KING CASE AFTERMATH: A CITY IN CRISIS : Candidates in June Races Must Now Address a New Set of Issues : Politics: Urban poverty, violence and law and order are priorities again. But few contenders are willing to voice strong views immediately.

Just one month before California votes in the June 2 primary, the Los Angeles riots have reshaped the state’s political agenda around suddenly revived issues of urban poverty, violence and law and order.

Politicians were wary Friday about trying to seize immediate political advantage from the situation. But many agreed that the effect of the riots was to freeze candidacies in place just as opponents were prepared to plunge into the final weeks of the campaign, when most Californians will be deciding how to cast their votes.

The first instinct of the candidates for California’s two U.S. Senate seats at stake in 1992 was to remain well in the background and to comment with extreme caution, if at all.

One candidate visible on the scene was Republican Sen. John Seymour, who paid an official visit to local and federal command posts in downtown Los Angeles Friday afternoon. As a candidate for election, however, Seymour shied away from making any political predictions.

“I haven’t really focused on that,” Seymour said. “I’m still trying to absorb what this is all about and what needs to be done. Politically, I haven’t had time to focus on it.”

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sonny Bono--running in the other Senate primary--joined the Rev. Jesse Jackson and a group of African-American ministers on an afternoon tour of fire-ravaged shopping centers at the intersection of Western Avenue and Venice Boulevard.

“I’m just offering support and (trying to) get the message of peace out,” said Bono.

Experts and political activists contacted Friday said the riots will have a dramatic impact on the election, from the voting for President and senators to the races for offices at the local level.

“This has turned the political landscape upside down,” said Rose Kapolczynksi, campaign manager for Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae), a candidate for U.S. Senate. “Certainly, this is going to be on everyone’s mind between now and the election.”

The initial reaction of several political experts was that the Rodney King beating trial verdicts and their aftermath of violence will help candidates who have been most outspoken on law-and-order issues.

Any outrage and sympathy for minorities generated by the verdicts were more than offset, at least for now, by voter revulsion at television photos of looters gleefully displaying their booty, they said.

Pollster Mervin Field, a California political analyst for nearly half a century, said the riots had put the campaign on hold for the time being, having the effect of “a giant bulldozer pushing the election aside.” The voting public is most concerned about its own safety at the moment, Field said.

Both Field and Kevin Phillips, the Republican political analyst, said the 1992 riots are not likely to lead to any new version of Great Society anti-poverty programs, as did the Watts riots of 1965 and eruptions then in such other cities as Detroit, Newark, N.J., and Washington, D.C.

“In the 1960s, we had a revolution of rising expectations,” said Phillips, the author of the popular book “The Politics of Rich and Poor.” “People who were revolting wanted a piece of what they thought to be a very rewarding American future. In the 1990s, we have a revolution of diminishing and frustrated expectations. They don’t see (a rewarding future) being there anymore.”

Phillips thought the events of the past few days might boost support for Republican Pat Buchanan and Democrat Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown in the California presidential primary, even though President Bush already has cinched the Republican nomination and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton is the presumed Democratic nominee. Phillips said the reaction to the riots is likely to underscore a general disenchantment with the political Establishment.

In the general election, the potential independent candidacy of billionaire Texas entrepreneur Ross Perot could benefit at the expense of both the Democrats and Republicans, Phillips said in a telephone interview.

“This time, we have had a Republican Administration for 12 years and riots are again on the evening news,” Phillips said. “I don’t see how they can avoid focusing on the Bush domestic program, or the lack of it.”

As for the Democrats, Phillips said, “They are crippled by a sense the people still have of them as a party bound to failed urban and liberal interest groups, a failed sociology and (a weak approach to) law enforcement.”

Thomas Mann, director of governmental studies for the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C., think tank, was among those who said there is little likelihood of massive new programs to help the urban poor.

Middle-class taxpayers are struggling to get by, he said, adding, “That is not an environmment in which one launches a Marshall Plan for the cities.”

In the campaign for the U.S. Senate in California so far, most of the candidates have proposed national economic vitalization programs with the emphasis on the well-being of middle-class Americans who have been squeezed by the economic recession.

A dozen major candidates are seeking their parties’ nominations in the primary for California’s two U.S. Senate seats--a two-year term in the seat now held by Seymour by appointment, and the regular six-year term in the post now held by Democrat Alan Cranston, who is retiring.

These candidates have expressed concern for people like the Californians who have lost--or fear losing--jobs in the defense and aerospace industries. With the voters in no mood to increase taxes, both Democrats and Republicans have proposed financing their economic programs with savings from the defense budget.

There has been little discussion about concerns for the very poor and the plight of urban ghettos, which were favorite topics of Democrats and liberals during the 1960s and 1970s. Many of the Great Society anti-poverty programs of the Lyndon B. Johnson years were dismantled or cut back during the Ronald Reagan Administration, a process that Bush has also pursued.

On Friday, Rep. Boxer of Marin County, a Democratic candidate for the Cranston seat, said the riots will “elevate the domestic agenda” and force candidates to rethink spending priorities.

Former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, running for the Seymour post in the Democratic primary, rejected the idea that Great Society programs have failed.

“I think poverty has actually gotten worse since 1980,” she said in an interview. “We know that we’re doing nothing to stop the seeds of destruction. That’s what bothers me.”

State Controller Gray Davis, Feinstein’s major opponent in the Democratic primary, agreed the unrest will shift the debate more sharply than ever to domestic issues.

The first step, rather than proposals for new programs from Washington, is to listen to residents and community leaders to analyze the problem, he said. A priority will be to decide what is needed to help business owners who were looted or burned out to rebuild or reinvest in the community, he said.

Republican Tom Campbell of Stanford, a candidate--with Bono--for the Cranston seat, has a record of being a moderate to a liberal on social issues and an activist on topics like the environment, but on Friday he said voters will want to hear what the candidates have to say about the preservation of law and order.

When asked about the impact of the riots on the campaign, Campbell said, “We have to deal with the issue of personal safety.”

Conservative Los Angeles television commentator Bruce Herschensohn, Campbell’s major opponent in the Republican primary, reiterated his insistence that the world is too dangerous to permit any cuts in the national security budget. Siphoning off critical defense dollars to help the poor “is the last thing you want to do,” he said.

“I’m sick of those who say social problems are the underlying cause of this,” Herschensohn added.

In the fall, debate in state legislative races is likely to center on a November ballot initiative sponsored by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson that would help stem runaway state budget expenses by cutting welfare benefits by nearly 25%. Several experts said Friday that they believe the rioting will increase the chances of Wilson’s welfare measure winning voter approval.