'Stature Gap' in Candidates Cited : Democrats Likely to Keep Their Majority in Senate

By PAUL HOUSTON

April 9, 1988 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON —

Two years after dramatically recapturing the Senate, Democrats appear well-positioned to hold onto their majority in this year’s elections--largely because of what they call a “stature gap” between Democratic and Republican candidates in at least a half-dozen key races.

Striving to protect, or perhaps inflate, their 54-46 margin in the Senate, the Democrats have taken aim on vulnerable Republican seats by fielding an unusually formidable list of big-gun candidates. In Virginia, for example, they are preparing to nominate popular former Gov. Charles S. Robb to seek the seat vacated by one-term Sen. Paul S. Trible Jr. (R-Va.), who declined to seek reelection. No comparably strong Republican candidate has emerged.

Elsewhere, this year’s Democratic Senate candidates include Nevada Gov. Richard H. Bryan, former Nebraska Gov. Bob Kerrey and Minnesota Atty. Gen. Hubert H. Humphrey III, who seeks the Senate seat once occupied by his near-legendary father.

Similarly, party leaders have recruited former Govs. Reubin Askew of Florida and Anthony S. Earl of Wisconsin in aggressive moves to hold Senate seats endangered by the retirement of Democratic incumbents.

“Our chances of holding onto the Senate are very good. I think we have opened up a major stature gap with the quality of candidates we have running,” said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Moreover, this year’s electoral arithmetic is encouraging for the Democrats. Although they have 18 Senate seats up for election--three more than the Republicans--fully 10 Democratic incumbents appear to be shoo-ins, including veteran leaders Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

Republicans, who seized control of the Senate in 1980 after 28 years of Democratic rule, must gain four or five seats, net, to regain a majority; they would need only four if they win the White House and have a Republican vice president to break a 50-50 tie vote on organizing the Senate.

GOP officials, although insisting that big names are not everything, concede that failures in the recruitment of strong candidates have seriously damaged their chances of regaining a Senate majority. In particular, they point to the refusal of former Gov. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and U.S. Atty. Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York to challenge incumbent Democrats in those two states.

Hope for Bush Coattails

As a result, party officials increasingly pin their hopes for achieving a GOP majority on the coattails of Vice President George Bush, their expected presidential nominee.

A growing number of Democrats acknowledge that they are worried about coattails--not Bush’s, necessarily, but a “negative coattail” effect in which a liberal Democratic presidential nominee would drive voters from the rest of the ticket. Just such a prospect, in fact, has led Robb emphatically to dismiss polls that make him a heavy favorite in Virginia.

However, Democrats are generally confident that they have the candidates, money and issues to maintain their grip on the Senate.

“We have five governors, five congressmen, two attorneys general, two lieutenant governors, a secretary of state and others running for the U.S. Senate,” Kerry says. “The Republicans have five congressmen, one of whom is running against an incumbent Republican senator. To the degree that you measure proven ability to put a campaign together, to have a message and be electable, I think we have an excellent beginning.”

Funding Gap Narrowed

The Democrats’ national campaign committee also is raising more money than ever before and has narrowed the money gap between their party and the GOP.

The Republican war chest--more than six times fatter than the Democrats’ in the 1986 congressional elections--is now less than four times larger. Receipts by the Republican campaign committee have plummeted after the GOP’s net loss of eight seats in the 1986 debacle, even as the Democrats have gained, so that the Democrats have taken in $6.2 million to the GOP’s $23.3 million as of the latest reports Dec. 31.

Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R-Minn.), head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is markedly less buoyant about prospects than the Democrats’ Kerry. He does maintain, though, that “we are more competitive in more states than they are.”

Not surprisingly, Boschwitz also scoffs at claims of a stature gap.

“So we don’t have a congressman running in Ohio--we’ve got the mayor of Cleveland,” he says of George Voinovich, a popular moderate from a crucial Democratic stronghold who is offering a strong challenge to liberal gadfly Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio).

Heisman Winner in Race

“So we don’t have a congressman running in New Jersey--we’ve got Pete Dawkins, and he’s dynamite,” Boschwitz says of the Heisman Trophy-winning Army halfback and retired brigadier general who is making a well-financed run at Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.).

Despite such Republican opportunities, Democrats believe that their own targets promise more payoffs.

The three best shots appear to be Republican-held seats in Nevada, Nebraska and Virginia, where Democratic candidates have built substantial leads in early polls.

Nevada Gov. Bryan currently tops Sen. Chic Hecht (R-Nev.). Former Nebraska Gov. Kerrey outpaces both Sen. David Karnes (R-Neb.) and his primary opponent, Rep. Hal Daub (R-Neb.). And Robb, who attracted wide bipartisan approval as governor of Virginia and leads a national effort to push Democrats rightward, has yet to draw a big-name opponent.

Robb insists that it is “a misperception” that he has a virtual walk-in to the Senate. Although he was elected in 1982 as Virginia’s first Democratic governor in 16 years, he notes that the state has gone Democratic for President only once in the last 44 years and has not elected a Democratic senatorial candidate in 22.

Bryan Appeal Looks Broad

Nevada’s Bryan, a conservative Democrat, appears to have broad appeal. He was reelected governor with 72% of the vote in 1986, two years after President Reagan carried Nevada with 66%.

Hecht, one of the least active and articulate members of the current Senate, suffered from endorsing a proposed nuclear-waste dump in Nevada before suggesting in a recent spate of TV ads that such waste should be reprocessed instead. However, he has raised more money than Bryan, profited from good constituent service and, according to a Republican poll discounted by Democrats, narrowed Bryan’s lead from 41 points to 7.

In Nebraska, Kerrey--as governor--gained considerable notice for a record of achievement and a romance with actress Debra Winger, who went on to marry someone else. On the other hand, when lawyer-businessman Karnes was appointed by Republican Gov. Kay A. Orr to fill a Senate vacancy last year, the action prompted statewide quips about “David Who?” Although fewer Cornhuskers ask the question now, polls have shown Karnes trailing Kerrey by 25 percentage points.

Tougher Battles Begun

In what should be tougher battles, the Democrats have also fixed their sights on Republican seats in California, Minnesota, Washington, Rhode Island and Connecticut.

First-term Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) is being attacked by Democratic Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy for his “timid” legislative style, a charge that Wilson rebuts by citing his “very aggressive” efforts on behalf of exports by California farmers and high-tech companies. In Minnesota, Atty. Gen. Humphrey is challenging the “character and values” of Republican Sen. Dave Durenberger, whose early reputation as a quiet, thoughtful legislator has become a bit tarnished. The 53-year-old senator has made headlines with personal descriptions of his “mid-life crisis,” has been accused of exposing classified CIA information and has infuriated liberals and conservatives with his evolving stand on aid to the Nicaraguan Contras.

Besides criticizing Durenberger, though, Humphrey must demonstrate that his own efforts at toxic-waste cleanup, judicial reform and relief for economically troubled farmers prove that he is running on more than his father’s name.

‘Works Out Better’

“Every time the question is raised, it works out better for me,” Humphrey, 45, says with the same lilting voice of his late father. “ . . . I know I cannot take my father’s place but I also know I can take Mr. Durenberger’s place.”

In Washington state, Democratic Reps. Mike Lowry, a liberal crusader, and Don Bonker, another liberal of milder mien, are vying for the right to seek the seat of retiring Republican Sen. Daniel J. Evans. The likely GOP candidate is former Sen. Slade Gorton, a moderate who was defeated for reelection two years ago.

In Connecticut, Republican incumbent Lowell P. Weicker Jr. faces a fight from state Atty. Gen. Joseph I. Lieberman, a consumer advocate and environmentalist who hopes to undermine Weicker’s strength among traditional Democratic constituencies--women, labor and Jewish voters.

And in neighboring Rhode Island, Republican Sen. John H. Chafee, who like Weicker frequently bucks Reagan Administration policies, is being tested by popular Democratic Lt. Gov. Richard A. Licht.

Three Open Seats

To retake the Senate, Republicans probably must defeat incumbent Democratic Sens. Metzenbaum in Ohio and Lautenberg in New Jersey, then do well in open seats being vacated by Democrats in Florida, Mississippi and Wisconsin. GOP officials also hope that strong challenges will develop against Democratic incumbents in North Dakota, Montana and New Mexico.

The Ohio race is already ablaze with TV spots in which Metzenbaum and the GOP’s Voinovich accuse each other of favoring cuts in Social Security benefits. Metzenbaum won an earlier round, forcing top GOP officials to repudiate a document labeling him a communist sympathizer, but a group opposing gun control has opened a new front, attacking the senator in statewide radio ads.

In the challenge to Lautenberg, Republicans are promoting parallels between Dawkins and New Jersey’s other Democratic senator, Bill Bradley, like Dawkins a former star athlete and Rhodes Scholar. Claiming that Lautenberg has few accomplishments, Dawkins suggests that his background can make him a national leader like Bradley, an architect of the 1986 tax overhaul.

‘Not a Race About Resumes’

Lautenberg consultant James Carville, saying the senator was a key mover on many bills, including toxic-waste cleanup important to New Jersey, retorts: “This is not a race about resumes, it’s a race about a record.”

The Republicans’ best shot at a Democratic open seat may be in Mississippi, where House GOP Whip Trent Lott is vying with Democratic Rep. Wayne Dowdy to succeed retiring Sen. John C. Stennis. The race could be one of the nation’s closest and most ideologically divided. Dowdy has strong labor and black support; Lott has been a point man for Reagan’s conservative policies.

In Wisconsin, Republicans have high hopes for state Senate Minority Leader Susan Engeleiter, 35, in the scramble to fill the seat being vacated by Democratic veteran William Proxmire. But the Democrats also have a formidable field topped in the polls by former Gov. Earl, who was defeated for reelection in 1986. Competing with Earl in the Sept. 13 primary are Rep. Jim Moody; Ed Garvey, the party nominee against GOP Sen. Bob Kasten in 1986, and Secretary of State Douglas J. La Follette.

Possible Boost for Mack

In Florida, Republicans believe that a huge voter registration surge their way may help GOP Rep. Connie Mack seize the seat being given up by Democrat Lawton Chiles.

Mack likely faces an uphill battle against former Democratic Gov. Askew, who is strongly favored to win his party’s nomination over Rep. Daniel A. Mica. Askew was named in a Harvard study as one of the 10 best governors of the 20th Century.

But most of today’s Florida voters were not in the state from 1971 to 1979 to witness his accomplishments. Also, Mack--a telegenic conservative whose namesake grandfather was the longtime manager of the Philadelphia Athletics--may be able to score with charges that Askew is an “old-line liberal.”

THE 1988 SENATE RACES: WHERE THE ACTION IS

Democrats now hold 54 Senate seats to Republicans’ 46, and elections will be held in November for 18 of those Democratic seats and 15 of the Republican ones. Here, even before some candidates have been chosen, is how political handicappers are calling the races.

REPUBLICAN SEATS

MOST ENDANGERED

Nebraska

--Republican candidates: Incumbent David Karnes, Rep. Hal Daub.

-Democratic challenger: Former Gov. Bob Kerrey

Nevada

--Republican incumbent: Chic Hecht

--Democratic challenger: Gov. Richard H. Bryan

Virginia (Open)

--Republican candidates: Former congressional aide Andy Wahlquist, attorney Gil Faulk

--Democratic candidate: Former Gov. Charles S. Robb

THREATENED

California

--Republican incumbent: Pete Wilson

--Democratic challenger: Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy

Connecticut

--Republican incumbent: Lowell P. Weicker Jr.

--Democratic challenger: State Atty. Gen. Joseph I. Lieberman

Minnesota

--Republican incumbent: Dave Durenberger

--Democratic challenger: State Atty. Gen. Hubert H. Humphrey III

Rhode Island

--Republican incumbent: John H. Chafee

--Democratic challenger: Lt. Gov. Richard A. Licht

Washington (Open)

--Probable Republican candidate: Former Sen. Slade Gorton

--Democratic primary candidates: Reps. Don Bonker, Mike Lowry

RELATIVELY SAFE

Delaware

Incumbent: William V. Roth Jr.

Indiana

Incumbent: Richard G. Lugar

Missouri

Incumbent: John C. Danforth

Pennsylvania

Incumbent: John Heinz

Utah

Incumbent: Orrin G. Hatch

Vermont

Candidate: Rep. James M. Jeffords

Wyoming

Incumbent: Malcolm Wallop

DEMOCRATIC SEATS

MOST ENDANGERED

Ohio

--Democratic incumbent: Howard M. Metzenbaum

--Republican challenger: Cleveland Mayor George Voinovich

New Jersey

--Democratic incumbent: Frank R. Lautenberg

--Republican challenger: Retired Brig. Gen. Pete Dawkins

THREATENED

Florida (Open)

--Democratic candidates: Former Gov. Reubin Askew, Rep. Daniel A. Mica

--Republican candidate: Rep. Connie Mack

Mississippi (Open)

--Democratic candidate: Rep. Wayne Dowdy

--Republican candidate: Rep. Trent Lott

Montana

--Democratic incumbent: John Melcher

--Republican challenger: Yellowstone County Commissioner Conrad Burns

New Mexico

--Democratic incumbent: Jeff Bingaman

--Republican candidates: Former Assistant Secretary of Interior Rick Montoya, state Sen. William Valentine, former state GOP Chairman Corky Morris, state Sen. Joseph Carraro

North Dakota

--Democratic incumbent: Quentin N. Burdick

--Republican candidates: State House Republican leader Earl Strinden, state Rep. Jack Dalrymple, business consultant Steve Sydness, State Public Service Commissioner Dale Sandstrom

Wisconsin (Open)

--Democratic candidates: Former Gov. Anthony S. Earl, Rep. Jim Moody, former state Deputy Atty. Gen. Ed Garvey, Secretary of State Douglas J. La Follette

--Republican candidates: State Senate Minority Leader Susan Engleleiter, former state GOP Chairman Stephen B. King

RELATIVELY SAFE

Arizona

Incumbent: Dennis DeConcini

Hawaii

Incumbent: Spark M. Matsunaga

Maine

Incumbent: George J. Mitchell

Maryland

Incumbent: Paul S. Sarbanes

Massachusetts

Incumbent: Edward M. Kennedy