Rep. Campbell Seeks GOP Nomination for Cranston Senate Seat

U. S. Rep. Tom Campbell, a Stanford law professor with little more than two years of congressional experience, Tuesday became the eighth announced candidate for a 1992 Senate seat.

In a series of press conferences in which he set his sights on the seat now occupied by retiring Democrat Alan Cranston, Campbell pledged to invoke a “new conservatism,” which he defined as rigidly anti-deficit on fiscal matters and progressive on social concerns.

Campbell of San Jose is the first Republican to formally announce his intentions for the Cranston seat. Four Democrats are vying for that party’s nomination--Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. and U. S. Reps. Barbara Boxer of Greenbrae and Robert T. Matsui of Sacramento.

Former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dianne Feinstein and Republican Rep. William Dannemeyer of Fullerton have announced they will challenge appointed incumbent Sen. John Seymour, a Republican in the other Senate race.

The already crowded field will increase by at least two--state Controller Gray Davis is expected to announce his candidacy within days, and U. S. Rep. Mel Levine of Los Angeles also plans to run for a Senate seat, sources close to both say. Neither has said whether he will bid for the Cranston or the Seymour seat.

Campbell’s decision to run for Senate followed last week’s announcement by 1986 Republican Senate nominee Ed Zschau that he would not be a candidate in 1992. Zschau said at the time he encouraged Campbell to run in his stead.

Zschau, a former congressman who came close to toppling Cranston in 1986, shares with Campbell a coterie of political and financial supporters from the Silicon Valley of Northern California. But Campbell, who has never run for statewide office, is lesser known, a fact he alluded to on Tuesday.

“I recognize that I am starting with about 21% name recognition,” he said at a Universal City press conference. “But I have 20 months, so during those 20 months I’m going to do my best to improve my name recognition so I’m at 99% name recognition or as close as I can be by the end of the campaign.”

At four stops during the day--including San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego--the 38-year-old Campbell emphasized both his allegiance to conservative Republican thought on budgetary matters and his independence from the party’s traditional social and environmental beliefs.

He called for a balanced budget amendment and line-item veto authority for the President--both sought by Republicans for years--and advocated an across-the-board freeze on government spending to lessen the federal deficit.

“As the federal budget deficit grows, it takes more money from individuals and companies . . . for a child (it limits) a chance to go to college, for a young couple a chance to have a home,” he said. “That’s what it means to have a huge federal budget deficit.”

Campbell favors abortion rights, a position that puts him in the company of Gov. Pete Wilson but against the formal stand of the GOP. The congressman said Tuesday that his advocacy of abortion rights is consistent with a conservative belief that “government should play less of a role in individual lives.”

He also praised last year’s civil rights restoration bill, which was vetoed by President Bush on the grounds that it set up a quota system for jobs. Campbell said he would press for a similar bill introduced this year and would work to assure a congressional and White House compromise.

While Campbell now has no Republican opposition for the Cranston seat, that is not likely to last. Several members of the GOP, including U. S. Reps. Robert Dornan of Garden Grove and David Dreier of Covina, are said to be considering a campaign.