CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS : U.S. SENATE : Third Party Candidates Fight Obscurity

Theirs is an uphill battle. They are virtually ignored by the press. No one includes them in debates. They have little money and smaller staffs. Some do not even have a campaign headquarters.

Yet they campaign, walk precincts and make speeches to drum up support.

These six men and women are running for the U.S. Senate in California, and you probably have not heard of them. They represent political parties outside the mainstream and despite the isolation they consider their candidacies serious bids to influence the political process.

This year, when a squeaky-voiced billionaire from Texas can rattle so many political chains, and when anti-incumbency fervor is soaring high, many in the world of third parties see a rare and fertile opportunity to stake their claims.

In fact, voter registration among the alternative parties, while representing only 2.58% of California’s electorate, nevertheless grew by a greater percentage over the last four years than either of the two principal parties.

“It’s like the prodigal son or daughter, banished to the wilderness during the Cold War, now being welcomed back to the fold,” Peace and Freedom candidate Gerald Horne said of his party’s improved reception.

Horne, who heads the black studies department at UC Santa Barbara, is running for the short-term, the final two years of the Senate term vacated by Gov. Pete Wilson. Leading the race is Democrat Dianne Feinstein, followed at a distance by Republican appointed incumbent Sen. John Seymour.

Horne’s other opponents are Richard B. Boddie of the Libertarian Party and Paul Meeuwenberg of the American Independent Party.

For the full six-year seat being relinquished by Sen. Alan Cranston, the third party candidates are Genevieve Torres, Peace and Freedom; June R. Genis, Libertarian, and Jerome McCready of the American Independent Party. This is the race dominated by Democrat Barbara Boxer and Republican Bruce Herschensohn.

TWO-YEAR SEAT

Boddie, a lawyer and motivational speaker, is an enthusiastic espouser of Libertarian philosophy--that government should stay out of business, schools and lifestyles. Like all Libertarians, Boddie advocates abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, which he calls the “biggest Gestapo organization in the Americas,” and eliminating taxation, which he calls theft.

“Republican or Democrat, name your poison,” Boddie, 53, said. “Both parties raise our taxes, both parties steal our freedoms, both parties have abridged the Bill of Rights, both parties are out of touch with you and me. I think it’s time to clean house in government.”

Among the third parties, the Libertarians, who are on the ballot in all 50 states, seem to have the most resources. Libertarian candidates in the Senate race have relatively sophisticated campaign literature. Boddie even has an 800 telephone number.

Boddie believes that the presidential candidacy of businessman Ross Perot is giving a boost to third parties, particularly his own, which counts 66,994 registered voters in California.

“Most people have not been apathetic over the past 10, 20 or 30 years. Most people know that it doesn’t make any difference whether you go Tweedledumb or Tweedledumber. Most Perot people . . . will probably be voting against the (major political parties).”

Horne, the black studies professor, believes he and the Peace and Freedom Party stand a better than average chance to be heard this year because the disappearance of the Soviet Union as a perceived threat has forced Americans to refocus their attention on education and domestic issues--the bread and butter of this small party that grew out of the 1960s peace movement and has 68,182 registered voters in California.

Horne does not entertain many illusions that he will win the Senate seat. What he hopes to accomplish is to inject themes that are important to him--such as affirmative action and taxing the rich--into the political debate.

“The historical function of certain third parties . . . is to raise cutting-edge ideas that are not now on the immediate horizon,” Horne, 43, said.

He advocates cutting military and intelligence-gathering operations 85%, far deeper than what major party politicians call for, saying that the high level of spending has become the “albatross” around the neck of U.S. post-Cold War economic performance.

Horne opposes the death penalty, saying it is an insult to African-Americans and Latinos who are disproportionately more likely to be sentenced to capital punishment.

Horne, a historian, former labor lawyer and St. Louis native who is writing a book on the Watts riots, campaigns mostly by speaking on college campuses and taking calls on radio programs.

Meeuwenberg, who works for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services, represents the American Independent Party, formed in 1968 by supporters of former Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace. The party disavows the racism once associated with Wallace but advocates fiscal conservatism and a generally right-wing agenda.

“We are offering an alternative, a creative alternative,” Meeuwenberg, 60, said. The party believes in a government that sticks to its limited, constitutionally mandated duties and strives to live within its means, not spend more than it takes in, he said.

The American Independent Party, with 217,197 registered voters in California, wants to eliminate the federal income tax and the IRS. It promotes a reduction in government spending across the board, including cuts in the military budget, and would terminate foreign aid.

Meeuwenberg also opposes the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he says would cost jobs in California, and favors putting military troops along the borders to stop illegal immigration.

SIX-YEAR SEAT

Like her Libertarian counterpart running for the two-year seat, Genis campaigns with an 800 number, seeks television and radio talk shows and walks precincts to muster support.

Genis, a computer programmer who lives in Woodside, said she began her candidacy as a symbolic protest gesture--until she woke up the day after the primary and found out who Democrats and Republicans had nominated for the six-year seat.

“An anti-choice Republican and the biggest-spending liberal in Congress!” she said in describing Herschensohn and Boxer, respectively. “I’m the moderate in this race. . . . I want voters to know they don’t have to settle for the lesser of two evils.”

Given the alternatives, Genis said, she might stand a chance to win if her campaign was given equal attention.

“Problem is, most people won’t know I exist,” she said. Genis and several Libertarians picketed outside a San Francisco debate between Herschensohn and Boxer last month to protest the organizers’ decision to exclude third-party candidates.

An unsuccessful candidate for the state Assembly in 1988 and for Congress in 1990, Genis advocates abortion rights and would cut defense spending. As a Libertarian, she believes in cutting the capital gains tax and eventually doing away with the federal income tax.

Genis, 45, traces her Libertarian interest to when she was 14 and child labor laws made it illegal for her to work in anything but an after-school baby-sitting job. That, she says, catapulted her into becoming a proponent of individual rights free of bureaucratic regulations.

McCready’s campaign is run on a very thin shoestring. No campaign headquarters, no budget for traveling the state, no commercials. “Just myself and my wife, Betty,” McCready says of his “staff.”

A Castroville businessman who runs a shop that sells pre-hung doors and other construction material, McCready has been involved in the conservative politics of the American Independent Party for years and was the party’s gubernatorial candidate in 1990, when he received 1.8% of the vote.

With such a Spartan campaign, McCready says he has limited his stumping to speaking engagements at Monterey Peninsula College and several Rotary clubs.

Mostly he wants to keep his name in the public arena (he plans to run for governor again in 1994), and he wants to offer an alternative to voters seeking “something different.”

“Everyone else on the ballot, they’re politicians. What else needs to be said?” McCready, 43, asked. “I (hope) people will sit there and recognize my name from ’90 and believe I was honest there and at least see that I tried to back up what I say.”

As for his platform, McCready follows the agenda laid out by his American Independent Party: fewer taxes and regulations; cuts in defense spending and foreign aid.

Torres describes herself as a founding member of the New Alliance Party and appears on the ballot representing the Peace and Freedom Party, with which she has been active since moving to California in 1987. A cancer researcher, she lives in San Francisco.

Because of her affiliation with the controversial New Alliance, whose presidential candidate Leona Fulani appears on the ballot in 39 states, some Peace and Freedom members have distanced themselves from Torres’ campaign. She does not appear on campaign literature that promotes Horne and Peace and Freedom presidential candidate Ron Daniels.

Instead, Torres, 38, has traveled throughout the state speaking at events such as the recent Gay and Lesbian Barn Dance in Fresno and concentrating on voter registration, especially of blacks and Latinos. “It’s a lot of grass-roots,” Torres said in an interview.

She dismisses the internal Peace and Freedom conflict as sectarianism, saying it is a waste of time at this critical juncture when progressive independents should be reaching out to middle-class, middle-of-the-road Perot supporters.

Torres subscribes to a liberal agenda, including abortion rights, cuts in defense spending, free education, higher taxes on corporations and more accessible housing.