ELECTIONS : CONGRESS : Lagomarsino Challengers See Opposite Ways to Win : Veteran congressman faces 2 Democrats and a Republican who says he just wants to give voters a choice.

The two Democratic candidates preparing for an uphill challenge to 16-year incumbent Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Ventura) have taken widely different paths in seeking their party’s nomination.

Anita Perez Ferguson of Santa Barbara, a former aide to state Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara), has virtually ignored the Democratic opponent she will face in Tuesday’s primary election.

Instead, she has focused on lining up endorsements of Democratic leaders and on raising campaign contributions for her bid to unseat Lagomarsino.

Meanwhile, her Democratic opponent, Mike McConnell of Ventura, has shunned party power brokers and political donors in favor of an old-fashioned door-to-door campaign.

So far, McConnell said, he has knocked on 6,500 doors to meet voters in the congressional district that stretches across Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. He hopes his determination to walk precincts every weekend and every evening after work will lead to a surprise victory in the Democratic primary.

“Neither of us are well known,” McConnell said of himself and Ferguson. “I should have bumped into a couple of hundred who knew her name and I didn’t,” McConnell said. “I found two, one in Lompoc and one in Oxnard.”

McConnell said he figures his personal approach will deliver thousands of votes that Ferguson is taking for granted. “She has campaigned solely in Democratic circles, not with the people.”

Whoever wins the Democratic primary

must face Lagomarsino, a political survivor who managed to fend off the popular Hart in 1988 in one of the toughest and most expensive congressional races in the nation.

Compared to the 1988 race, Lagomarsino’s staff members say they have a hard time sweating a challenge from either of the two little-known candidates who have never held public office.

Lagomarsino decided against employing his usual campaign manager, Ed Bedwell. “This will not be one of Bob’s strongest challenges to his reelection,” Bedwell said. “I don’t think the threat is there.”

Lagomarsino’s campaign anticipates that Ferguson will be his challenger in November. Ferguson, 41, recently quit working for her mentor, Hart, to take a part-time position as an educational consultant, so she could campaign.

She has attacked Lagomarsino on three fronts: his opposition to abortion, his anti-communist posturing in times of a melting Cold War and his mixed voting record on the environment.

“I see him as an election year environmentalist,” Ferguson said in an interview. “He puts out press releases touting votes that he was dragged kicking and screaming to vote on,” she said.

Ferguson has received the endorsement of the state Democratic Party and of virtually every Democratic official in the area. Her campaign apparatus is also gearing up in hope of raising large political donations--a sign of a serious challenge in today’s politics.

Campaign financial statements filed last week showed she raised about $12,000 through May 16. Sam Rodriguez, Ferguson’s campaign manager, said the campaign has raised nearly $10,000 since then.

“It’s going to be tough; it takes a lot of money,” Rodriguez said. He estimates that Ferguson will need $600,000 to unseat Lagomarsino.

In contrast, McConnell has eschewed the idea of raising money to finance direct mail flyers, as well as other political ads to get his message to the voters.

In his door-to-door campaign, McConnell pushes his idea of a national health insurance program. “I don’t want socialized medicine, I want socialized insurance,” he said.

American insurance companies and the government collect $620 billion a year in premiums but spend $220 billion on actual medical bills, McConnell said. He wants to know what happens to the difference. “When you collect $400 billion too much out of the economy, it shortchanges all other priorities,” he said.

McConnell said he is not a one-issue candidate, but the national health care crisis overshadows nearly every other aspect of government spending. He’s betting the voters agree with him.

“What if Mike McConnell beats a 16-year Republican congressman on the issue of health care?” he asks. “What kind of message would that send to every other member of Congress?”

In Tuesday’s primary, Lagomarsino doesn’t have a free ride either. But his Republican challenger does not pose a threat.

Alan Winterbourne of Ventura said Lagomarsino is a fine congressman. He just wants his name on the ballot to give voters a choice. “I’m not actively campaigning,” Winterbourne said. “I don’t want to split our party in any way.”

If elected, Winterbourne, 30, said he could provide the country with youthful enthusiasm to reduce the national budget deficit and eliminate the national speed limit--his two issues.

Besides, after four years of unemployment, the computer systems engineer said he is actively seeking a job. With congressional salaries set to reach $120,000 next January, he said, “I think it would be a good job.”

In November, Lagomarsino will also face a write-in candidate for the fledgling Green Party. The Greens, as they call themselves, are trying to repeat successes of their party in England and other European countries.

Mindy Lorenz, 43, of Ventura, said she is running as a write-in candidate because the Greens do not have enough registered members in California to be recognized as a ballot-status party.

The Green Party hopes to register 74,000 voters before 1992 to qualify candidates for future ballots. So far, they have registered 3,000 voters statewide, she said.

Lorenz, an art history professor at Cal State Northridge, said the Green Party campaign platform includes ending government subsidies for ecologically damaging pesticides, and water control programs.

She also advocates restructuring the economy so that the price of products reflects not only the cost of their materials and labor but also the cost of their disposal.