Lungren Kicks Off Run for Governor

Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren is not trying to start a revolution.

As he demonstrated Wednesday at the ceremonial launch of his campaign to be governor, he is hoping to continue the one that helped Republicans hold that office for the last 16 years.

Gov. Pete Wilson and his predecessor, George Deukmejian, joined Lungren on stage at his Long Beach rally, illustrating his political message: Voters should not change horses in the middle of a good economy.

“I believe in a compassionate conservatism . . . and I believe we can have that building on the work of my two predecessors here,” Lungren told an audience of about 120 supporters who cheered and waved banners as they packed into the Parker’s Lighthouse restaurant overlooking the Queen Mary.

Lungren, who does not have a major opponent in the Republican primary this June, used the triumphs of his parents’ generation to suggest the scale of achievement he would aim for as governor. They faced economic depression, world war and then the threat of communism, he noted.

“I know what their legacy is,” said Lungren, 51. “Then I look at my generation and I say what is our legacy? It is still being written. If our legacy ends tomorrow, it is the Clinton administration. I say that with some sorrow and some concern.”

Wilson and Deukmejian by turns described the sort of seamless transition they hope will come from a third consecutive Republican administration in Sacramento.

Wilson said he felt a sense of deja vu standing on the stage Wednesday. Eight years ago, when he kicked off his own first attempt for the governor’s office, he said he was joined on the stage by Deukmejian and Lungren, who was then making his first bid for statewide office as attorney general.

“We’re like a Dickens Christmas tale up here,” Wilson joked. “The past, the present and the future.”

Deukmejian said he has known Lungren since he was a child, a kid who began stuffing Republican campaign envelopes at age 6 just a few blocks from the site of Wednesday’s rally. The former governor said he has a lot in common with Lungren--both are from Long Beach, both are lawyers and both served as the state attorney general.

“We now have the opportunity to support a candidate who will continue the very strong and decisive leadership we have had in these last eight years,” he said.

There were moments when the day appeared a bit overwhelming for Lungren. Becoming governor is one of his lifelong dreams, and he used Wednesday’s event to recall some of his closest friends and fondest memories. His voice eventually cracked and he paused before a silent audience as he tried to express his thanks to his parents, who were both seated at the rally.

“It’s tough at times when you are about to embark on something you have thought about your whole life and the people you love the most are all here,” he said.

Lungren recalled that he once wanted to be a doctor, like his father, who used to travel with their family friend, Richard Nixon, as an attending physician. Lungren said he learned a sense of public mission for his own life from watching his father rise from bed for late-night house calls or attend to the poor at no charge.

Lungren, a former Long Beach congressman, pointed out his high school debate coach in the audience and talked about the challenge he once issued to a group of teenagers about forming a forensic club and trying to be the best in the country. They did and won a national title barely a year later.

“When people tell me kids can’t do it, I say maybe they haven’t tried hard enough,” Lungren said.

“When I was growing up in Long Beach, I thought I was the luckiest kid in the world,” he said. “That’s what I want to do for California. I want every child to feel the way I did. I don’t care if you live in South-Central Los Angeles or Irvine, California. “

Lungren spent little time on details of the major issues looming in the campaign. In the past, he has emphasized crime and education as two of his priorities and he briefly repeated that message Wednesday.

Lungren’s campaign director, David Puglia, said Californians appear happy with their state and the people leading it. And his research shows that voters are looking for something much different in 1998 from what they sought six years ago when Texas billionaire Ross Perot rode to popularity on the theme of fixing a broken government. “That phenomenon is over,” Puglia said.

Not everyone agrees. Democratic candidate Al Checchi, a multimillionaire and former head of Northwest Airlines, insists in his speeches that if Californians do not want major change in their government they should not vote for him.

Checchi faces two other Democrats in the June primary--Rep. Jane Harman of Torrance and Lt. Gov. Gray Davis.