Governor Campaigns End Much as They Were Run

On the final day of the primary campaign, California’s gubernatorial candidates Monday leveled one last barrage of pleas at the state’s voters, each concluding the campaign in much the same way it was conducted.

Democrats Kathleen Brown, John Garamendi and Tom Hayden tramped throughout California lamenting the state’s condition and vowing to make things better if voters go their way.

Brown, the state treasurer, continued to virtually ignore her Democratic colleagues and instead focused her fire on incumbent Republican Pete Wilson. Insurance Commissioner Garamendi sharpened his attack on Brown’s sentiments about the death penalty, and state Sen. Hayden urged voters to exercise their idealism and side with his long-shot candidacy.

On the Republican side, Wilson spent most of the day working on the state budget--but anticipating an evening rally in San Diego--while challenger Ron Unz flew across the state urging GOP voters to turn a thumbs down on the governor’s tenure.

By evening, the long days of campaigning were over and the election was left to the voters. While acting Secretary of State Tony Miller predicted a turnout of just under 40%, the candidates could only wonder which part of the electorate would turn out.

“The mystery to me and to all of us is what the turnout will be,” said Hayden, adding a caveat that could hold for all the candidates: “I could do amazingly well or poorly depending on the turnout.”

In addition to the governor’s race, voters will decide contests for party nominations for the U.S. Senate seat held by Dianne Feinstein, the state offices from lieutenant governor to State Board of Equalization, several ballot measures and some local issues. The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

While engaged in the last-day frenzy of activity, the front-running candidates were also tempting fate by laying plans for their general election kickoffs, which traditionally come the morning after the primary.

Wilson, whose television ads this spring have criticized Democratic front-runner Brown, plans to concentrate Wednesday on courting women voters and Orange County residents--two groups whose support is crucial to his chances in November.

The governor has close to $3 million in the bank and is expected to begin running general election ads Wednesday, much as he opened his campaign against 1990 Democratic nominee Feinstein the morning after that year’s primary.

“We’re in a position financially to run (ads) nonstop through the summer, and plan to,” said Wilson spokesman Dan Schnur, who would not discuss the content of the appeals.

Brown will have substantially less money to spend on advertisements, although it should be more than Feinstein had in 1990. Feinstein ended the 1990 primary virtually broke, and was unable to overcome Wilson’s early lead.

At the last campaign financial accounting, Brown had $1.2 million in the bank. But since then she has aired weeks of expensive commercials, leading Democrats and Republicans alike to believe that she will have little to spend if she wins the nomination.

Her campaign spokesman, John Whitehurst, asked about the campaign’s bottom line Monday, first said that Brown had several hundred thousand dollars in the bank. Later, he amended that figure to $1 million, give or take $100,000.

“We’ll have plenty of money if we choose to stay on the air,” he said.

The other three challengers, of course, would be in far worse financial straits if they won. Garamendi, Hayden and Unz have all been running the campaigns out of their own wallets, and each would be faced with starting a general election campaign from scratch.

While the general election was at the back of their minds, foremost to the candidates Monday was the final primary day of campaigning.

Brown spent Monday at two employment centers, in San Francisco and Torrance, pressing her assertion that Wilson’s four years as governor have been marked by “failed leadership.”

“My goal as governor is to end the Wilson recession,” she said at the second stop. “I want to bring back the hope, confidence and optimism that has always infused the California spirit.”

Garamendi made the traditional flying tour of California’s major media markets, greeting voters in Sacramento, Oakland, Los Angeles and San Diego. Accompanied by his wife, Patti, and son, John Jr., he said that he was confident of winning “by more than one vote.”

He contended that he had dominated the last week of the election with his criticism of Brown’s personal opposition to the death penalty. She has said that she would enforce it as governor, but Garamendi says that he will be the more vigorous proponent.

“We are exactly where we want to be,” the underdog Garamendi said in Los Angeles.

Hayden took his reform-minded campaign to San Diego, Santa Cruz and finally, to the streets of San Francisco, where he finished the day passing out leaflets at train stations.

“I’m telling people that if enough Democratic voters vote their ideals, I’ve got a fighting chance to win tomorrow,” he said in a telephone interview. “If there is enough disappointment with John and Kathleen arguing about the death penalty when so many other issues (are important to voters), I’ve got a fighting chance.”

Republican Unz, who has waged most of his campaign on the airwaves with anti-Wilson commercials, ended his up-from-nowhere effort with news conferences in Sacramento and Burbank, where he castigated Wilson as “outside the mainstream of his own party.”

But Wilson expressed his diffidence toward the challenge by spending most of the day in his Sacramento office, working on state matters, and looking toward Election Day.

Contributing to this article were Times staff writers Bill Stall and Amy Wallace.

Election Day

Voters today will decide on candidates for the U.S. Senate, governor and other state offices and ballot measures. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

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