Candidates Start Final Drive for State Senate Seat

Scores of campaign workers fanned out across the 33rd state Senate District on Saturday as the final push to win the bitterly contested seat kicked into high gear.

In Cypress, two-term Assemblyman Wayne Grisham (R-Norwalk) walked precincts hoping to win last-minute support before Tuesday’s runoff election. Across the county line in Norwalk, Democrat Cecil N. Green told a noisy crowd of 300 supporters that the outcome of the special election, which has attracted statewide attention, “will be decided in the streets. . . . So get out and walk and walk and walk.”

In a race regarded as a tossup, both sides agree that the election hinges on who does a better job of getting voters to the polls. As a result, each campaign says it hopes to mobilize an election day army of 1,000 workers--some paid as much as $8 an hour to walk precincts or telephone voters--to round up carefully targeted registered voters and get them to the polls.

Turnout Expected to Top 30%

Both sides predict that the turnout among the district’s 275,267 voters, including 69,003 in four Orange County cities, may top 30%.

Only 20% of the voters in the district cast ballots in the March 17 primary, when Green, a four-term Norwalk councilman, surprised Grisham by outpolling the Republican lawmaker. But Green, 63, failed to win an outright majority, prompting the runoff with Grisham, 64, and two minor party candidates: Libertarian Lee Connelly, 34, and Ed Evans, 39, a Peace and Freedom Party member, both of Buena Park.

They are seeking to fill the unexpired term of former Sen. Paul Carpenter (D-Cypress), who left office in January after he won a seat on the state Board of Equalization.

Districtwide in the primary, Green finished with 27,225 votes or 48% of the total, while Grisham had 24,767 or 43.6%. The two camps say the magic number for victory in the runoff may be 40,000 votes.

On the final Saturday of the campaign, Grisham and Green tried to stick to what they consider their respective strengths.

Going door-to-door to talk with voters in Cypress underscores Grisham’s belief that he must improve on his primary performance in the Orange County segment of the district if he hopes to win. About a quarter of the district is in the county’s northwest corner covering all or parts of Buena Park, La Palma, Cypress and Los Alamitos.

Must Capture 52%

Although Grisham won 47% of the vote in Orange County compared to Green’s 41%, the margin was well short of what had been expected. And Republican strategists say he must capture at least 52% to 55% of ballots cast here if he hopes to offset Green’s popularity in Los Angeles County.

“There is no question that we must do better, much better in Cypress and the other Orange County cities,” Grisham’s campaign manager Steve Presson said Saturday. “Winning Orange County in a big way is important to our chances.”

Grisham was joined Saturday in Cypress by state Sens. Jim Nielsen (R-Rohnert Park) and Ed Davis (R-Northridge).

Green, meanwhile, continued to concentrate his efforts Saturday in Los Angeles County, particularly Norwalk, his hometown and the district’s largest city. Green swept seven of the eight cities in Southeast Los Angeles in the primary, including Norwalk, where he won all but one of the 47 precincts. To win the runoff, Democratic consultant Larry Sheingold said, Green must again score big with Latinos, union workers and Democratic loyalists committed to helping the party maintain its edge in Sacramento when the Senate reapportions districts in the early 1990s.

Supported by most major law enforcement groups, Green was praised at a Norwalk rally Saturday by state Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp as a “friend of police.” “Cecil Green is no ‘Johnny-come-lately’ to this issue,” Van de Kamp told the crowd in the parking lot of Green’s campaign headquarters, a former auto dealership. “He will be a strong voice in the Legislature for law enforcement.”

Flood of Literature

Green’s pro-law enforcement credentials are of long standing, Van de Kamp said, noting that the Norwalk councilman served with him several years ago on a Los Angeles narcotics task force and has been named “We Tip Mayor of the Year” because of his efforts to combat illegal drugs.

To win last-minute converts, both camps have filled district mailboxes with literature.

In a district with an aging population, the Democrats hoped to score points for Green with a letter of endorsement from Rep. Claude Pepper, the Florida Democrat who has long been considered the nation’s leading champion of the rights of older people.

The Republicans had announced two weeks ago that they planned to send a letter from President Reagan urging voters to support Grisham. But Presson, Grisham’s campaign manager, said Saturday that the campaign decided not to use the letter. He said it arrived from the White House “almost too late” to be reproduced and sent to Republican voters. He denied that the negative press Reagan has received from the Iran- contra affair affected the decision.

“Our surveys show that the president’s popularity with Republican voters in this district is as solid as ever,” Presson said. “It was just a matter of logistics. . . . We may still hand out the letter on election day.”

Important Factor

In the end, most experts believe, the race will come down to the election day push.

During a special election, Grisham said, the type of mail a candidate sends, what he says or even how much he spends sometimes is not as important as “who gets who to the polls.”

Sheingold agreed: “Just like the primary, the team that does a better job of getting its voters to the ballot box wins. There is no mystery to this.”

Long before the polls open Tuesday, both sides plan to launch teams of campaign workers into the predawn darkness to leave voting reminders on doorknobs and in mailboxes.

To bolster their numbers, both parties are chartering planes to airlift Democratic and Republican legislative leaders and staff members into the district from Sacramento, and buses will deliver party activists enlisted for the final push from as far away as San Bernardino, San Diego and Bakersfield.

Times staff writer Mark Gladstone contributed to this story.