Senate Race Lags Despite Consultants, Commercials

Sen. Pete Wilson’s $15-million dollar reelection campaign is in a penny-pinching mood.

Although he anticipates raising about $6 million more than his opponent, Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, Wilson entered the final week of the campaign with a modest $300,000 cash advantage, according to campaign estimates.

How did so much buy so little?

It is a question dogging both candidates who together are expected to spend almost $25 million on a race that has employed some of the best political talent in the country and still left the public cold. So cold, in fact, that campaign focus groups, made up of likely voters, are just now becoming aware of who the candidates are.

Wilson and McCarthy, regarded as two sturdy public officials who have not been good at promoting themselves, face each other in a contest overshadowed by the presidential race. All the more reason for paying top dollar for accomplished political marketers.

But the tactical drama that many people expected from the assembled wizards has been marred by embarrassing miscues and questionable decisions.

This week, for example, the Wilson campaign quietly admitted frittering away $2 million to $3 million before the 1988 election year had begun. A highly placed source close to Wilson said that nothing improper went on, just sloppy oversight. As a result, the source said, the campaign lost much of the financial edge it hoped to enjoy during this last, crucial week when the resources to dominate television advertising can determine the outcome of a race.

The Wilson campaign now estimates that it can afford only about 25% more air time than McCarthy.

“Obviously, we can’t drown them out,” said Otto Bos, Wilson’s campaign manager, who now says he underestimated the amount of money McCarthy would be able to raise to pay for a final ad blitz.

If they are unable to dominate the airwaves, as they once hoped to, Wilson’s staff must concentrate more than ever on the quality of their broadcast message. The urgency of that task was brought home this week, as Bos worked up new TV scripts on the fly, dictating the words from airport phone booths as the Wilson campaign plane made its way down the Central Valley.

Meanwhile, some Democrats are still asking why McCarthy’s advisers let their candidate pass up a televised debate and his one free crack at statewide, prime-time exposure. A debate could have elevated the Senate race in the minds of many voters and focused media attention on the campaign.

But Wilson, as the front-runner, was in a position to set the terms for the debate and the senator would make himself available on a night when only public television would broadcast the event. McCarthy balked, saying the audience would be too small.

McCarthy’s refusal is regarded by many observers as a strategic error.

“With an opponent like Wilson who has not screwed up dramatically, who’s getting reasonably favorable press, you have to take him out with a knockout. A debate, at least, offered Leo a chance to do that,” said a Democratic consultant who gives advice to the McCarthy campaign on an unpaid, informal basis.

“If you are the challenger, a debate also gives you a chance to look senatorial. It did wonders for Wilson when he was going after a better-known candidate (former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.) in the 1982 (Senate) race,” said the consultant, who asked not to be named.

The Senate race this year features a match-up between the two groups of campaign consultants that helped win the last two Senate races in California, returning Sen. Alan Cranston to office in 1986 and giving Wilson his first victory in 1982.

On McCarthy’s side are Robert Shrum and David Doak, producers of televised campaign commercials who helped make ads this year for unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt of Missouri. The McCarthy team also includes Darry Sragow, who manages the campaign, Washington-based pollster Paul Maslin and Kam Kuwata, who doubles as a strategist and a liaison with the press.

But the team that saved Cranston’s bacon two years ago has not worked as well together this year. There have been jealousies and disagreements. Moreover, with team members dividing their time among other candidates and causes, McCarthy has not had the undivided attention of any of his expensive consultants.

McCarthy has been openly critical of Shrum and Doak for going to work for a cause that he is campaigning against--Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s bid to drill for oil near the beach in Pacific Palisades.

Even so, McCarthy’s schedule sometimes appears to be at the mercy of Doak and Shrum, who are juggling their work on his race with their responsibilities to other clients. Last week, the campaign abruptly announced that it was canceling one of McCarthy’s most significant public appearances so he could cut a new TV ad. Wiser heads prevailed, however, and McCarthy went back to his original plan and traveled to Mendocino, where he voted as a member of the State Lands Commission to ban oil drilling off the coast of Northern California.

McCarthy also ran into problems with a campaign commercial ridiculing Wilson for sponsoring National Dairy Goat Week. The ad, which confused a dairy goat with a mountain goat, may have been effective with urban viewers. But it led to an angry protest from dairy goat farmers and an apology from McCarthy. McCarthy has freely criticized Doak and Shrum for getting the wrong goat.

On Wilson’s side, the only glitch that came to light up to now was the campaign’s acceptance of about $69,000 in contributions that exceeded the federal limit. Except for that, the Wilson team of Bos, media adviser George Gorton and pollster Dick Dresner have run an aggressive campaign that seemed to be going smoothly until the recent revelation about their campaign finances.