L.A. 1986 : ELECTION DRUMBEATS

Which way are things going politically, you ask? Point the direction, almost any direction, and 1986 will prove you right.

To begin with, of course, it was a year of torpor. After all, didn’t candidates set a record spending money to fault each other in 1986? And didn’t weary voters respond by ignoring the election in record numbers?

But, yes, sure enough, bands of citizens rose up in spirited activism. With petition drives and Populist battle cries, they beat the Establishment on several fronts with laws restricting toxics and urban development and decreeing that English was to be our official language.

Yes, the conservative tide ran strongly in 1986. Supreme Court Justices Rose Elizabeth Bird, Joseph Grodin and Cruz Reynoso and Gov. George Deukmejian come to mind.

And the liberals? They were on a roll, to be sure. There were U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston, toxics initiative Proposition 65, Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy, Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp and Controller-elect Gray Davis, no?

As it turned out, the year 1986 refused, no matter how you grasped it and wrestled it around, to fit under one headline. There were no absorbing personalities, no common enemies. In short, nothing to drive the inattentive or cynical among us out of their chairs. This showed on Election Day with a turnout of only 59% of registered voters, the lowest since World War II.

Still, passions stirred here and there during the year. With the pocketbook more or less secure, it meant time for politics about the quality of life in California. That added an environmentalist tint to many of the most important campaigns. Some observers found it downright historic that citizens of Los Angeles and San Francisco would approve propositions to restrain the booming growth that made their cities renown.

Never mind that product advertising was getting softer and more interesting, political commercials in 1986 were judged for how loutish and sullied they could be.

Candidate debates were like condors--everybody worried over them but almost none was seen.

Ideology and political parties as usual seemed to matter hardly at all.

Once again, the state was represented by a Democrat and a Republican in the U.S. Senate, and a governor and lieutenant governor of different parties. Some attributed this to voter whimsy, or anarchy or just independence. Others had a hunch that voters wanted politicians to keep a closer check on each other.

Howard Jarvis died during the year. Of course, the colorful crusader was in mid-campaign. His one-time teammate, Paul Gann, yet again probed the depths of anti-government sentiment but came up short with his ballot proposition to limit public salaries. Treasurer Jesse Unruh was disclosed to be ill and his once domineering political profile receded.

There was a lot of looking past 1986 before it was over. Republican Ed Zschau was edged out by Democrat Cranston in the most expensive election race in state history (nearly $25 million), but Zschau promised to try again in 1992. California’s other U.S. senator, Pete Wilson, was also busy on election night even though he was not on the ballot: He held a fund-raising event for his 1988 campaign.

Some people saw 1986 as another losing year for former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. It was his Supreme Court that became so controversial, and three of his justices who were ousted in a confirmation vote--an event without precedent in the state. Brown wrote one short article in defense of his justices but otherwise exempted himself from the campaign and traveled to Japan.

But then again, it was Brown’s old chief of staff, Gray Davis, who stormed past other ambitious politicians and captured the only vacant statewide office, that of controller. And the political jungle drums have it that Brown is being urged by friends to consider a run for mayor of Los Angeles.

Charlton Heston and Peter V. Uberroth resisted coaxing and declined to run for office. But Clint Eastwood needed no coaxing, just an itch to get things done his way. With a mere 2,166 votes, he became the world’s best known mayor.

Contributing to the year-end edition were Times staff writers Steve Harvey, Paul Feldman and Kim Murphy.