LYNCH CAMPAIGN LACKED CENTRAL MESSAGE, AND MONEY.

Byline: Joe Scott 

LOS Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti's wafer-thin victory over career county prosecutor John Lynch is a classic case of an improbable neophyte, lacking any political moxie, managing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in losing by less than .02 percent out of more than 2.2 million votes cast when the incumbent was considered a dead duck.

Without the O.J. Simpson trial still looming large in the minds of many voters, Garcetti was a cinch for an easy primary win last March. Instead, he got just 37 percent of the vote compared to 21 percent for Lynch, who heads the district attorney's Norwalk office and shares the name I.D. of a former L.A. county assessor, John Lynch.

With the opportunity for a huge political upset and the Simpson civil trial as daily media fodder, prosecutor Lynch made a major post-primary tactical error by taking too many victory laps. He failed to heed the sports maxim of going for the early knockout - and the embattled Garcetti's ability to get off the deck.

Lynch failed to master four ingredients crucial to a successful campaign - message, money, media and momentum. Still, aided by winning the first batch of absentee ballots despite the lack of a major effort, he managed to come hauntingly close to victory.

During the runoff, Lynch aped much of the same strategy that helped Garcetti unseat then-District Attorney Ira Reiner four years ago - an inability to win the big cases. For Reiner, it was the state case of four LAPD officers accused of beating Rodney King. For Garcetti, it was Simpson's criminal acquittal.

While Garcetti squirmed and insisted that he shouldn't be judged on one case but on social activism related to several district attorney initiatives like domestic violence and gang activity, Lynch failed to articulate a compelling message for his own candidacy, one voters could associate with a tough and fair-minded prosecutor.

Lynch, who raised just $60,000 in the primary and put an admirable $5,000 limit on campaign contributions, underestimated the war chest needs for a countywide race. Compared to Lynch's limited ability to purchase television time, Garcetti outraised him by 7 to 1 during the year while spending over $1 million on TV and radio during the fall campaign.

With a reeling Garcetti already well-defined with voters, Lynch's late-starting media challenge was first to define him as a candidate with a solid record of trial and management experience. Next, he needed to contrast his Central Casting mien with that of his opponent over what courtroom role the public expects of a strong district attorney in a trial like the Simpson case.

But Garcetti aced him in the final weeks of the campaign. His negative attack TV ad showed Lynch's face in sinister-like fashion for a full 30 seconds while distorting his record as a prosecutor in several high-profile cases.

The ``too risky to be D.A.'' ad, never successfully rebutted, succeeded in defining Lynch and giving Garcetti crucial momentum to stabilize his candidacy. Given the close outcome of the race, an effective free media campaign, which a cash-poor Lynch lacked might have tipped the electoral scales.

The tightness of the race makes some wonder whether Lynch could have won by focusing voters repeatedly on a single rhetorical question: ``As D.A., I would have personally tried O.J. Simpson for a double murder. Why didn't Garcetti?''