Agran Stumbles in N.H. With Less Than 1%

The presidential campaign of former Irvine Mayor Larry Agran ran hard aground in New Hampshire on Tuesday night as the liberal California Democrat won less than 1% of the vote in the first-in-the-nation primary.

With 99% of New Hampshire’s 298 precincts reporting, Agran had polled only 296 votes, far behind the field of five leading Democrats, and well to the rear of some of the lesser-known candidates. Tom Laughlin, star of the “Billy Jack” films, for example, had chalked up 2,258 votes, while consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who had not actively campaigned, had 2,558 votes.

Despite the admittedly disappointing showing, Agran vowed to continue his long-shot campaign, heading for Maine for the party caucuses scheduled for Sunday and South Dakota for the presidential primary next Tuesday.

“I think if we can’t begin to move the numbers by the South Dakota primary, then it does raise some fundamental questions about the staying power of the campaign,” Agran said in a telephone interview from his Manchester, N.H., hotel room. “Certainly I would have felt better if we had scored 3 or 4%.”

Last December, the 46-year-old Agran had said his aim in New Hampshire was to win at least 3% to 5% of the vote, or to finish ahead of one of the so-called major candidates: former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey and former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. In the end, Agran accomplished neither goal.

Agran had campaigned on a shoestring budget in the recession-ravaged New England state of 1.2 million, hoping to win support for his program of slashing military spending by 50%. Agran had vowed to transfer $150 billion a year in “peace dividend” savings from the Pentagon to America’s cities, towns and schools. He also had called for new taxes on the rich, including an annual 1% tax on the net worth of the wealthiest 1% of the nation’s residents. However, the major theme of the Agran campaign turned out to be his exclusion from presidential TV debates organized by the state Democratic Party.

Despite a combative campaign for media recognition, Agran’s appearances with the leading Democratic candidates were limited to a health care forum in New Hampshire and a debate in Washington sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. The goal of earning 3% of the vote “required some measure of fair treatment, equal access to the most powerful medium available, namely television,” Agran said. “If people don’t see you on TV, they don’t believe you are a realistic choice.”

He said his poor showing “underscores the point that in the absence of a level playing field . . . we really won’t know what kind of impact we would have had. . . . I do feel confident in my ability to communicate our message to people, given the opportunity to do so.” Agran, who served as Irvine’s mayor from 1984 until his defeat in a 1990 reelection bid, had counted on a credible showing in New Hampshire to boost his lagging fund-raising efforts. Although he reported raising nearly $135,000 in the last quarter of 1991, he had less than $3,000 in cash on hand at the end of the year.

He said that he is looking forward to a debate next week in South Dakota, where voters will have the chance to see him face his five major rivals head to head.