Davis, Fiedler Scramble for Coverage Outside Big Cities

Driving through the gates of an exclusive private stable, Ed Davis was met by a chilling scene. Empty chairs covered the wide lawn, and the event he had flown here to attend was due to start in three minutes.

“Who approved this one?” he demanded of Eric Rose, the California State University, Northridge, student who handles press and travel duties as Davis campaigns for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination.

Davis had just spent several minutes bemoaning, in mock anger, how much time can be wasted at sparsely attended campaign events. As things turned out, however, the candidates’ forum before the Lincoln Club of Santa Barbara proved a worthy use of two hours, for emotional reasons if nothing else.

The 150 well-to-do, if late arriving, Republicans gave Davis a warm welcome, applauding his creation of the first Neighborhood Watch program and authorship of a state Senate bill to jail repeat criminals without parole. They also interrupted with applause, when he noted that he is co-chairman of a group opposing the reconfirmation of Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird.

For Davis, the maverick state Senator from Valenica, and Northridge Congresswoman Bobbi Fiedler, who also spoke briefly at the Lincoln Club, it was a rare spot of good cheer as they grind away at the tail end of the field of serious contenders chasing the Republican nomination in next week’s primary.

Davis and Fiedler began the year by battling each other in a nasty dispute, and they close in on election day facing similar fates--trailing in the polls, unable to excite a clear share of the Republican rank-and-file and left to scramble for free media attention outside the major cities.

It is a strategy born in desperation that can easily go bad, as Davis discovered when he tried to entice editors to cover him one day last week in suburban Contra Costa County.

Davis and his wife, Bobbie, arrived in a chartered Cessna from Orange County for a noon press conference in Concord. However, only one reporter showed up, and her paper publishes in heavily Democratic Oakland. The local political editor who promised to stop by never showed up.

Leaving Concord late, the Davis party flew to Santa Maria, an important stopover with its own television stations. The film crews, however, had left by the time Davis arrived, so the candidate settled for 15 minutes with a pair of local radio reporters and a writer from the Santa Maria Times.

When Davis landed in Santa Barbara, no reporters showed up for a joint press conference with Sheriff John Carpenter. Davis was later told that two reporters were unable to find the small, private terminal using the directions supplied by his largely young and inexperienced campaign staff.

Davis, a plain talker who used to be Los Angeles police chief, does not usually slant his positions to please his listeners, so he might be well served by the no-shows.

For instance, Concord is a center of anti-Southern California sentiment on water. Davis, however, favors building a peripheral canal to divert more northern water to the south, before it reaches the Sacramento River delta, and the absence of any local journalists probably saved him from raising any ire.

“We probably ought to be bringing in water from Canada,” he said later. “Water will determine the future of California.”

In Santa Maria, where there is controversy over proposed offshore oil drilling and the nearby Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, Davis said he favors aggressive exploration for oil on the outer continental shelf and would make no exceptions for sensitive natural areas, such as Big Sur.

“I consider every linear inch of the California coastline sacred, but modern technology is such that there can be safe (oil) development,” Davis said.

He also supports the spread of large nuclear power plants such as Diablo Canyon, although he said he doubts that economic realities will allow any more to be built.

For Fiedler the no-frills campaign meant a marathon two-day drive up the San Joaquin Valley, seeking votes and newspaper endorsements in Bakersfield, Visalia, Merced and Modesto.

She ran into some trouble at the northern end of the trip during a brief stop at television station KRCR in Redding. She had hoped it would be an interview worth a few minutes of free radio time.

Taped Interview

However, news director Cal Hunter said after taping the interview that Fiedler was not knowledgeable about local timber issues and he was not sure if he would air it.

“If you’re going to come up here, you should know your stuff,” Hunter said.

At radio and newspaper interviews later in Chico, Fiedler stressed that she would be only the third woman in the Senate, a prospect that she comes back to more as the campaign winds up.

“As we get closer down the line, it’s a distinct asset I have,” Fiedler said. “A lot of people don’t know there are only two women in the Senate.”

At every stop in Chico and nearby Paradise she was asked about her Los Angeles County grand jury indictment earlier this year on charges, initiated by Davis, that she allegedly tried to bribe him to quit the race. The indictment was dropped after Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner concluded that there was no evidence to convict Fiedler.

“All that is behind me now,” she told KPAY AM-FM radio. “I’m very proud of the way I conducted myself.”