Plenty of Potential Rivals on Both Sides : Cranston Faces His Toughest Challenge in ’86

Alan Cranston faces the toughest campaign of his U.S. Senate career next year, with a long list of potential challengers vying to run against him.

The 70-year-old Cranston, who is starting his 17th year in the Senate as its No. 2-ranking Democrat, denies any serious concern about his reelection next year. He says speculation that his campaign for the Democratic nomination for President in 1984 left him politically vulnerable is a “misconception.”

Potential GOP Opponents

But his actions suggest otherwise. He is campaigning harder and earlier than ever. Similarly, the long list of prominent potential challengers is evidence that a lot of other politicians in both parties believe Cranston is politically wounded.

There have been no formal declarations yet by any challengers. But San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein has said publicly that she may run against Cranston in the Democratic primary.

On the Republican side, the list of candidates testing the waters ranges across the entire GOP spectrum, from moderates to the far right.

Potential Republican opponents, more or less from center to right, include former state Controller Houston I. Flournoy, state Sen. Ken Maddy of Fresno, Assemblyman Robert W. Naylor of Menlo Park, state Sen. Ed Davis of Chatsworth, Rep. Bobbi Fiedler of Northridge, Los Angeles Supervisor Mike Antonovich, Rep. William E. Dannemeyer of Fullerton and former Rep. John Rousselot.

From that group, Naylor, Davis and Fiedler have been the most candid about their ambitions, while the others have allowed or subtly encouraged speculation about their potential interest.

Several factors have turned Cranston, who has been one of California’s most successful Democratic politicians, into a prime target for 1986. But the two most important are age and his presidential campaign.

California voters have shown no particular bias against older candidates. They gave 73-year-old President Reagan a 1.5-million-vote margin last November, and they elected then-70-year-old S. I. Hayakawa to the U.S. Senate in 1976.

But unlike Reagan and Hayakawa, who both look younger than their years, Cranston appears gaunt and frail. In person, his vigor and energy are apparent. But in photographs, he often looks far older than 70.

Cranston ended his presidential campaign with more than a bruised ego and a $1.8-million campaign debt. He also acquired a more partisan and a much more liberal image that could be a liability in 1986.

Despite his background as founding president of the liberal California Democratic Council and activism in the United World Federalists and other liberal causes, Cranston’s image as a U.S. senator has been as a pragmatist and an effective parliamentary tactician.

Never a flamboyant or charismatic speaker, Cranston never became a visible leader of Senate liberals. And the fact that he had a series of less effective fellow Californians in the Senate helped him build a moderate, almost nonpartisan, image in looking after California interests.

But in his 13-month presidential campaign, which ended when he drew only 3% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary last February, Cranston positioned himself among the most liberal contenders for the presidency and the most outspoken advocates of nuclear disarmament.

‘No Major Negatives’ Pollster Mervin Field says that prior to his presidential campaign, Cranston’s image among California voters was hazy and moderately favorable.

“There were no major negatives. What the public knew about Cranston was that he was efficient and experienced, that he seemed to know what he was doing. But his specific actions were largely unobserved,” Field said.

“In the year or so that Alan Cranston was running for President, the California public formed more definite views of Cranston than they did for his whole 16 years in the Senate,” Field said, adding that Cranston’s identification with more partisan and controversial issues increases his vulnerability.

But, Field continued, “the biggest negative for Cranston is that his physical being became much more apparent . . . as someone who is not only elderly, but looks cadaverous. He doesn’t look anywhere near as vigorous as he is.”

Cranston counters such criticism by citing his health and vigorous schedule. Turning to issues and political considerations, he says he believes his presidential campaign strengthened him.

“There’s a misperception of vulnerability (because of the presidential campaign). I feel stronger as a result of that effort. I learned a lot and I developed new supporters I didn’t have before,” Cranston said.

Cranston also disputes any far-left labels, citing his support of the B-1 bomber, the Lockheed loan and reductions in the capital gains tax, among other things.

“I am not a doctrinaire liberal,” he said, although the liberal Americans for Democratic Action gave him vote ratings of 85%, 95% and 75% for the last three years, while he scored under 10% on conservative scales.

Cranston also denies any political shift during or after his presidential campaign, which focused on banning nuclear war, his opposition to President Reagan’s Central American policies and repeal of some of Reagan’s tax cuts for the wealthy.

“I didn’t change a single position,” he said. “I did campaign to a different constituency, and I changed the emphasis to some extent.”

Still, the different emphasis gives a quite different image of Cranston. During his campaign, he described Reagan as “trigger-happy and reckless” and “incapable” of negotiating arms limitations. Now Cranston says he is “hopeful and encouraged” that Reagan “sincerely wants to make progress in arms control” and may succeed.

Similarly, Cranston now says the Democratic Party must “chart a more centrist course” on domestic issues if it is to remain the majority party.

Critics such as Republican political consultant Lyn Nofziger and Rousselot say Cranston is vulnerable because of the more liberal image he projected during his presidential campaign.

“He said too much when he was running for President,” said Rousselot, probably the most conservative potential rival.

“Cranston could be in a lot of trouble,” Nofziger said. “He’s not as vulnerable against an extreme conservative. He’s got much more to worry about against a moderate like Maddy.”

Rep. Ed Zschau of Los Altos, another Republican who toyed with the idea of running against Cranston but backed off because of his own low voter recognition, added: “Any time you make a run for an office and . . . you’re not even close, it doesn’t help your image of being invincible.”

Feinstein makes the some of the same points in her cautious comments about Cranston.

“There are a lot of people who have said someone who is in their prime” could defeat him, she told San Francisco reporters recently, adding that “I’m very fond of Alan, and I’m not casting any aspersions” by questioning his electability in 1986.

For her own part, Feinstein, who declined Cranston’s invitation to be a co-chair of his reelection campaign, said only that she is keeping her options open and that “this does not mean that I’m running, and does not mean that I’m not running.”

In fact, Cranston’s vote-getting record, although impressive, suggests neither invincibility nor fatal vulnerability to a moderate Republican.

The only election Cranston ever lost was to a moderate Republican, Flournoy, who narrowly defeated him for state controller in 1966. But that election was heavily influenced by Reagan’s landslide victory for governor, which swept Democrats out of most statewide offices.

In his three races for the the U.S. Senate, Cranston faced Republicans far to the right of the political mainstream--defeating the late Max Rafferty by 300,000 votes in 1968, state Sen. H. L. Richardson of Glendora by 1.4 million in 1974, and Proposition 13 co-author Paul Gann by 1.7 million in 1980.

While critics attribute those victories the weakness of his opponents, it is also arguable that one reason Cranston drew such weak opponents was his own perceived strength.

That will not be the case in 1986.

Whether Cranston is or isn’t seriously weakened, there are enough people who believe he is to encourage potential opponents from all over the political spectrum.

Furthermore, with Republicans controlling the U.S. Senate by just three seats, every close race will draw massive contributions to both sides.