Both Fiedler, Davis Seen as Hurt : Indictment Plunges GOP Senate Race Into Chaos

California’s crowded Republican U.S. Senate primary has been plunged into chaos by the indictment of Northridge Congresswoman Bobbi Fiedler, one of the race’s strongest candidates--and by her charge that the case is “a political dirty trick,” a phrase Republicans have come to loathe since the Watergate days.

Many political professionals in both parties said Friday that they thought it would be very hard for Fiedler to conduct a campaign now unless she is quickly exonerated. At the same time, these strategists also wondered about possible damage to the Senate candidacy of the man who brought the Fiedler case to the authorities, state Sen. Ed Davis of Valencia, who is the nominal front-runner in the race.

And some even speculated that the Fiedler case will hurt all Republicans in the Senate race as they try to focus their fire on Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston.

“It’s going to be hanging around like dirty laundry for weeks,” said Republican state Sen. H. L. Richardson of Glendora when asked about the indictment. “Alan Cranston has been at the right place at the right times more than anybody in politics.”

Cranston would not comment on the Fiedler indictment.

Assemblyman Gray Davis (D-Los Angeles) said: “Well, certainly this doesn’t help Fiedler. And it probably doesn’t help (Ed) Davis. You don’t want to be associated with bad news.”

In Washington, there was dismay and confusion at the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has rated Cranston as the most vulnerable senator in November’s election.

David Narsavage, the committee’s communications director, said: “Obviously, you are innocent until proven guilty, but there is a political truism that it is darned difficult to get a nomination if you are under indictment. And I think just the association with something like this can be crippling, not only to Fiedler but unfortunately to Ed Davis as well.”

Narsavage said he did not think the Fiedler indictment and ensuing confusion would renew Republican pressure to get baseball Commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth to enter the primary.

Hasn’t Shown Interest

“No, he (Ueberroth) has denied interest in being a candidate,” Narsavage said. “We’d like to see a more definitive statement of withdrawal from him, if anything. He’s having a stifling effect on our candidates’ ability to raise money out there. We won’t be knocking on his door again.”

Later in the day, a spokeswoman for the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee tried to retract Narsavage’s comments about the impact of Fiedler’s indictment on the race, saying that it was not the view of the committee.

Stuart K. Spencer of Newport Beach, one of President Reagan’s political consultants, said he doubted if the Fiedler case would have much impact on the race beyond the damage to her candidacy if she is not cleared.

“It hurts her, but I don’t think it hurts Republicans in general,” Spencer said. “. . . I don’t think this kind of situation hurts Ed Davis because Ed is a former police chief.”

Says She’s Innocent

At a press conference Friday, Fiedler declared her innocence and pledged to continue her campaign.

“We will win this campaign,” said her aide, Paul Clarke, who was also indicted.

And Gray Davis said, “If this indictment is not justifiable, this could actually catapult Fiedler into the nomination.”

Spencer, meanwhile, wondered who “will fill the vacuum if Bobbi (Fiedler) is out of it.”

It was a question much on the minds of political observers. Fiedler had entered the race strongly on Jan. 6 with nearly $700,000 in her campaign war chest. She went for Cranston’s jugular vein right away, saying the words Cranston’s strategists do not want to hear--that the 71-year-old senator is “out of touch” with California after three terms in Washington.

Same Political Turf

Fiedler, 48, who got her political start in the anti-busing movement, was elected to Congress in 1980. She shares with Ed Davis, the 69-year-old former Los Angeles police chief, some of the same political base--the northwestern parts of the San Fernando Valley, a generally prosperous enclave that one demographer calls “Orange County North.”

And there has been competition between Fiedler and Davis ever since both began exploring the 1986 Senate race two years ago.

From the day Davis entered the Republican primary in February, 1985, Fiedler’s top adviser, Clarke, has gone out of his way to snipe at Davis, saying to reporters at various times that Davis was out of money and out of energy.

The Davis campaign has taken some shots at Fiedler as well. Davis campaign manager Martha Zilm asked reporters to check out whether Fiedler and Clarke were married, since it has been common knowledge for some time in political circles that they have been romantically involved.

Who Is the Trickster?

At a press conference Friday, Davis said he agreed with Fiedler’s words that “a dirty political trick” had been perpetrated. But, he charged, the Fiedler campaign was the trickster.

Later, in a telephone interview, Davis said: “I am appalled that anyone could think they could bribe me out of my election. A lawyer came up to me after my press conference Friday and said, ‘If I had to pick anyone to try to bribe, you would be the last one.’ It was the most devious thing I have ever seen.”

Asked whether his own candidacy could be damaged by the Fiedler indictment, Davis replied:

“Right from the very beginning, from the day the first feeler came from the Fiedler campaign, I knew that this could have a downside, that it could be just as bad for us as it could be for Fiedler. I guess we won’t know until the Times Poll comes out, will we?”

Cranston has benefited from a combination of good fortune and weak opponents in his three previous Senate races. No one thought that Republican Sen. Thomas H. Kuchel was beatable in 1968, but conservative educator Max Rafferty stunned Kuchel in the primary.

Not a Sacrificial Lamb

Cranston, who was supposed to be the sacrificial Democratic candidate that November, suddenly found himself drawing the support of moderate Republicans turned off by Rafferty. Cranston won.

He won again in 1974, the Watergate year, against H. L. Richardson, another ultraconservative. In 1980 Cranston defeated tax gadfly Paul Gann, a weak campaigner.

But many Republicans--and some Democrats--have been suggesting that Cranston’s luck has run out. He appeared to have damaged himself in 1984 by running for President as a candidate who was so liberal that he put himself on the fringe of the Democratic contest by the time he withdrew after the New Hampshire primary.

In addition to Davis and Fiedler, the other Republican U.S. Senate candidates are: Claremont-McKenna Prof. Bill Allen; Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich; Rep. William E. Dannemeyer of Fullerton; former television commentator Bruce Herschensohn of Los Angeles; economist Arthur Laffer of Rolling Hills Estates; Assemblyman Robert Naylor of Menlo Park, and Rep. Ed Zschau of Los Altos.