Antonovich on Senate Trail--Plain-Wrapped Campaign Style

Southern California may be saturated with information--news, entertainment and all kinds of advertising--but Mike Antonovich insists that you take a breath and listen to his view of politics from the bottom up, no shortcuts.

“In America, we have three branches of government,” he begins in response to a question about upcoming court retention elections.

Or about the federal budget deficit, he explains, “The Congress is spending more money than the country takes in so . . .”

On immigration: “In our form of government, Congress makes the laws.”

Part bookish, part Rotarian, Mike Antonovich, the tall, blond Los Angeles County supervisor and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, isn’t the kind of campaigner to raise goose bumps on an audience. He could just as well be mistaken for a man seeking a tenured seat in the civics department of a college faculty. In fact, he used to teach government both at high school and college, but these days he is not offering academic credits.

“I’m trying to point out my depth, that I’m the most substantive candidate,” he says of his determinedly plain-brown-wrapper style. “You must retain your individuality. I don’t think the people want a manufactured candidate. We’re dealing here with real issues . . . America is in trouble.”

With the primary election now only seven weeks away, the 46-year-old Antonovich is counting on his longevity in California GOP politics, the fact that his name is well-known in Southern California, his widespread political connections, his doctrinaire conservatism and his interest in ethnic politics to win the 30% or so that he guesses it will take to beat the field of six other credible GOP contenders. The winner faces Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston in November.

We can’t make it exciting, Antonovich’s campaign aides tell themselves, but we can make it.

An Antonovich Sampler

Here is a sampler of Antonovich on the stump:

He is for : A crackdown on unlawful immigration including the use of U.S. troops to guard the border if necessary and penalties for employers who hire undocumented workers, a differential minimum wage for businesses that hire teen-agers, providing the President with the ability to line-item veto appropriations from congressional legislation, military aid to the Nicaragua rebels, contracting out as much government work as possible to private businesses, a new voluntary income tax checkoff to finance a space shuttle replacement for the Challenger, a voucher system so parents can finance their children’s education in schools of their choice and virtually every element of President Reagan’s defense build-up.

He is against : Reelecting Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird who will appear on the November ballot, the equal rights amendment, abortion, the right of public employees to strike, added economic sanctions against South Africa, restrictions on Social Security benefits that limit outside income, the taxation of interest on savings accounts, the 55-m.p.h. speed limit and uncontrolled contingency fees for lawyers in liability cases.

A candidate in Antonovich’s position has some natural advantages but the question is whether he has successfully capitalized on them.

As a Los Angeles County supervisor he is right in the middle of the biggest concentration of voters and media in the state. But his campaigning has been almost leisurely paced. His constituency of more than 1.5 million is larger than the populations of most states, and he has held the powerful office since 1980. But even in early polls based chiefly on name recognition, he has not emerged as a leader in the Senate race.

Some early news accounts of the race have relegated Antonovich to the ranks of the also-rans. Once in awhile, he is ignored altogether. Despite two decades of experience in dealing with the media, his relationship with reporters is often distant and combative.

“On paper he should win this primary. But, face it, he has no talent to turn people on,” said one Republican election consultant not involved in this race.

‘A Degree of Comfort’

Antonovich and some other Republicans argue that too much can be made of early jockeying in the contest and that Antonovich is easy to underestimate.

Supervising Antonovich’s campaign is Sal Russo, a professional consultant whose credentials include helping manage Gov. George Deukmejian’s successful underdog campaign in 1982. Russo, his partner, Doug Watts, and Antonovich campaign manager Jim Dutra, contend that a no-frills style of politics is still fashionable in California.

“Maybe things are starting to shift to an interest in glamour candidates, but 1986 is still a period when voters are interested in stable, I-know-where-he-stands kind of leadership,” says Russo. “Mike is like that. He provides a degree of comfort; voters know where he stands.”

Russo is also a believer that, in the end, television advertising will determine the outcome of the race, not Lion’s Club luncheons or news interviews. “It’s media and this is a media state.”

Stuart K. Spencer, one of the deans of the state’s GOP political consultants, put it this way: “You can throw a blanket and cover about five (candidates in the field). Whoever has the money to spend on TV at the end will win.”

This week, Antonovich is expected to report having raised about $1 million for the primary race, with roughly one-half that amount unspent. This will put him on par with the fund-raising leaders in the race. Among his most reliable contributors have been developers.

His television advertising began this month on two fronts, including a series of commercials that have raised controversy.

Under federal law, candidates for the U.S. Senate are limited in how much money they can raise from a single source, $1,000 per contributor and $5,000 per political action committees. Antonovich previously raised and banked money as a supervisor that exceeds the federal limits. He has used an as-yet undisclosed amount of that money to finance a series of commercials in which he does not mention his Senate candidacy but calls on voters to defeat Chief Justice Bird.

These ads were aired by stations in the Central Valley and San Diego, according to Antonovich aides. In these areas, Antonovich’s name recognition is low. Russo, who produced the anti-Bird advertisements as well as the candidate’s more traditional commercials, insisted Antonovich was not attempting to circumvent federal campaign-spending restrictions.

A complaint by a rival GOP candidate reportedly has been filed with the Federal Elections Commission against Antonovich.

In his regular commercials, Antonovich introduces himself as the candidate with the longest association to both Reagan and Deukmejian, a theme that underlies much of his campaign strategy. He also notes that as a reserve South Pasadena police officer he is the only candidate “still active in law enforcement” and the only candidate to serve as chairman of the state GOP.

‘Values, Vision’

Antonovich’s slogan is two words: “Values, vision.”

Before his election to the Board of Supervisors, Antonovich served in the state Assembly. His accomplishments included authorship of legislation increasing penalties for child-stealing. Previously, he had served on the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees. He lost his only other attempt at statewide office, when he was defeated in the 1978 Republican primary election for lieutenant governor.

The name Antonovich is Slavic, Croatian to be specific. And it seems to be a matter of genuine pride as well as pragmatic politics that leads him to cultivate ethnic support and ethnic involvement in California GOP politics, an effort for which he receives scant mainstream attention.

His campaign says that of a total of 43 fund-raising events, nine events responsible for $125,000 in contributions have been exclusively ethnic--Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Egyptian, Slavic, Jewish and Armenian. Upcoming are events for supporters from other ethnic communities including Vietnamese, Latino, Lebanese and Filipino.

“We have people of every ethnic background living here in peace like no other country in the world,” he declares, as if undertaking, again, a civics lesson on the subject. “That has to be strengthened by inclusion, not exclusion. We are all Americans.”

By nature, Antonovich is shy, quiet and deliberative, if not contemplative. It would seem only by a quirk that such a man would be drawn into a profession of glib talkers, socializers and glad-handers. He is one of those odd politicians who can be found standing alone in a crowd.

He collects rare books, buys Salvador Dali paintings, dabbles at tennis and verges on zealousness about health foods. He swears the copper chain-link bracelet on his right wrist relieves the pain in his shoulder from a car accident. He has a steady and increasingly serious romance under way but has never been married. His idea of a vacation is a trip abroad on a trade mission.

Writes Notes on Palm

His spit-shined shoes and shirts monogrammed MDA on the cuff mark Antonovich as fastidious. But he thinks nothing of writing a reminder to himself in ink on the palm of his hand.

Whether at the Board of Supervisors, traveling between campaign stops or almost anywhere in between, Antonovich reads and reads. He goes through his briefcase like someone eating rice in Chinatown, with head down and his hands steadily churning papers.

Much of Antonovich’s reading seems not to be in search of new ideas, but confirmation of his uncompromising conservatism that was cast solidly in his youth as a volunteer for presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

Sometimes his wandering monologues leave questions about his depth of knowledge about a subject. If Americans could legally buy vacation property in Mexico, for instance, would that really make a difference in the Mexican economy and reduce illegal immigration north, as Antonovich once suggested? Or could acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) be reduced if gays went straight, as he has suggested?

But he can also, as he did in one nonstop volley recently, make his points quoting journalists from two continents and two centuries, a novelist, two newspaper accounts, magazine articles representing both liberal and conservative viewpoints, the Bible (both testaments), the Mayflower Compact and from the benediction at George Washington’s inaugural.

Mike Antonovich is nothing so much as he is serious. But then again, he will argue, these are serious times. “In our system, . . .” he will begin.