U.S. Senate Contest Failing to Catch Fire With State’s Voters

The photography of Ansel Adams with its misty forests and steaming surf ushered in the state’s 1986 U.S. Senate race, heralding a campaign of imagery and ideas. It was a campaign that presented Sen. Alan Cranston as the venerable guardian of Ansel Adams’ California and his opponent Ed Zschau as the futuristic Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose name sounded like high-tech circuitry.

By contrast, both sides in this year’s Senate race say they are still struggling for a niche in voters’ minds. Together, Republican Sen. Pete Wilson and Democratic challenger Leo T. McCarthy have spent several million dollars on televised campaign commercials. But both sides admit that the publicity, mostly ads in which the candidates attacked each other, has failed to excite the public’s imagination.

Wilson kicked off his reelection campaign by referring to himself as a “compassionate conservative.” McCarthy spoke of his commitment to working families. But without compelling imagery or oratory, observers say, the candidates’ slogans have yet to sink in. And with less than three weeks to go, even the campaign staffs have begun to wonder if many people know what the candidates stand for.

“People know Wilson used to be the mayor of San Diego, and they think McCarthy used to be lieutenant governor,” said one McCarthy aide glumly after conducting a series of focus groups to find out how voters viewed the race.

This week, at a California League of Cities convention in San Diego, a league vice president introduced McCarthy as Sen. McCarthy. It was not said in jest.

Officials of the Wilson campaign also express frustration at the public’s lack of interest in the race.

“I knew it would be harder to reach people in a presidential election year. But I never thought it would take this long,” said George Gorton, Wilson’s chief media strategist.

Despite signs that the public does not know either candidate very well, both sides remain reluctant to spend time promoting their own candidate’s virtues. Campaign aides say they suspect that in the final weeks of the race, the candidate who conquers the public’s indifference will be the one with the catchiest put-down of his opponent.

“If we can just get our message across about Leo, then we will be in great shape to go positive on Pete,” Gorton said.

On the other side, McCarthy aides talk about commercials they describe as “gadget ads” which employ humorous devices to discredit Wilson’s record and will be used during the last days of the campaign.

In the meantime, the spitefulness of the contest is inviting derision.

“It’s ‘Snoozer’ (Wilson) against ‘Churl’ (McCarthy) . . . and Forget the Issues,” is the way a recent Wall Street Journal headline characterized the race.

The word “churlish” is not a bad way to describe the candidates’ exchanges lately.

Political ‘Gotcha’

As Wilson digs at McCarthy for owning a fancy condominium and McCarthy scolds Wilson for not living in the houses where he is registered to vote, the race seems like a game of political “gotcha.”

In place of Ansel Adams, campaign commercials present black bordered images of jail bars, staccato snapshots of damning newspaper headlines and the baleful voices of anonymous narrators warning of McCarthy’s record on crime or Wilson’s on toxic polluters.

There are indications that people close to the candidates are concerned about the tone of the campaign.

Is the candidate sounding senatorial? It is a question that has occurred to people in both campaigns.

After Wilson gave a particularly sour speech last week at a fund-raising dinner attended by 600 people who paid $1,000 apiece, people in the audience complained to a Wilson aide that the senator devoted too much of his speech to haranguing McCarthy.

There Have Been Moments

Still, the campaign has had its moments, on both sides.

Wilson speaks with special pride about the tough new drug bill passed by the Senate. In recent speeches, he has begun to tell people why it means a lot to him. He talks about a Chicago detective who was shot and killed while investigating a drug ring in 1908. The officer, who left behind a wife and infant daughter, was Wilson’s grandfather.

McCarthy, too, is capable of moving revelations. When he does so, he breathes passion into his own campaign agenda, as he did this week, talking to the League of Cities about his sympathy for the urban poor.

“When my family came to this country, we moved to the Mission District of San Francisco,” said McCarthy, whose family emigrated from New Zealand. “We lived in an area where working families were proud. We all had good-sized families. We enjoyed life. It was a time when you could even play in the streets.

‘Rooted in Me’

“Everyone was struggling upward. They had dreams, aspirations and ideals. They knew that hard work was fundamental, that education was everything because their kids were everything to them. . . . I have that inside me. That is rooted in me.”

Democrats say they have been yearning for McCarthy to show some passion, and they liked that little burst of it.

“That is the speech people have been waiting for Leo to make,” said Joy Picus, a Los Angeles city councilwoman. “If only he would sound like that more often.”