‘92 POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE : Colorado Senate Candidates Jockey to Be the Outsider : The three Democratic hopefuls in the primary vie to be seen as the typical, independent Westerner. Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell is leading as voters go to the polls.

When Democrat Josie Heath said recently that voters should support her in today’s Colorado Senate primary because Congress needs more women, one of her two opponents had a ready retort.

“There are two women in the Senate and no Indians,” said Rep. Ben Night-horse Campbell, who is half Northern Cheyenne. “So they’re ahead of us by two.”

Campbell, the co-grand marshal of the 1992 Rose Parade, has established himself as the candidate to beat in a battle with Heath and former Gov. Richard D. Lamm for the Democratic nomination to succeed Colorado Sen. Timothy E. Wirth. The Democratic incumbent decided not to seek reelection.

Most recent polls have shown Campbell with a widening lead over Lamm, who in the 1980s became known as “Gov. Gloom” for his dire predictions about the nation’s future, and Heath, a former county commissioner from Boulder.

The surveys have also shown Campbell running by far the strongest against the expected Republican nominee, former state Sen. Terry Considine.

A key to Campbell’s momentum is that he consistently has bested Heath and Lamm at their own game: appearing as the heroic outsider.

“Colorado voters want to elect the typified, independent Westerner,” said Colorado Democratic Party director Mike Armstrong. “All three candidates have maverick tendencies . . . but (Campbell) is especially appealing. He seems very Western.”

Never mind that Campbell has become, in some ways, a Washington insider. Elected to the House in 1986 from a district encompassing rustic Western Colorado and the blue-collar city of Pueblo, he has paid careful attention to the needs of his area’s mining and agricultural interests. The Almanac of American Politics rated him “very much a middle-of-the-roader.”

In an effort to contrast Campbell’s image with his record--and in a sign of his emergence as the race’s favorite--his two foes focused their fire on him in the campaign’s closing days.

A television advertisement for Heath sought to depict Campbell as a closet conservative who is weak on the environment, gun control and children’s issues.

A Lamm ad never mentioned Campbell by name, but clearly was targeting him with a barb at candidates who accept contributions from political action committees and run up “IOUs with every special interest.”

Campbell, for his part, has been content to stress his life story.

Born in Auburn, Calif., the 59-year-old Campbell is the son of an American Indian father he says was an alcoholic and a Portuguese mother who suffered from tuberculosis. After his mother died when he was a young boy, he was raised in a series of Catholic orphanages.

A recent two-minute television spot featured Campbell at his ranch, riding his horse on the range and wearing a black cowboy hat. It chronicled his rise from an orphan, high school dropout and migrant worker to Olympic athlete (captain of the U.S. judo team in 1964) successful jewelry designer, businessman and congressman.

“His past has molded him into a human being with a great deal of empathy for others,” said campaign aide Carol Boigon. “We want people to know him and love him.”

His opponents clearly have been frustrated by this tactic.

During a recent televised debate, Lamm, 57, complained that Campbell was “not the only one with life experience. I was a lumberjack in Oregon. I sailed a season on the Great Lakes. . . . I walked 888 miles around this state (in his first gubernatorial campaign in 1974).”

The bolo-tied Campbell responded: ‘He may have walked 888 miles, but he did it in $100 Nikes. . . . I (walked) barefoot.”

Heath, who lost a 1990 U.S. Senate election to Republican Hank Brown and is considered the most liberal candidate in the current race, also has bristled at Campbell’s emphasis on his humble roots. “Both of us come from backgrounds that were not privileged,” said Heath, 54. “I scrambled my way up, was (raised) in rural Oregon and was the first in my family to go to college.”

Attempting to turn Campbell’s past against him, Heath charged that with his success, he has not been “willing to lower that ladder for others. He voted against family medical leave and against raising the minimum wage.”

Heath also noted that despite Campbell’s popularity among Colorado’s environment-conscious voters, he received a mediocre 49% rating from the League of Conservation Voters. “It’s a shock to me, but (Campbell) seems to get a lot from the myth that Native Americans are stewards of the Earth,” she said.

Heath worked hard to get this far in the primary. After failing to win enough support at the Colorado Democratic Convention last spring to qualify for the ballot, she traveled the state in a yellow school bus to collect the 20,000 petition signatures needed to do so.

Heath takes heart from the victory by former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. in Colorado’s Democratic presidential primary in March, pointing out that it was not predicted in the polls.

She also is hoping that in a year in which female Senate candidates elsewhere have enjoyed surprising success, her gender will fuel an upset in her own state. Much of her advertising has been targeted specifically to women. And although all three Democrats support abortion rights, Heath has been stressing that issue.

“More than any other candidate in this race, I understand how it feels to be told that I can’t control my body,” she said. “I’m not going to be one of the boys.”

Lamm has been irked that, as the contest’s one white male, he has had to prove his credentials as a foe of the status quo to some voters.

“Women and Native Americans are about as outside as you can get in the political arena,” said Jim Carpenter, the former campaign manager for Wirth. “But, in some ways, Dick Lamm is the ultimate outsider. As governor, he was always on the cutting edge of issues and political trends.”

Lamm himself said: “I’m an outspoken, noble guy. I make waves.”

But Lamm, now a professor of public policy at the University of Denver, also has had to deal with his “Gov. Gloom” image, which took root during the last of his three terms as the state’s chief executive. He became especially controversial when he suggested that keeping chronically ill patients hooked up to expensive machines was an inefficient use of resources.

“He said there was no point to prolonging the lives of people on life-support systems when there is no hope for them to lead a quality of life,” said Tom Cox, his campaign spokesman. “But it got sensationalized to the point where the papers were reporting he said the elderly had a duty to die. That’s not what he was saying at all.”

Considered the unofficial favorite of the state’s party leadership, Lamm inherited much of Wirth’s campaign apparatus. But as the vote has neared, Lamm clearly was worried that Heath, who has been rising in the polls, could keep him from overtaking Campbell.

“I look at Josie’s voters, and three-fourths of them used to be with me at one time,” Lamm said. “It would be a closer race if not for her.”

Colorado Senate Clash

Today’s Colorado primary for the Democratic Senate nomination pits three distinctive politicians against one another: Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the only American Indian serving in the U.S. House, Josie Heath, who hopes to join this year’s lengthening list of successful women candidates, and former Gov. Richard D. Lamm, once known nationally as “Gov. Gloom.”

BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL

Birth: April 13, 1933, in Auburn, Calif.

Education: A high school dropout, received equivalency degree while in the U.S. Air Force. Obtained bachelor’s degree from San Jose State University in 1957; was a research student at Meiji University in Tokyo from 1960-1964.

Family: Married, two children.

Career highlights: Won gold medal in judo at 1963 Pan-American Games. Became successful jewelry designer. Elected to the Colorado House of Representatives in 1982, served until 1986. Elected to the U.S. House in 1986. Member of the Council of 44 Chiefs of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Tribe.

JOSIE HEATH

Birth: Sept. 6, 1937, in San Jose, Calif.

Education: Bachelor’s degree from Eastern Oregon State College, 1959, graduating magna cum laude; master’s degree in education from the University of Wisconsin, 1960.

Family: Married, three children.

Career highlights: Taught high school in Wisconsin, Texas and Germany and was a professor at Denver Community College. Elected Boulder County commissioner in 1982, served until 1990. Unsuccessful Senate candidate in 1990; teaching fellow at Harvard University for several months after that election.

RICHARD D. LAMM

Birth: Aug. 3, 1935, in Madison, Wis.

Education: Bachelor’s degree from University of Wisconsin, 1957; law degree from UC-Berkeley, in 1961.

Family: Married, two children.

Career highlights: After working as an accountant and lawyer for various private firms, served as attorney for the Colorado Anti-discrimination Commission in 1962. Served in Colorado House of Representatives from 1966 to 1974. Taught law in that period at the University of Denver and the University of Colorado at Denver. Elected governor in 1974, reelected in 1978 and 1982. Currently teaches at University of Denver.