Anti-Gingrich Tactic Tested in San Jose Race : Politics: Democrats hope to turn congressional contest into referendum on GOP Speaker--and preview ’96 strategy.

It’s been a long time since anybody cared much about the outcome of a congressional race in San Jose’s 15th District, mostly because for 20 years everybody knew Norm Mineta was going to win it. But with the veteran congressman abruptly retiring in September and the seat wide open, national political minds and money are focused on this Silicon Valley district election that Democrats hope to make the next referendum on the Newt Gingrich Congress.

Seizing on the House Speaker’s abysmal popularity polls, Democrats hope not only to hold the seat, but also to test a Newt-bashing strategy they believe will restore their party’s power in Congress in 1996 and keep Bill Clinton safely installed in the White House.

“This is a really good test of the extent to which Republicans are flirting with danger,” Stu Rothenberg, publisher of a political newsletter on Congress, said of the Dec. 12 special election to fill Mineta’s spot. “If Gingrich’s image is going to do damage anywhere, it is going to be here.”

The ballot says this is a race between Republican Tom Campbell and Democrat Jerry Estruth. But one might have trouble discerning that from some of the ads coming out of the Democrat’s camp.

Two television spots don’t even mention Campbell’s name. “Newt Gingrich’s agenda: Cut Medicare. Cut education. Gut clean air and water regulations . . .” one ad intones over the silver-haired speaker’s grinning mug. “Jerry Estruth has a different agenda . . .”

At a news conference last week, the Estruth camp offered Gingrich a first-class ticket to fly out to San Jose and “help his old friend and ally Tom Campbell.”

And one Estruth campaign brochure depicts Campbell posed next to Gingrich like two old chums. Never mind that it’s a composite.

“The Democrats don’t want the comparison to be Campbell vs. Estruth. They want it to be Estruth vs. Gingrich,” Rothenberg said. “People are very apprehensive about the congressional program and Gingrich in particular. When you talk to voters about Newt Gingrich, the word reckless comes up. Sometimes blowhard. “

Clearly, the Democrats are grasping for the sword that slew them. In 1994, Republicans “morphed” every Democrat’s face in television ads into that of Clinton, whose poll showings were at the time embarrassingly low. The GOP swept to victory, seizing the majority in both houses and launching the Republican revolution.

Lately, though, it is Gingrich’s popularity that has plunged, with negative public opinion of him a catastrophic 65%, according to a ABC-Washington Post poll last week. And with just a year to go before the 1996 elections, there are already signs that some congressional Republicans are running from Gingrich’s controversial image. And when Gingrich was in San Jose one recent Friday, Campbell was conspicuously on the other side of town.

“I was teaching,” the candidate explained.

But experts say that missed opportunity was probably no accident.

“If someone comes to town and you think they can help you, you beg to appear with them. If you think they won’t help, then you arrange to be at your daughter’s first communion,” said Don Sweitzer, a Washington media consultant. “That is most certainly an indication of trouble in the Republican camp.”

Meanwhile, Vice President Al Gore and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt have shown up in San Jose campaigning for Estruth. A former Peace Corps volunteer, Stanford graduate, fluent Spanish speaker, stockbroker and ex-city councilman, Estruth most resembles the populist Mineta in a district that has been loyally Democratic for at least two decades.

But experts say if there is a Republican who can woo this group of mostly high-income, college-educated, socially liberal, fiscally conservative voters, Campbell is the one.

A Stanford law professor, he favors a balanced budget and Medicare reform--but not the $245-billion tax cut that is central to the Republican plan. He is an advocate for abortion rights and gun control. He openly opposed Proposition 187, California’s anti-immigration initiative that won last November, noting: “I’m probably the only Republican officeholder who did.”

Also in Campbell’s corner is strong name identification--he is a state senator who served in Congress from 1988 to 1992--and a well-financed campaign that was outpacing Estruth’s 3 to 2 at last count.

All of which suggests to some pundits that if Campbell loses, Gingrich will be to blame.

“People like me will draw the conclusion that Campbell should have won, could have won and this is a statement by the voters about Newt Gingrich,” Rothenberg said. “And if Campbell wins, then he overcame the Gingrich drag, or maybe the Gingrich drag is not as bad as some people have concluded from Kentucky.”

The anti-Newt strategy seems to be showing some promise, with recent statewide races suggesting the revolution may have gone too far. Republicans in Kentucky and Virginia tried this month to capitalize on their congressional momentum and Democrats walked away the winners. The San Jose race is the first chance to test Republican approval in a federal election.

Campbell bristles at the notion that he is Gingrich’s evil twin, predicting the approach will backfire in a place such as San Jose.

“They chose the wrong district to try that strategy out--and on someone so publicly identified as a moderate Republican,” Campbell said, recalling his slogan when he ran unsuccessfully against conservative Bruce Herschensohn for the Senate Republican nomination in 1992: “For Jobs, For Choice. For U.S. Senate.”

Estruth argues that Campbell “took a right turn” after losing that primary, pointing as evidence to a California Pro-Life News legislative score card showing Campbell voted against abortion in nine out of nine recent votes.

“Newt Gingrich has been leading an assault on people all year long and it’s the wrong track for the country,” Estruth said. “There is a tie between Tom Campbell and Newt Gingrich. He did vote with Newt Gingrich 76% of the time. . . . The bottom line is, Tom Campbell will vote for Newt Gingrich for Speaker of the House, and I won’t.”

Some experts caution against reading too much into the results of a single special election. But still fresh in the collective political memory is a 1993 special election in Kentucky where Republicans took a seat they had not held since the Civil War, a harbinger of the landslide that came in 1994.

“California is such an important state in next year’s presidential race that, frankly, everybody will be watching,” Sweitzer said. “This is going to be an indication of where things are headed.”