AFTER THE RIOTS : Senate Candidates Stake Their Claims Around Riot Issues : Elections: Rep. Mel Levine uses a strong law-and-order ad. Other Democrats grapple with thorny social problems raised by the recent upheaval.

Seeking to distance himself from his Democratic rivals, U. S. Senate candidate Mel Levine on Tuesday unveiled a television commercial with a strong law-and-order message that blames the Los Angeles riots on a “failure of political leadership.”

Levine, a congressman from Santa Monica, appears to be trying to tap into the fears about safety and social order that were unleashed by the riots. In the ad, he does not deal with root causes of the violence or long-term solutions.

“A democratic society can’t tolerate mob rule,” he says in the 30-second spot, which will be broadcast only in the Los Angeles area beginning today.

The Levine ad was released as Democratic candidates for the Senate struggle with the thorny political issues raised by the recent upheaval.

In the wake of the riots, Republican candidates for the Senate were quick and sharp in their response. Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), running against appointed incumbent Sen. John Seymour, readily endorsed the jury’s not guilty verdicts in the beating of Rodney G. King. Bruce Herschensohn, who hopes to replace retiring Sen. Alan Cranston, said the only underlying cause of the riots was that the perpetrators were “rotten.”

On the Democratic side, however, candidates have been more cautious, caught between a strong Democratic constituency in the inner city and more conservative voters in the suburbs. Although all condemned violence and lawlessness, most have given equal emphasis to the need for jobs and economic opportunity as a way to overcome the chronic poverty they say fueled the riots.

One of Levine’s primary opponents, Rep. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae), told a Los Angeles crowd last week, “We finally saw the 1,000 points of light that George Bush has been talking about, but unfortunately, they were the fires lit up by a decade of neglect.”

Levine, however, takes a tough pro-law enforcement stance in this new ad, and he struck the same theme in a mailed appeal seeking to raise $500,000.

The ad includes an endorsement from a state police organization and makes no mention of poverty, police abuse or other social problems, which most Democrats say are the roots of the unrest that gripped Los Angeles for three days.

Levine is in the midst of a $4-million television advertising blitz, which has been the centerpiece of his effort to win the Democratic nomination for Cranston’s seat. His opponents in the tight race--Boxer and Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy--will soon air their first television spots. Each is expected to spend more than $1 million in the two or three weeks before the June 2 primary.

In Levine’s newest ad, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, former congresswoman and candidate for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, also hits the law-and-order theme.

“We can’t let the whole population be terrorized by the lawless few,” she says. “We need new leadership. That’s why I’m for Mel Levine.”

Levine’s opponents criticized the ad, noting that a portion of Levine’s district falls inside the hard-hit riot zone and accusing him of neglecting that constituency.

“In his 10 years in Congress, he (Levine) has probably spent more time overseas than in Inglewood,” said McCarthy’s campaign manager, Roy Behr. “The riots in part were the result of people like him spending more time worrying about foreign policy than urban policy.”

Similarly, Rose Kapolczynski, Boxer’s campaign manager, criticized Levine for not proposing any positive steps to combat the deeper causes of the riots.

“I think it’s a little funny that he isn’t willing to go even as far as President Bush in recognizing that we have some serious urban problems that have been neglected,” she said.

Levine’s campaign staff denied that he was ignoring problems of the inner city. Levine has long been concerned with social policy but chose this ad to speak to law-and-order concerns, his staff said.

“What happened in L. A. was the breakdown of civilization for 48 hours,” Levine’s press spokeswoman, Hope Warschaw, said. “That is on people’s minds. . . . Mel has addressed long-term issues for years. He felt the need to address the anarchy in L. A.”

She also insisted that Levine’s record reflects tough positions on law enforcement in the past, including his authorship of portions of the 1991 Crime Bill and efforts to bolster the National Guard and federal anti-gang task force.

Asked what “failure of political leadership” Levine is referring to in pinpointing causes of the riots, Warschaw both blamed Democrats, who she said have done little more than throw money at the poor for years, and Republicans, who she said never cared about crime as long as it was “the poor killing the poor.”

Levine has not spoken out publicly about the King verdicts, but Warschaw said he was “totally stunned” by the jury decision.

The new ad also appears to be a way for Levine to distinguish himself from his liberal opponents. He has attempted to use his vote last year in favor of the Gulf War to underline differences between him and his rivals. Both Boxer and McCarthy opposed the war.

Locked in a close race, Levine is using the ad to go after more conservative McCarthy voters, said political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe of the Claremont Graduate School. She said he is conceding hard-core liberals and women voters, who might not react favorably to the ad.

“Traditionally, Democrats--appealing to their constituencies among blacks and other minorities, liberals and labor--respond to such problems with calls for more programs, more money, reforms and the like, and the whole question of public safety and law and order is played down,” Jeffe said.

“However, this election is going to be settled in the suburbs. And Mel may be trying to do what Bill Clinton is doing, trying to bring back the Democratic voters who have been voting Republican since the Reagan era.”

Boxer, with strong support among women’s groups and Democratic Party activists, has called for investigations of possible civil rights violations in the King case and has been arguing that the riot was caused by the failure of two Republican Presidents to pay attention to urban problems.

Boxer said she will vote for additional federal funding for early childhood education programs, and will press for a huge increase in federal funding for a variety of other programs aimed at the nation’s cities.

“We have to talk about poverty and despair and joblessness,” Boxer said in an interview. “The short-term problem is picking up the shattered glass. The harder part is picking up the shattered dreams.”

McCarthy notes that from the beginning of the campaign he has been talking about the need to create more jobs and allow more people into the middle class. He told reporters at a breakfast meeting this week that “the destruction in Los Angeles a week ago just increases the urgency of these programs.”

Both Boxer and McCarthy have voiced support for City Charter Amendment F, the measure designed to bring changes to the Los Angeles Police Department by limiting the police chief’s tenure, among other things. Levine has refused to take a position.

“I am surprised that he (Levine) is breaking ranks with the community leaders who have put a lot of time and thought into coming up with something constructive from the Rodney King incident,” Kapolczynski, Boxer’s campaign manager, said.

Warschaw, Levine’s spokeswoman, said Levine does not normally take positions on local issues but may rethink his stance on Amendment F in light of the recent turmoil in Los Angeles.

In the other Senate race, for the two-year seat held by Seymour, the two leading Democrats have staked out similar positions. State Controller Gray Davis and Dianne Feinstein, the former mayor of San Francisco, are both critical of the actions of the officers involved in the beating of King, and believe the Los Angeles Police Department mishandled the riots.

In campaign appearances, both have been avoiding simple responses to the rioting, saying the problem is complicated.