Greuel team resets two weeks into the runoff campaign

Controller Wendy Greuel's campaign for mayor made headlines for the wrong reasons in the past few days, losing four key operatives with experience on the Obama campaign, bringing in two new key people, then switching up campaign managers — against a backdrop of what the LA Times calls "missteps." The incoming campaign manager is Janelle Erickson, a deputy chief of staff and former press secretary in the Villaraigosa administration who went on leave from the mayor's staff to help Greuel. Erickson had previously helped Greuel get elected to the City Council in 2002 and has remained a key adviser. Erickson will now manage the campaign day-to-day and consultant Rose Kapolczynski moves over to senior adviser with a focus on messaging. In a weekend email to supporters, headlined "Exciting news!," Greuel said of Erickson, "she’s run two of my campaigns and we’ve never lost together."

Team Greuel has also added City Hall veteran Jim Dantona as policy director, a position that was not previously filled, and a veteran of Greuel's past campaigns, Sue Burnside, to run the field operation. With the voter turnout expected to be low, both the Greuel and Eric Garcetti campaigns are putting a strong emphasis on identifying their potential supporters and making sure they do actually vote. This is the kind of election where an effective field operation can prove to be crucial, a reality that Greuel can speak to firsthand. When she won her first election to the City Council, she won by just 202 votes — a fact Greuel mentions not infrequently.

The changes in the Greuel campaign leadership — John Shallman remains as the top consultant — come "after a series of missteps in her run for mayor," says Times political writer Michael Finnegan.

The replacement of a campaign manager just two months before an election is highly unusual. It is an implicit acknowledgment by Greuel that her campaign has not run as smoothly as she believes it should. On Thursday, four Greuel aides who had worked on President Obama's reelection resigned....

The only major policy initiative announced by Greuel so far has been a plan to hire several thousand police officers, firefighters and paramedics.

That proposal clashed with Greuel's central message that she is a tough fiscal conservative who would get the city's troubled finances under control. It also sparked private criticism by key Greuel supporters.

Greuel and her consultants characterized the new hires as expansions of her successful team, not as a reset to deal with any problems. But the Greuel campaign has known for more than two weeks — and probably longer based on her own polling — how she did with voters in the primary and what was working for her. Yet the changes weren't made until now — crucial time slippage that belies the happy face put on it by the Greuel team.

The turmoil includes last week's resignations of field director Stacy Cohen, data director Joe Kavanagh and regional field directors Maya Hutchinson and Marisa Kanof. Cohen, who was the Obama campaign's California field director, told Finnegan that the Greuel strategy went in a different direction than she could provide. Finnegan, who broke the story of the aides' departure, called it "unusual to replace the leaders of a field team in the final weeks before an election." That's because strong field operations can take months to assemble and refine, he said. More from Finnegan:

Parke Skelton, a campaign strategist who is unaligned in the mayor's race, described the changes in Greuel's campaign as "extraordinary."

"To adopt a new field strategy two months out seems like a recipe for dysfunction to me," he said. "The mistake may have been in assuming that the kind of massive volunteer operation that you saw in the Obama campaign could be replicated in a municipal election in Los Angeles, where less than 20% of the voters care enough to vote."

Greuel said in a public appearance on Sunday that "we're not changing horses. We're bringing in additional resources." The event, at Grand Park in downtown, was to announce the endorsement of Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. His support and popularity among black voters — and years as an organizer in South LA — could help Greuel pick up votes that went to Jan Perry in the primary election. She already has the backing of Supervisor Gloria Molina. Garcetti over the weekend added the endorsement of City Councilman Joe Buscaino.

Meanwhile, LA Weekly writer Gene Maddaus explains what's going on in the skirmishing between Greuel and Garcetti over city pension reform — considering that their positions aren't really very different.

And also, note that the final tally for the primary election on March 5 will likely be conducted
on Tuesday. The City Clerk has been processing provisional ballots since then.

LA Observed photo: Greuel headquarters at Van Nuys Airport.