Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 21

A22 The Arizona Republic Sunday, August 21, 1994 ick ElECIIOII tero in mew direction OwlSO i V. v' i 5 1 i JOHNSON ON THE ISSUES Paul Johnson's plan to fight crime includes a call to melt all firearms seized from criminals and to enact strict criteria for sales of assault-style weapons and "cop killer" bullets. He also advocates a "hammer and. hug" program for Juveniles that would get tough on delinquents while providing a nurturing atmosphere. To improve and maintain the state's economy, Johnson wants to provide a rebate on the business-property tax that could be used selectively to encourage existing companies, and to lure businesses that offer good-paying jobs with benefits.

Apart from recruiting situations, Johnson says he does not favor the idea of selective tax cuts for Individual companies. Johnson would like to establish a statewide code of discipline in the schools, including a dress code. He advocates returning control of classrooms to teachers and supports allowing students to attend any public school outside the attendance area where they live. former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson School. Johnson grew up and still lives Paul F.

GeroThe Arizona Republic enjoys a game of football with his 13-year-old son, Justin, at Sunnyslope High in a lower-middle-class Sunnyslope area of north Phoenix. agreed to wait several months to collect about $25,000. The general contractor never paid him, however, and Johnson was thrown into a crisis. His father refused to lend him money, saying he needed to work it out himself. Secretly, his dad contacted suppliers and told them he would cover the debts if his son could not.

I Johnson worked out a payment plan and braced himself for tough times. "I sold my wife's car. I sold my truck and bought an older truck. We moved into a crime-ridden north Phoenix apartment," he said, i He paid off his debts within a year, and his business gradually improved. Johnson Co.

General Contracting, with Roben as partner, built commercial buildings and a few homes and did drywall work. Paul and Christa had another baby, Justin, who was healthy, and bought a tiny house a few blocks from where they now live. At 24, a political novice Johnson became involved in community affairs, joining the Lions Club and the Sunnyslope Community Council and coaching Little League Baseball. In 1983, with the arrival of the new district council system, he decided to run for a council seat. At 24, a political novice, he faced tough odds against his better-known opponents.

He garnered 14 percent of the vote, forcing a runoff between Anne Lynch and Barry Starr. His mother, who assisted in the campaign, was so disappointed that "I locked myself in my bedroom for two days," she says. But Johnson was befriended by the runoff victor, Starr, and Starr's wife at the time, Judy Lebeau. They counseled and coached him, and two years later, he charged the breach again, beating Lynch to become the city's youngest council member ever. That achievement came after a focused effort to downplay his youth, which continues today.

He didn't speak in radio ads, he stayed off television, and his posters always pictured him with his children. He's-still using the poster strategy in the gubernatorial campaign. "A father, not a freshman," the message seems to be. As mayor, Johnson plied a middle course, cobbling consensus behind doors rather than slugging it out in the open. His save-our-kids theme has carried over into the gubernatorial race, with calls for dress codes, gun restrictions and curfews for youths.

Give the kids "a hammer and a hug," he says in every speech. Johnson as social disciplinarian carries into his own home. He spends most Sundays with his family, even if it means skipping political engagements. When his 13-year-old son, Justin, got a in reading last semester, Johnson made him write a theme paper every day this summer. He won't let Paul III, now 16, get a driver's license, saying he will better appreciate the privilege next year.

Christa, however, said they waited because they can't afford the car insurance. Never far from 'carnival' Johnson's relatives tend to de- Mm, from page A 1 and sends his 16- and 13-year-old boys to public schools. But if Johnson is a grass-roots advocate, why are all those wealthy developers and CEOs contributing so generously to his campaigns? If he is as genuine and down-to-earth as his friends and family maintain, why have consultants been grooming his image, style and message since he first ran for council successfully in 1985? A closer look at the mayor" defies the simple assumptions people make about Johnson, a Democrat. He's straight-spoken, wields a biting wit and is a gleeful practical joker. Yet he orates affectedly, with corny bromides that lend him a manufactured quality.

He's a Phoenix native who trekked his way door-to-door into the limelight nine years ago, wearing out pairs of shoes that he nailed to his campaign-office wall. Yet to many people, he remains a cipher. Family always nearby One riddle about Johnson is how he could afford to serve for four years on the council with few other sources of income. When he won a tough election in 1985, nipping Anne Lynch by 185 votes, he turned over his small construction firm to his brother, Roben, and went on a fixed income as a District 3 councilman. Yet by the time he took the mayor's chair in 1990, he and his family were living in a new house one of the nicer ones in their neighborhood at the base of a mountain.

He managed this, he says, with' some Johnson trademarks: pinching pennies, and help from his large family. As hard up as some of the Johnson clan have been, all 30 to 40 siblings, cousins, nephews, parents and ex-spouses stick together. They have been with Johnson every step of his political career, licking envelopes, circulating petitions, putting up campaign signs. They don't always agree with Johnson's positions his sister objects to his support of abortion rights, and his brothers dislike his anti-gun rhetoric. But they share Johnson's blue-collar? Democratic roots, and remain in awe that a kid who used to rip out wallboard rose to mayor of the ninth-largest city in the nation.

That sense of wonder and doubt has tailed Johnson ever since he arrived on the scene sporting boyish looks and a wide-eyed enthusiasm. At 35, with blue eyes and a lanky 6-foot-7 frame, Johnson hxks like a cross between an NBA power forward and Dennis the Menace. Yet there he is, this kid-giant, hobnobbing with the cream of Arizona business and politics. He laughs too loud; his campaign stunts can be puerile; and it took him 16 years after high school to earn a small-college degree. Yet there he is, commanding the podium, brandishing wit and sometimes eloquence, mixed with homespun platitudes.

Has seemingly paid dues Some wonder whether having come so far so fast, he has paid all Paul Johnson Party: Democrat. Born: July 6, 1959; Phoenix! Residence: Phoenix. Occupation: Unemployed. Education: Bachelor's degree in business administration, University of Phoenix, 1993. Attended Harvard Universtiy's John F.

Kennedy program for senior executives in public administration. Family: Wife, Christa. Children, Paul III, 16; Justin, 13. Politicalcommunity highlights: Phoenix 1990-1994; Phoenix city councilman, 1986-1990 come a lawyer. 'We were just flat broke' But all that changed one day when a pretty 16-year-old girl strolled by a house in which he was working and Johnson leaned out the window to call her over.

She refused, but his father asked her to write her phone number on a board so Paul could get back to work. Paul and Christa Ewing married the following year, when he was 18, and within a year, they had a baby. Their son, Paul III, was born seven weeks premature and barely survived, spending six months in the hospital. Johnson, who didn't have health insurance, attributes his son's survival to a health-care program for premature infants advocated by then-Gov. Bruce Babbitt.

"Very hard times," Johnson "We ran out of money and food. Paul was in the hospital. I was trying to go to school (as a history major at Arizona State University)." One day his wife prepared a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. They had no sugar or bottled milk, so she used Nestle's Quick and powdered milk. "It was the most godawful thing I've eaten in my life," Johnson said.

"That's all we had. We were just flat broke." When Paul III came home, Christa had to quit work to take care of him. Johnson dropped daytime classes and began working construction jobs, later starting his own company. He continued taking night classes for years, earning a degree last year from the University of Phoenix. Shortly after starting the business, Johnson was slapped with a hard lesson in the wiles of contracting.

He built a small doctors building and scribe him in saintly terms. He dove into politics because he wanted to change things, not out of personal ambition, they say. He doesn't smoke, rarely drinks and won't even glance at a pretty woman other than his wife. He belongs to the conservative Bethany Bible Church, but rarely attends. His passion is jogging, which he does with some Phoenix police officers every morning.

He enjoys movies with Milk Duds and reads history books, Unemployed now, Johnson is living off his savings, Christa's wages at a chiropractor's office and rental income from a house and a triplex partly owned by his brothers and father. If he loses the election, "the worst thing that happens to me is that I'm out coaching a Little League ball team," he says. He also would go into an unspecified business. The siren of politics would always tempt him to try a comeback, however. As one observer put it, "Paul believes it is his destiny to be elected to office." Johnson seem to get enough of the political carnival the speechifying, the countless ceremonies, the campaign thrust-and-parry, the artful crafting of persona and positions.

Behind the Boy Scout mask, sdme-critics say, is a Machiavelli willing to push the public's most sensitive buttons of the moment such, as crime to climb to power. Johnson says he is just trying to make a difference for the public good, and have a little fun while he's at it. If he doesn't show off a cheap shoe, he'll try a practical joke, like waving to passers-by with a fake hand stuck on a broomstick out a City Hall window, which he did as mayor. "Looks like the Kennedys," an aide once said as Johnson and his mass of relatives posed for a picture at City Hall after he became mayor. "No," Johnson said, "More like the Beverly Hillbillies." $450.00 Values for $112.50 $249.00 Values for $62.50 Bedspreads as low as $4.99 Pillows as low as $3.50 I6th St.

St Maryland 265-7003 apartment units. The younger Johnson's interest in politics can be traced to his mother, who followed current events and was Kennedy family fan. He kept a scrapbook with clippings about the Kennedys and other politicians. When Johnson's parents divorced the early 1970s, he went to live with his dad a few miles away. A major cause of the breakup, family members say, was the death of Johnson's 4-month-old brother, Jerry, of pneumonia.

That twin tragedy is still painful for Johnson to recall. Under his father's tutelage, Johnson developed a penchant for working long hours. He picked up building scraps, hauled cement and hung wallboard. After his dad remarried and moved to a farm near Prescott, he went there and planted fence posts. The second-oldest of four children, with five half siblings, Johnson planned to attend college and be the requisite dues.

In the arena of real-life hardship, the answer would seem to be "Yes." Johnson's background is as rough-hewn as a two-by-four. His mother, Yvonne Dclisle of Phoenix, moved to Avondale from West Virginia when she was 16 and worked in the cotton fields and cabbage sheds and as a waitress. She now owns the Stinger Cocktail Lounge, a one-pool-table bar at 19th Avenue and Camelback Road. Johnson doesn't visit the place, but many of the regulars there have helped in his campaigns. His mother has long been afraid that her owning the baj, might hurt Johnson's image.

His father, Paul Johnson moved to Arizona from Pennsylvania when he was 10 and shined shoes and worked as a busboy. He began working construction jobs and was eventually hired by developer John F. Long. He later started his own drywall business, and before moving to Prescott, built and sold some HfJIMETKAUr UVOfiHt CUSS vi.m VIMTI CASUT WINDOW FBAMC 2684300 0 1-4 MUMTIIIt nH OtAOAIISPACE a in XJS SELLING ITS ENTIRE NETTLE CREEK BEDSPREAD GALLERY INVENTORY I JA itSTvJ'-tL," i at r'iX I CONVERT ARTHRITIS RESEARCH DID YOU KNOW arthritis medications can cause stomach ulcers? Sanford Roth, M.D. Medical Director of the Arthritis Center, has found some startling facts about this phenomenon.

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