Van de Kamp May Coast to Reelection : GOP Unable to Field a Strong Candidate for Attorney General

Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp is facing as easy a contest for reelection as a politician could hope for.

With $450,000 in the bank, Van de Kamp is running unopposed in the Democratic primary and GOP officials concede that they have no strong candidate to challenge him as he seeks a second term in the November general election.

“It’s tough getting somebody to stand up and take him on,” said Joe Irvin, communications director for the state Republican Party. “Perhaps we just didn’t make a concerted effort to recruit a sterling field of candidates.”

In the June primary campaign, three little-known Republicans are vying for the chance to run against Van de Kamp: Bruce Gleason, a San Fernando Valley lawyer and former Needles city attorney; Duncan M. James, former Mendocino County district attorney, and Lawrence J. Straw Jr., a Los Angeles lawyer and longtime conservative.

Surveys have shown, Irvin said, that the attorney general is the least vulnerable of any statewide incumbent.

An easy victory this fall could place Van de Kamp in an excellent position to run for governor in 1990. The attorney general has repeatedly said that he does not rule out the possibility of running for governor but that he is satisfied with his current post and is not seeking another job.

Van de Kamp, 50, said he is “pleasantly surprised” at the lack of strong opposition. “I’m surprised the Republicans did not run a name candidate against me,” he said.

One reason the GOP could not field a widely recognized candidate, Irvin said, is that the Van de Kamp name is well known throughout the state--in part because of his family’s food business.

“He’s got his name in every bakery or every grocery store in the state,” Irvin said. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Van de Kamp seems tough to beat despite the fact that he has taken stands similar to those that have gotten some of his fellow Democrats in political trouble this year.

The former Los Angeles district attorney is one of California’s few top-level officeholders who remains opposed to the death penalty. And he has refused to take a position on the confirmation of embattled Chief Justice of California Rose Elizabeth Bird. Van de Kamp insists that his philosophical opposition to capital punishment has not interfered with the responsibility his office has to handle all death penalty cases that are on appeal to the state Supreme Court.

“I’ve said publicly for the last number of years that if I were a legislator I would vote against the death penalty,” he said. “It’s my job to carry these laws out and I’ve done so faithfully. I think the death penalty is a non-issue in my race.”

He has taken no stand on Bird, he said, because his office frequently argues cases before the high court and he does not want to mix politics with legal matters.

“I feel much freer and I think the court will feel much freer about lawyers who are going in and arguing the pants off the case without the feeling that somehow they’re arguing on the basis of some political position either for or against the court,” he said.

As attorney general, Van de Kamp has attempted to build an image of being tough on crime while seeking to protect the environment and the interests of consumers.

He takes pride in the state’s new computerized fingerprint identification system that can store the prints of 1.5 million people and match them rapidly. The system is used every day to solve cases that would otherwise go unsolved, he said.

Despite the lack of a primary election campaign opponent, Van de Kamp has increased his public visibility this year with a string of press conferences around the state on issues such as child abuse and curbing the use of narcotics and alcohol.

He expects to raise $1 million for his campaign and has already received the endorsements of the state’s major law enforcement organizations.

No Substantial Campaign

So far, none of the three GOP hopefuls has mounted a substantial campaign.

Gleason said he will spend $35,000 or more of his own money to send out mailers and advertise on radio.

James said he has raised about $15,000 and hopes to raise $150,000 for the primary. He has made some appearances in different parts of the state, flying his own airplane, but acknowledges that it is difficult to run a statewide campaign from remote Ukiah.

Straw has raised $15,000 so far but hopes to obtain as much as $50,000 through fund-raising letters and mailers being sent out by conservative groups backing him, he said.

Both James and Straw have the backing of conservative GOP politicians, but little visible support so far from the mainstream of the party.

Straw has the endorsement of tax crusader Howard Jarvis, Orange County Reps. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) and Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), various conservative groups and half a dozen of the GOP’s more conservative state legislators.

Conservative Support

James can claim the support of three of the Legislature’s conservative GOP members: Sen. John Doolittle of Citrus Heights, Assemblyman Nolan Frizzelle of Huntington Beach, and Sen. H. L. Richardson of Glendora.

James was first appointed district attorney of Mendocino County at the age of 28 and served for 10 years until he was defeated for reelection in 1979. Since then, he has been practicing law in Ukiah.

James, now 46, said he is the most qualified of the three GOP candidates because he is the only one with experience as a prosecutor.

“I am as qualified as John Van de Kamp to fill that office,” he said.

As attorney general, James promised he would argue every death penalty case before the state Supreme Court himself, unlike Van de Kamp, who has not personally handled any capital cases before the high court.

Worked for Nixon

Straw, 40, worked in the Richard M. Nixon Administration’s Office of Economic Opportunity where he helped dismantle liberal programs of the Great Society.

Afterward, he returned to California where he co-founded the Conservative Caucus and began practicing law, counting Jarvis among his clients.

He got his start in politics as president of the Massachusetts chapter of Youth for Goldwater in 1964.

Straw said he is mounting a grass-roots campaign to win the primary and unseat Van de Kamp, who he said is out of step with the state’s voters.

“I think the incumbent in the office doesn’t represent the views of the people of California,” Straw said. He cited the death penalty and Bird’s reconfirmation as two examples.

Headed Bar Assn.

Gleason, 62, said he has been practicing law in the San Fernando Valley for 31 years and has served as president of the San Fernando Valley Bar Assn. Before that, he held the appointed post of city attorney in the Mojave Desert community of Needles.

Gleason said his long experience as a trial lawyer makes him the best qualified candidate.

Gleason called Van de Kamp’s performance “inadequate” and criticized the attorney general’s opposition to capital punishment.

Gleason said he believes strongly in the death penalty but acknowledged that as a criminal lawyer he succeeded in keeping two clients accused of murder from going to the gas chamber.

“As a defense attorney, I’ve done my very best to keep clients I have had from being executed,” he said.

In addition to the Republicans, three attorneys are challenging Van de Kamp as representatives of other parties: Gary Odom of Walnut for the American Independent Party; Carol L. Newman of Canoga Park for the Libertarian Party, and Robert J. Evans of Oakland for the Peace and Freedom Party. None faces any primary election opposition.