Grass-Roots Push Aims to Cut Down Seymour : Politics: Dannemeyer, readying for the 1992 primary, is organizing a rainbow coalition of right-wing interests.

Like Pat Robertson’s in his surprise showing in Iowa’s 1988 presidential caucus, Rep. William E. Dannemeyer’s strategy in next year’s Republican Senate primary is to counter the big bucks and big names behind U.S. Sen. John Seymour with a massive grass-roots effort by California’s “hard-core” conservatives.

Groups that have been meeting recently to coordinate their campaign plans for Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) represent a rainbow coalition of right-wing interests, from Robertson’s Christian Coalition to some of the GOP’s most stubborn anti-taxers.

One meeting last month in Sacramento included the largest California-based gun lobby and Orange County’s anti-homosexual crusader, the Rev. Lou Sheldon.

Angered by Gov. Pete Wilson’s appointment of the moderate Seymour to fill Wilson’s Senate seat, representatives of the conservative groups say they have decided to respond by joining forces to make this race a full-blown demonstration of their political power.

They said the effort has been facilitated by the clarity of this race--so far it’s still a one-on-one contest between two sharply different Republicans.

“We haven’t had anybody like (Dannemeyer) for many years,” said Sara Devito Hardman, state director of Robertson’s group. “The coalition this will create has never been seen in California.”

Hardman said Dannemeyer is someone who would “get our country back to our founders’ intentions of a moral society.” The gun lobby had the same goal, but its own reasons.

This “primary could be a national referendum on the gun control issue,” the group Gun Owners of California said in a recent letter to its membership. “If the special interests pull together, Bill Dannemeyer wins big time next June.”

Bill Hoge, former president of the state’s largest conservative organization, the California Republican Assembly, said he thinks the issue of a tax increase will be Dannemeyer’s strongest case.

“We probably have an anti-tax movement going on in this state that is bigger than anything since Proposition 13,” he said. “I am getting calls--I can’t tell you how many a day--and that is unheard of at this time in a campaign.”

The CRA won’t endorse a candidate until after the filing deadline next March, but at its state convention last month the membership adopted a resolution encouraging Dannemeyer’s candidacy and criticizing the appointment of Seymour.

In the 1988 Iowa caucus, Robertson embarrassed the experts when he finished second--ahead of Vice President George Bush and far better than polls had predicted. The television evangelist and some post-election analysts attributed Robertson’s surprising turnout to a grass-roots movement among people who do not traditionally participate in politics.

In California, with an inspirational message sent through churches, Christian broadcast stations and extensive mailing lists, Dannemeyer’s coalition hopes to score a similar upset. But within the party, there are many skeptics who believe that such a strategy is not enough for a giant state like California.

“California is the quintessential media state, and in statewide elections candidates have to be able to use the media,” said Republican strategist Sal Russo. “The extent to which you can do that (appeal to the grass roots) is all frosting on the cake, but you’ve got to have a cake.”

“I think Seymour is going to have a nice cake and may not have any frosting,” Russo added. “Dannemeyer is going to have the frosting and may not have the cake.”

Seymour campaign officials said they expect to have far more support and financial resources than Dannemeyer and, as a result, they professed to be unconcerned by the challenge.

Seymour, 53, has not hired a campaign team yet, but he has established an election advisory committee. Robert Nelson, chairman of the committee, said Seymour is already focusing on the expected 1992 general election against Democrat Dianne Feinstein, not Dannemeyer.

Dannemeyer’s challenge will be “like going on a camping trip and being surrounded by mosquitoes--you’re still going to have fun on the camping trip, but you’ve got to worry about slapping the back of your neck,” Nelson said. “To us, Bill Dannemeyer is meaningless.”

Nelson is a Republican consultant based in Costa Mesa who used to work for the 64-year-old Dannemeyer and described the congressman as a “dear old guy.” But he also said the groups supporting Dannemeyer are political extremists who have no influence over the majority of the Republican Party.

“This is not Bavaria in 1932,” he said. “These brown shirts are not going to be able to convert California into some kind of radical extremism to purge those who do not fit the model of the pure Aryan race. They’re delusional (and) the only ones they’re deluding are the poor little old ladies who are writing checks to the Pat Robertsons of the world because he’s promising them life ever after.”

“We’ll cede that constituency to him and just have to settle for the other 97% of the Republican Party,” he added. Nelson said he did not consider CRA to be an extremist group, but he said its endorsement of either candidate would not change the outcome of the primary.

Dannemeyer said Friday that he thinks Seymour would be making a mistake to underestimate the influence of his supporters.

“If I were the appointed Sen. Seymour, I’d be very cautious about failing to recognize the political clout of these groups I’m describing,” he said. “I’d say they are the backbone of the coalition that elected Ronald Reagan.”

Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach), a conservative activist in the Legislature who has worked with Dannemeyer on anti-homosexual causes but has not yet taken sides in the primary, said he believes the groups will be a big boost for Dannemeyer, but beating an incumbent U.S. senator will still be a tough job.

“What this does is legitimize his campaign,” Ferguson said. “It means it’s more important than ever that two things occur (for Seymour) between now and the election--that Seymour raise $8 million to $10 million and that if the governor is successful in getting a tax raise, that the California economy does not implode.”

Dannemeyer, an attorney who was elected to the state Assembly in 1962 as a Democrat, has made his reputation for the past several years as Washington’s most vocal opponent of homosexuality and an advocate of tougher AIDS laws.

He has supported legislation to allow parents to keep their children out of schools that AIDS victims attend and he believes that the confidentiality of AIDS test results facilitates the spread of the disease. He has also pushed the state Republican Party to ban homosexual groups from membership in the GOP.

Republican Party officials agree that he is a dramatic contrast with Seymour, who was a state senator from Anaheim when he was appointed to the U.S. Senate in January. (Seymour’s state Senate district actually overlapped Dannemeyer’s congressional district near Disneyland.)

Seymour switched his position to favor abortion rights in 1989, just after he launched a campaign for lieutenant governor. He also voted in favor of a ban on assault rifles that passed the Legislature.

Seymour ran as a moderate Republican in his race for lieutenant governor, advocating protection of the environment and especially the California coast.

To a large extent, the sharp contrast between the candidates and the lack of any other announced contenders has contributed to the ability of Dannemeyer’s supporters to begin their effort more than a year before the June, 1992, primary.

John Stoos, director of Gun Owners of California, said the Dannemeyer coalition has already identified contacts in 35 of the state’s 58 counties.

“There’s just a total difference in the two campaigns,” said Charles Phillips, Dannemeyer’s campaign manager who worked last year for Texas Republican gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams. “We’re relying on people, Seymour’s relying on media and money.”

Actually, this coalition of conservative interests has been evolving over the past year, testing itself in a few legislative races with some success.

It backed a nurse who had been arrested during an anti-abortion protest against a state assemblywoman from San Diego last year. Connie Counkin narrowly lost to incumbent Tricia Hunter (R-Escondido) in the Republican primary.

And just last week, several of these groups claimed credit for the upset victory of Dean Andal in a special election for the Assembly in Stockton. Andal, a conservative Republican, defeated Democrat Patti Garamendi in a predominantly Democratic district.

“Nobody in the state was calling that race for Andal except us because it’s a Democratic district,” said Stoos. “There was an unseen coalition of activists who just outworked them.”