Challenge Turns Up Heat in Bitter Atty. Gen. Race : Politics: Lungren presses Smith to debate after TV taping. Smith calls his opponent’s impromptu news conference ‘sick.’

Turning up the heat in an already bitter campaign for state attorney general, Republican Dan Lungren, after a joint television appearance with Democrat Arlo Smith, sought to engage the San Francisco district attorney in a full-scale debate Friday in the hallway outside.

“Let’s go, let’s debate. Let’s go right here, we’ve got a half hour, I’ll be happy to debate you, . . .” Lungren demanded, as Smith answered reporters’ questions outside a KRON-TV studio after the taping of a half-hour TV news conference to be aired in the Bay Area on Sunday.

“Listen, you make your statements, I’ll make mine,” said a surprised Smith, before boarding an elevator to leave the building.

“No, no, no, no, let’s debate. No, no, no, no,” said Lungren, who looked as if he was about to hop on the elevator himself in pursuit of Smith, while TV cameras rolled and reporters madly scribbled notes.

Lungren, a former five-term congressman, then turned to the crowd of reporters and said: “I hope everybody sees what’s happened. . . . (Smith) can’t handle a debate. . . .”

So ended the last of three scheduled joint TV appearances by the two candidates running for the state’s chief law enforcement office--a race in which Lungren and Smith have repeatedly accused each other of engaging in questionable campaign tactics.

Lungren, who insists that Smith is ducking additional TV encounters because he is inarticulate, began the day Friday with a press conference in which he called for the 11-year San Francisco prosecutor to release police reports concerning an 8-year-old public drinking incident.

Smith was called on the carpet in 1982 by then-San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein for spending a weekday afternoon in North Beach taverns with his top aide. In a press release at the time, Feinstein, now the Democratic candidate for governor, wrote: “I trust that you recognize the injury and embarrassment this has caused you and your department.”

Lungren acknowledged Friday that he has no knowledge of any recent drinking incidents involving Smith, who was subsequently reelected twice as district attorney. Still, Lungren said, the episode “is one of a series of things” that voters should consider in November.

Smith, 64, later called Lungren’s press conference “sick” and said he would seek the release of documents on the 1982 affair as soon as his 44-year-old Republican rival makes public medical records explaining why he received a 4-F deferment during the Vietnam War. Lungren has said the deferment stemmed from knee injuries suffered while playing football and from a major kidney operation he underwent as a youngster.

During their TV appearance, Lungren and Smith repeated their now-familiar differences on the abortion issue. Smith, emphasizing that abortion rights are protected by the state Constitution, said he would refuse to defend in court any legislation restricting teen-agers’ access to clinics or Medi-Cal funding for abortions.

Lungren, a staunch abortion foe, countered that such laws would pass constitutional muster and that he would defend them in court.

The two candidates did manage to agree on one issue Friday. Both said during the TV taping that they would apply no political litmus test in confirming the appointment of state judges.