Political Analysts See ’90 as Year of Outsider : Voting: They cite victories in Massachusetts, but candidates with no experience remain the exceptions.

As he pondered his prospects from his sprawling campaign office one afternoon this week, underdog Oregon Democratic Senate candidate Harry Lonsdale took inspiration from electoral events a continent away.

“Look at John Silber in Massachusetts,” said Lonsdale, a businessman making his first bid for public office against popular incumbent Republican Mark O. Hatfield. From coast to coast, Lonsdale said, voters are “looking for change.”

Lonsdale has plenty of company in that assessment. The stunning victory of Boston University President John R. Silber in this week’s Massachusetts gubernatorial primary--combined with the equally surprising triumph of U.S. Atty. William F. Weld in the GOP contest--has quickened the conviction among some political analysts that 1990 could be the year of the outsider.

It may turn out that way, but it would be much more likely if more outsiders were actually on ballots. With voters appearing increasingly unhappy about politics as usual, politicians everywhere are fashioning themselves as outsiders. But true outsiders such as Lonsdale and Silber remain the exceptions.

This year, like most years, the vast majority of people seeking high political office in the major states have already held political office. That means that even if an anti-incumbent tide develops on Election Day--a prospect on which analysts remain divided--the principal beneficiaries will be other career politicians, House members trying to move up to the Senate, state officeholders and mayors looking to become governor.

When given the opportunity this year, voters have frequently welcomed candidates whose appeal is based on their lack of political experience--a point resoundingly underscored by Silber’s anti-Establishment campaign.

This week, Oklahoma Democrats chose businessman David Walters over U.S. Rep. Wes Watkins as their gubernatorial candidate. Earlier this year, Republican primary voters in Arkansas, Arizona and Minnesota also picked outsider businessmen over politicians in gubernatorial primaries, as did Rhode Island Democrats.

Texas Republicans nominated for governor entrepreneur Clayton W. Williams Jr.--whose distance from ordinary politicians is best calculated in the kind of measurements astronomers use to express the distances between galaxies. And in Louisiana, former Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke--perhaps the ultimate outsider--has shown surprising strength in his bid for a U.S. Senate seat.

But in Iowa, Kansas, Alaska and Illinois gubernatorial primaries, voters rejected outsiders. Insurgents made strong bids for the Republican Senate nomination in Michigan and the Democratic Senate nod in Colorado, but finally lost to experienced politicians running with the support of local party leaders. Last week in New Hampshire a wealthy businessman promising a fresh approach ran third in the Democratic Senate primary--behind winner John A. Durkin, a former U.S. senator, and the mayor of Nashua.

In many more races, voters have never had the opportunity to consider outsiders. As a result, in a year when a fresh look is turning heads, voters in most states will select from among the familiar.

With the exception of Texas, the most competitive major state gubernatorial races this year--including Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Oregon, Iowa, Illinois and California--are contests between veteran politicians. And the most hotly contested Senate races--those in Hawaii, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan, Illinois, Kentucky, Montana and North Carolina--involve candidates who have already held executive or legislative office.

To some extent, this phenomenon reflects the advantages that politicians have in competitive primaries with inexperienced and little-known newcomers. But often it has more to do with the way the national parties and leading fund-raisers search out potential candidates.

Although they have grown more receptive to non-traditional candidates in recent years, both parties still focus their candidate recruitment efforts on proven electoral commodities. “When you’re filling a pigeon hole,” said Michelle M. Davis, executive director of the Republican Governors’ Assn., “you find a pigeon.”

As experienced campaigners, politicians from lower-ballot offices are considered less likely to wilt under the spotlight of Senate and gubernatorial races than outsiders such as Silber and Williams--both of whom have detonated verbal land mines with astounding frequency during their brief political careers.

Perhaps more important, experienced politicians, because they have established networks of support, are seen as the most capable of raising the huge sums it takes to run for office. Outsiders can face a vicious cycle, because they lack the embrace of respected party figures they often have difficulty raising money. Also, the lack of fund-raising success causes the press to dismiss them as marginal candidates unworthy of serious attention.

Given that dilemma, it’s not surprising that most successful outsiders of recent years have been businessmen who lavished their own money on their campaigns. Clayton Williams has had the loosest wallet this year, but Democrats Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey and Herbert Kohl of Wisconsin have won Senate seats in recent years by pounding opponents with their checkbooks.

For outsider candidates, the biggest hurdle is convincing voters they have the experience to manage government, pollsters say. But this year, the widespread belief that politicians have mismanaged government may open voters to new approaches--especially in the gubernatorial races where the many businessmen on the ballot are promising to apply their management experience to clean up the mess.

“I’m getting a real sense that outsiders--if they have a plan--are being listened to with greater credibility than the politicians are,” Davis said.