Major Point at Candidates’ Talk: Retiring Cranston

Their views on such issues as homosexuality, MX missiles and tax reform were at odds. Still, the five Republicans who spent two hours Saturday debating in a UC Irvine lecture hall agreed on at least one thing:

All were determined “to bring (U. S. Sen.) Alan Cranston the retirement we all think he richly deserves,” as Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) explained it.

Nearly two months before the March 7 filing deadline, five of the nine Republicans who have their sights on Cranston’s seat were participating in what was billed as “The Great Debate,” the latest in a series of forums held around the state during the last three months to introduce the candidates to the public.

Drug Use Assailed

Ed Davis, the former Los Angeles police chief and now a state senator from Valencia, was there, talking up the Neighborhood Watch Program and railing against not only illegal drugs but also America’s “appetite” for drugs. And there was Dannemeyer, assailing homosexuality and a state law barring discrimination against homosexuals with a phrase he likes to use: “God’s Plan for Men is Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”

Davis and two other Senate candidates, Assemblyman Robert Naylor (R-Menlo Park) and Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Long Beach) vigorously disagreed with Dannemeyer’s views. Said Naylor: “I don’t think government should legislate morality. I don’t think a person should be discriminated against just because he or she is gay.”

Also present, calling himself “just a country teacher, not a politician,” was William Allen, a Harvey Mudd College professor of constitutional law, who argued that the public wants a simplified tax system and an end to terrorism abroad.

Despite the topics covered, the Great Debate, organized by Republican Youth Associates of Orange County, did not draw much of a turnout. On a warm, sunny afternoon, only 60 people, most of them college Republicans from UCLA, California State University, Fullerton, UC Irvine and Pomona College, came to listen.

More senatorial candidates had been expected to attend, said Blake G. Konczal, a UCLA junior who chairs the associates. “We started with the full list except for (television commentator Bruce) Herschensoh and (economist Arthur) Laffer. And then gradually people started to flake out on us,” Konczal said.

But then, “it’s early in the season yet,” Naylor had said before the forum began. “I would say that (of all the candidates) apathy is ahead.”

Dannemeyer agreed. Interest in the race is just starting to pick up, he noted, and at the moment the leading candidate is “a guy named Undecided.”