CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / ATTORNEY GENERAL : Lungren, Umberg Continue Brawl Over TV Ad : In the final debate of the campaign, incumbent attacks as ‘despicable’ suggestions that he is to blame for the Polly Klaas slaying.

Squaring off just miles from where Polly Klaas lived and died, Republican Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren and Democrat Tom Umberg continued their brawl Friday over the challenger’s TV commercial suggesting that Lungren shares the blame for the notorious Northern California murder.

In the last of their 11 bruising debates, Umberg defended the 30-second commercial featuring the girl’s grandfather, while Lungren blasted it as “the most disgusting, despicable ad in the history of California politics.”

Lungren also attacked Umberg for receiving more than $300,000 in campaign contributions--and getting a promise of $250,000 more--from Native American tribes operating casinos in the state. Umberg countered that Lungren has taken more than $40,000 from racetracks, card clubs and a Nevada casino.

The candidates, who debated for 90 minutes on a Santa Rosa radio talk show, also jousted over Proposition 187, the immigration reform measure on the Nov. 8 ballot. Umberg is staunchly opposed while Lungren has yet to take a position.

But the bulk of the dust-up was spent fighting over Umberg’s TV ad. Although the challenger was 23 points down in a Times poll conducted before the commercial began airing earlier this week, Umberg has seized the offensive, framing the debate around the attorney general’s role in the Klaas case.

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During the debate, Umberg repeated elements of his TV commercial--that Lungren had raised his public relations budget at the same time he was failing to properly fund a computer database that might have helped crack the case before Polly Klaas was killed.

About 90 minutes after the girl was kidnaped last year, two sheriff’s deputies questioned Richard Allen Davis, who was later charged with the murder. After a call to their dispatcher failed to turn up warrants or traffic violations, the deputies let Davis go. But when he was apprehended two months later, Davis said the 12-year-old girl had been hidden nearby and was alive when he talked to the deputies.

Umberg contends that the computer database would have alerted the deputies to the fact that Davis was a parolee, increasing the chances he would have been brought in for further questioning. He cited a December, 1993, newspaper story quoting Lungren as saying that the system “would have helped our officers that night.”

“The ad does not accuse the attorney general of murder,” Umberg said, but rather of “misplaced priorities.”

Lungren countered with his most detailed defense to date, arguing that it was pure supposition to suggest that the database could have helped.

At one juncture, he engaged in a sharp exchange with Joe Klaas, the grandfather of the slain girl. Klaas, speaking by phone from his home in Carmel, was drowned out by Lungren during the broadcast. “I understand the pain of someone who has lost a child, but that doesn’t give someone the right to mislead the people,” Lungren said, arguing that the commercial threatened to undermine the case against Davis before it reaches trial.

The talk show host also called the Umberg commercial “absolutely the sleaziest ad” most people have ever seen.

“Why are they more concerned about that than the fact that Polly’s life could have been saved if the attorney general had not gutted that program?” Klaas countered. “We didn’t make this up.”

Lungren later responded: “I’m not running against Joe Klaas.”

“You’re running against Joe Klaas, you just don’t know it yet,” Klaas retorted.

Amid the vitriol, Lungren got a boost from Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Ihde, who showed up at the radio station during the morning confrontation and declared to reporters that the Umberg commercial was “outrageous” and the “act of a desperate politician.”

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In his reply to the Umberg charge, Lungren said that while he was not blaming the deputies, there were other indications to arouse their suspicions.

“The officers indicated that when they saw (Davis), he had convict tattoos up and down his arm,” Lungren said. “They spotted him immediately as a parolee. He told them he was out of the joint and currently on parole. . . . To suggest they needed another (computer) program to tell them that is an absolute distortion of facts.”

Also, Lungren maintained that Davis actually revealed to the officers that he had recently been paroled from prison.

But in an interview later, Sheriff Ihde said he did not recall that Davis had made such a revelation to the deputies. Told of Ihde’s comments, Lungren said he had learned about Davis’ statement from FBI officials who investigated the case. An FBI spokesman in San Francisco said the agency would not comment on the matter.