When you’re an incumbent, the burden you carry is to convince voters you’ve done a good job, have made significant accomplishments and you deserve to be re-elected. When you’re a challenger, the objective is to convince voters that there needs to be a change. Those are two fundamentally different kinds of campaigns.

How much will it take to beat Ron Roberts? One of the mistakes, that some journalists and the public make is they view fundraising as some sort of a horse race. Who raises the most money? Although that is easy to report, it doesn’t really tell the whole story. Depending on the size of the district and the nature of it, there’s a threshold where if you get over it, you can be competitive regardless of how much your opponent raises. A case in point would be the ’08 mayor’s race. Steve Francis spent $5 million and Jerry Sanders spent less than a million. That should have been a problem [for Sanders] but as it turns out, $1 million gets you over the threshold in San Diego. This is true with a supervisor’s race. It’s a relatively high threshold compared to a city council race and you can’t rely on volunteers going door-to-door with a $50,000 budget. But do you need $500,000 to be competitive with Ron Roberts? No, I don’t think so. Maybe with $200,000, one of the opponents can mount an effective campaign.

What is the most common mistake candidates make?

You have to consider who is telling you this – I am a political consultant. The worst, most frustrating campaigns I’ve been involved with are ones where the candidate does not understand his or her role and tries to be both the candidate and the campaign manager and that’s a prescription for disaster in most campaigns.

Examples?

No, I don’t have any [laughs].

What do you do when it isn’t an election year?

I pray for special elections.

Hoa Quach is the political editor for the San Diego News Network.