The Real Fun and Games Are in 36th District

It’s too bad the brief network coverage of the national conventions didn’t catch America’s real political foot soldiers.

The networks showed Clinton and Dole, Kemp and Gore, Elizabeth and Hillary and a bunch of people with sad stories that didn’t seem to have much to do with the political process. Taking a back seat, as usual, were the candidates for Congress, whose electoral fates, taken as a whole, may be as important to the country as the results of the presidential contest.

Democratic Rep. Jane Harman and her challenger, Republican Susan Brooks, were among those not making it to the podium. To catch their acts, it’s necessary to go to the South Bay’s 36th Congressional District. There, the 1996 campaign is being fought out in microcosm by two aggressive, talented politicians.

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It’s a great matchup. Two years ago, Brooks barely lost to Harman and has been preparing for another chance ever since.

She has a deceptively gentle appearance that masks a fierce intensity. The intensity is evident in the inner workings of her campaign, where, according to former associates, she is an incurable micro-manager. Brooks runs through campaign managers faster than the directors of troubled companies dispose of CEOs.

Harman’s intensity matches that of Brooks. While the Harman team has been stable, she seems the kind of candidate who, like Brooks, insists on having her hand firmly on the campaign rudder at all times. A lawyer and onetime top aide to former Democratic Sen. John Tunney of California, Harman has a sharper, more focused speaking manner than her foe. Her years in Washington have given her a big league political style. Brooks, on the other hand, has the minor league moves of what she is--a former mayor and City Council member from the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Brooks is seeking to convert this into an asset. She is portraying herself as your next-door neighbor and Harman as a dreaded Washington insider--and a rich one, at that.

What makes this race worth watching is that the 36th District is a perfect example of the suburban areas around the country that are expected to determine the 1996 election.

The 36th is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, although Ross Perot got 25% of the vote there four years ago. The district ranges from working class to rich. Its residents, like those in other parts of the country, have been hammered economically by mergers, downsizing and--in particular--by huge defense cutbacks.

Like Dole and Clinton, Harman and Brooks are concentrating on issues that can sway suburban couples, considered by pollsters as one of the main keys to the election.

This week Harman appealed to them at a press conference with Sarah Brady, the nation’s most famous gun control activist and wife of Jim Brady, the press secretary who was shot and severely wounded in an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan.

Harman supports the Brady bill, named after Jim Brady, which imposed a five-day waiting period on gun purchases. Polls show that a large majority of independent suburban voters favor more gun controls.

Brooks opposes federal controls, except for an instant computerized check on gun purchasers. It may be that, for this district, Brooks is on the wrong side of the issue. But maybe not. She’s got the support of the National Rifle Assn., whose money and campaign workers helped defeat several Democrats in the 1994 congressional elections.

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Right now, Harman is leading in polls taken by both campaigns, and in the race for campaign funds. The other day, Jim Frankel, Brooks’ new press secretary, was explaining to me on the phone why this didn’t matter.

He interrupted our conversation. “Goodbye, Mr. Nofziger,” he shouted to someone leaving his office. “That wouldn’t be Lyn Nofziger?” I asked, remembering the crafty political hired gun I have known since the early Reagan days.

Yes, replied Frankel. He’s been here all afternoon.

Maybe Frankel has a point, I thought. If anyone knows how to get out the gun nuts, it’s Nofziger.

I don’t know how the candidates feel about it, but I think this campaign is going to be fun.