Candidates Start Stretch Run in Pivotal Election : Politics: Intense marathon campaigns for governor and Senate will accelerate further after Labor Day. The year looms as a watershed, with even the ’96 presidential race affected.

For Pete Wilson and Kathleen Brown, for Dianne Feinstein and Mike Huffington, California’s general election campaign began the day after the June 7 primary with a nonstop barrage of biting television commercials, vituperative faxes and lots of bus rides.

But Labor Day is the traditional beginning of the campaign for most voters, and this year it triggers a final 63-day stretch leading to the Nov. 8 election that could have far-reaching consequences for California and a direct impact on President Clinton’s prospects for reelection in 1996.

Already intense, the TV ads, attacks and speechmaking will be stepped up even more.

“Most people can only take about two full months of politics,” said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political analyst, “so Labor Day is the start.”

There are plenty of reasons to see 1994 as a watershed election year in California. Consider the stakes:

* The nation’s most intensely watched governor’s race pits incumbent Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and Democratic challenger Kathleen Brown. The winner will emerge as a national political star and could play a huge role in the Presidential elections two years from now.

* A pivotal U.S. Senate race will test the ability of a neophyte California congressman, who recently moved here from Texas, to parlay his massive personal wealth into a U.S. Senate seat over a seasoned female political pro.

* Proposition 187, the so-called “Save Our State” measure designed to deny state benefits to illegal immigrants, is triggering an emotional debate about California’s historic reliance on immigration.

With national health care on hold in Congress, the ballot proposal for a comprehensive state-run insurance system contained in Proposition 186 also could become an intense focus of debate.

* A lineup of candidates, unknown to most voters, are running for statewide offices below the level of governor, establishing the next generation of California political leadership. Other than Wilson, only one incumbent is seeking reelection to the office that he now holds, Republican Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren.

* California will fill 52 congressional seats and elect all 80 members of the state Assembly and half of the 40-member Senate. For many state lawmakers, this is the last year that they can seek reelection under the term limits initiative passed in 1990. This year and 1996 will provide unprecedented turnover in the Legislature’s makeup.

The powerful emotions unlocked by Proposition 187, the measure on illegal immigration, may wash over many of the other races and is sure to trigger a clash between Wilson and Brown before long.

For more than a year, Wilson has blamed the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico with costing the state billions of dollars for such services as emergency health care and schooling. Illegal immigration teams with crime as Wilson’s top issues.

Wilson has not yet formally endorsed Proposition 187, but Dan Schnur, his campaign press secretary, said, “We believe that both the ‘three-strikes’ initiative and the SOS initiative are going to be very helpful to us.”

Such issues often motivate conservative Republicans to go to the polls and they probably would cast their ballots for Wilson.

Brown opposes Proposition 187, primarily because it would deny public schooling to illegal immigrant children. The Brown campaign is prepared to counterattack with Wilson’s record as a U.S. senator, when he sponsored legislation to allow non-citizens to work on farms in the United States.

“Immigration is an important issue,” a Brown strategist said, but compared to crime, it is “much less significant and decisive an issue in the context of our campaign, ultimately.”

One big question this year is just how much politics people will take when they have the option of becoming absorbed in the judicial drama of the decade in the O.J. Simpson murder case.

The Simpson trial is scheduled to start Sept. 26 and probably will run through Election Day. Political managers were concerned that the trial would drain television news coverage that might otherwise be devoted to the campaign.

Acting Secretary of State Tony Miller suggested to Simpson trial Judge Lance A. Ito that he suspend the trial Nov. 7 and 8 so that prospective voters, in a sense, could be encouraged to briefly pay attention to the campaign and turn out to vote.

The June primary drew a record-low 38% of California’s registered voters.

Ito rejected Miller’s proposal. But this past week Santa Cruz County election officials proposed opening the polls on the Saturday and Sunday before the election to give people a greater opportunity to vote.

The big prize at stake this year, of course, is the governorship.

Brown is the first-term state treasurer who is seeking to become the third member of her family to be elected California’s chief executive.

A Brown election, along with the return of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein to Washington for a full term, would put women in the state’s top three political jobs: governor and both U.S. Senate seats. The third is Sen. Barbara Boxer, whose term runs through 1998. All are Democrats.

A Wilson win would make him something of a national GOP hero. He would have resuscitated himself from virtual political extinction, coming back from the worst job performance ratings of any modern California governor, to win reelection.

And Wilson would have done so over a telegenic female candidate with family tradition, Westside political glamour and a prodigious ability to raise campaign funds.

Some say a victory would propel Wilson into the running for the 1996 Republican presidential nomination, or make him a logical vice presidential running mate. But Wilson has insisted that he is not interested in seeking national office.

And the likely election of a Democrat as lieutenant governor would make it difficult for Wilson to walk away from Sacramento and hand the governorship over to the Democrats, most experts believe.

In the Senate contest, Feinstein once was considered a walkaway winner over Rep. Mike Huffington of Santa Barbara, who has spent more than $10 million of his own fortune attempting to seize the seat. The Senate race is being watched across the country, Sabato said, in part because it conceivably could determine which party will control the Senate in the next two years.

But also, he said, “The Huffington model is either going to become the wave of the future or crash on the beach, one way or the other. Is this race going to prove that money is the be-all and end-all?”

The first major independent opinion polls of the fall season won’t be out until later this month, but most California political analysts believe that the governor’s race is a virtual tossup going into the fall.

That in itself is a dramatic showing for Wilson. A year ago, he trailed Brown by as much as 20 percentage points in the polls and was being treated almost like a lame duck. Brown was being hailed by the national media as a virtual sure winner.

Feinstein clung to a small lead in the last polls after months of Huffington television ads. Experts now expect a close race to the end because of Huffington’s ability to pay for TV ads virtually anytime he wants.

Sabato said the outcome of the governor’s contest could have a major impact on the 1996 presidential race.

Clinton must win California to win reelection. Sabato said, “He’ll rise or fall on the basis of his own performance, but having a governor in your party in California can add several percentage points to your ticket.”

“The stakes are very high there,” he said.

Two other ballot measures that will get attention are Proposition 184, the “three strikes” initiative to provide tougher sentencing for repeat felons, and Proposition 188, a tobacco industry-sponsored measure to preempt existing local no-smoking ordinances.

In the contests for statewide offices below governor, state Controller Gray Davis is the one Democrat given heavy odds for victory in his quest for the lieutenant governorship, being relinquished by retiring Democrat Leo T. McCarthy.

Davis, chief of staff in the Administration of Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. and a former assemblyman, is far better known and better financed than his Republican opponent, state Sen. Cathie Wright of Simi Valley.

On the GOP side, Atty. Gen. Lungren is regarded as the favorite to win a second term over Democratic Assemblyman Tom Umberg of Garden Grove.

Otherwise, the summer polls indicate that most voters have little knowledge of the candidates.

The other statewide posts at stake:

Treasurer (incumbent Brown is running for governor): Former Democratic state party chairman Phil Angelides of Sacramento versus Matt Fong, Republican member of the State Board of Equalization and son of former Secretary of State March Fong Eu, a Democrat.

Secretary of State (March Fong Eu resigned for an ambassadorial appointment): Acting Secretary of State Tony Miller, a Democrat and California’s first openly gay candidate for statewide office, versus Assemblyman Bill Jones, a Republican from Fresno, author of the “three strikes” sentencing legislation.

Controller (incumbent Davis is running for lieutenant governor): Kathleen Connell, a Los Angeles businesswoman, onetime aide to former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and a Democrat, versus former Assemblyman Tom McClintock, a Republican.

Insurance Commissioner (incumbent John Garamendi gave up the post to unsuccessfully seek the Democratic nomination for governor): State Sen. Art Torres, a Los Angeles Democrat, versus Assemblyman Charles W. Quackenbush, a San Jose Republican.

State superintendent of public instruction (the office has been vacant since Bill Honig resigned): Assemblywoman Delaine Eastin of Fremont versus Maureen DiMarco, Gov. Wilson’s education secretary. The office is nonpartisan, but both candidates are registered Democrats.