A Long Shot, Agran Aims to Fire Away : Candidacy: Ousted Irvine mayor sets sights on White House. He may not win, but he vows to make voice of liberalism heard.

As even his friends concede, it is the longest of long shots: Larry Agran, the liberal Democrat and former mayor of this city, is running for President of the United States.

He starts without many of the assets that history and conventional wisdom suggest are necessary to win the highest office in the land.

Agran, who plans to formally announce his candidacy today, has no bulging campaign war chest. He is scarcely known to voters outside Orange County. And in 1990, his constituents voted him out of office.

“I would have to say, because of his low name recognition, that he would have to be considered one of the lesser candidates, (one of) those without a real chance of garnering the nomination,” said James P. Desler, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.

Said Stuart K. Spencer, the Irvine-based political consultant who managed President Gerald R. Ford’s election in 1976 and the 1980 campaign of Ronald Reagan: “The Agran thing is ludicrous. . . . His chances are minimal. He can’t be serious. He has no base. He has nothing. The only thing I can say positively is, there’s a tremendous vacuum out there. And others will fill the vacuum.”

Yet with few prominent Democrats showing a willingness to challenge President Bush in 1992, Agran aims to extol the benevolence of contemporary liberalism, and to hold the Republican Party accountable for what he sees as the accelerating decay of America’s cities.

“I think because the Democratic field is so small and apparently is going to be a field without dominating figures of national stature, that there’s a unique opportunity here to be heard that wouldn’t normally exist,” Agran, 46, said in an interview. “. . . While the odds are long, I think there is a significant chance, and certainly one worth pursuing.”

Agran, an attorney who graduated from Harvard Law School, began 1991 as the national chairman of former Democratic nominee George McGovern’s presidential exploratory committee. It was a role, Agran said, that he was satisfied with. After McGovern withdrew as a potential candidate in May, however, Agran said he began thinking about running himself.

But as others before him have learned, Agran’s biggest hurdle could be to persuade voters, and those who describe and comment on the presidential campaign, that he is to be listened to.

“I think that’s the problem, whether he can be taken seriously,” said McGovern, who now is president of the board of a foundation in Washington. “I told him I thought it was a very difficult thing to do. But he’s got one thing in his favor--he really wants to do it. . . . Obviously, his candidacy is the longest of long shots.”

Agran’s formula for rectifying much of what he believes ails America is reminiscent of McGovern’s 1972 presidential platform, when the then-South Dakota senator carried one state in his campaign to deny Richard M. Nixon a second term.

Not unlike McGovern, President Agran would spend a lot less--50% less--on defense, and apply the $150 billion of projected savings to domestic programs and repaying the national debt.

Agran would discontinue all spending for the B-2 bomber and the Strategic Defense Initiative, known popularly as “Star Wars.” And, this week’s tumult in the Soviet Union notwithstanding, he would hasten the withdrawal from Europe and elsewhere of American troops.

Agran said the post-Cold War era demands “restructuring our military forces so as to get them in line with what the Constitution requires: Simply providing for the common defense, and not trying to project American power in every corner of the world. And getting the Europeans and the Japanese to accept their fair share of the responsibility.”

Agran, who served for six years as mayor of Irvine until his narrow defeat in June, 1990, said he envisions a presidential “City Hall strategy.” Agran intends to schedule campaign events at city halls throughout the states crucial to the beginning of the presidential nominating process.

That means traveling to the small and larger towns of New Hampshire and Iowa, where voters next February will begin the process of choosing the Democratic nominee. Agran has scheduled a week of campaigning during the first week of September in New Hampshire, with time set aside for visits to media outlets in nearby Boston.

Agran, relying on his own skills and that of a national network of friendships built with other city officials, said that he is confident he will raise the money needed to qualify for matching federal campaign funds.

“I want a Democratic candidate to say what we’re facing in the cities,” said Mayor James Scheibel of St. Paul, Minn., explaining why he has pledged to raise money for Agran. Another admirer, Sacramento Mayor Anne Rudin, said that Agran “will inject a perspective that has been lacking” in the campaign.

Locally, Thomas C. Rogers, the San Juan Capistrano rancher and former chairman of the Orange County Republican Party, praised Agran’s willingness to fight development-interest groups, such as the Irvine Co. “He’s a bright young man and a credit to any party,” Rogers said.

But can an Agran presidential candidacy be taken seriously? Or will he be dismissed as just another well-intentioned idealist? Perhaps, said one who has done it, trying is enough.

“If he’s as good as he says he is, he does the nation a service by upgrading the quality of debate in the Democratic Party,” said Republican Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey Jr., the former Palo Alto congressman who challenged Nixon for the 1972 nomination and received one vote at his party’s national convention. “Anyone who will diminish the apathy of the American voter does the country a service.”

Agran is “a very bright guy, someone who has consistently had something important to say,” said Kam Kuwata, a veteran campaign consultant who directed California Sen. Alan Cranston’s press operations when Cranston sought the presidency in 1984. But Kuwata questioned Agran’s viability.

“Someone once said that presidential campaigns have two purposes: One is to win and one is to make a point,” Kuwata said. “And I suspect that Larry, in his heart of hearts, is trying to make a point. . . . It’s just awfully difficult to jump from being (the) defeated mayor of Irvine into the presidential sweepstakes.”

For his part, Agran said that “at the very least” he wants to “challenge the other candidates, to insist that they fill in the blanks with specifics. . . . I’d like to define a new direction, not only for the country but for the Democratic Party as well.

“I think one of the effects may be to bring into the field other, more prominent candidates who see that there is a message that is resonating regarding new priorities, and it might embolden some of those candidates to articulate that kind of a message and improve the chances for the Democratic Party’s victory, if not in 1992, then certainly in 1996. And I’d like to be part of a new, progressive Democratic administration. Either one that is elected in 1992 or 1996.”