Davis Keeps His Focus; Lungren’s Themes Vary

Gray Davis’ face was inches from jostling television cameras, outstretched tape recorders and snapping photographers.

Is this election really about rewarding President Clinton for lying about sex? he was asked.

“I think people in this state are smarter than that,” said the Democratic front-runner for governor. “There are things we have to do here. We have to restore our schools to greatness, we have to defend a woman’s right to choose, and we have to get assault weapons off the street.”

Wouldn’t a Democratic sweep of elections presage an unfair reapportionment process in 2000? another reporter asked.

“Frankly, I think most voters can care less about redistricting,” Davis answered. “They want to know, ‘Are you going to improve the schools? Can we keep our economic momentum going? Can you do something to improve public safety?’ ”

Wouldn’t you be a rubber stamp for the unions that support you? someone asked. Davis turned the moment into an opportunity to discuss his plans for education.

As the campaign winds toward Tuesday’s vote, Davis continues to be the political jukebox that plays three tunes over and over: schools, abortion rights and the ban on assault weapons.

Lt. Gov. Davis was squabbling about the same topics with his Republican rival, state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, in their first debate in July. Democrats believe that the medley is such a hit with the crucial centrist voters that they are clinging to the repertoire like it’s a sacred incantation.

Things have not been the same for Lungren. If Davis wins, the lack of a consistent theme in the GOP campaign is expected to be one of the chief complaints among Republican analysts.

Part of the difficulty has been a shifting political landscape. At one time, it looked like a swamp for Democrats who were forced to defend Clinton’s behavior. “In the final analysis,” Lungren confidently told reporters in September, “people [will] truly be making judgments about the different characters.”

Later, the Republican campaign shifted to crime, highlighting the state’s historic drop in violence and Lungren’s role as a state attorney general who supported tough sentencing laws.

But on the campaign trail, even that message has been muddled with various other themes, producing odd scenes--as when Lungren stood amid the heavy machinery at a San Jose concrete manufacturing plant and discussed crime, or when he used Los Angeles police headquarters as a backdrop to address education reform.

On Friday, Lungren and his wife, Bobbi, visited the candidate’s elementary school, St. Barnabas, and high school, St. Anthony’s, in Long Beach. At both stops, Lungren lauded the sacrifices the students’ parents made to send their children to parochial school.

But at neither stop did he publicly mention vouchers, which he supports and which would ease the financial crunch for those parents. Afterward, reporters asked Lungren about the omission.

“Oh, I’m glad you asked me,” he said. “This is a very good example of what vouchers are all about. My opponent keeps talking about, ‘It’s vouchers for the rich kids.’ You think these look like a bunch of rich kids here? This is the face of America here, all kinds of kids here, mothers and fathers and single parents, all sacrificing to send their kids to school.”

Lungren did not mention Davis in either appearance, but he did complain that the distinctions between their positions were not being made. Distilled to its essence, Lungren’s message is that Tuesday’s election gives voters “a clear choice.”

“If you wish to have higher taxes, more litigation, more regulation and continued poor test scores by our children, then vote for my opponent,” Lungren said, baking in a hot San Jose sun.

Perhaps the “clear choice” is the one agreement the two major candidates preach.

In Santa Barbara on Monday, Davis told about 100 supporters that “the choice for governor has never been clearer on a whole range of issues from education to assault weapons to the right to choose.”

The Democrats, however, have tried to limit their presentations to one major issue per day.

On Monday, Davis pitched abortion rights in Santa Barbara and Monterey, where he was joined by Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion Rights and Reproductive Rights Action League. On Tuesday, education reform brought Davis to the Betsy Ross Elementary School in Anaheim, where he read to a class of third- and fourth-graders from a children’s book about illiteracy.

Wednesday was assault weapons. Davis was joined in San Francisco by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the author of the gun ban signed by Clinton.

Davis covered those stock issues again Friday at a San Francisco appearance with Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Saying the governor’s race presents California with its “clearest choice” in 30 years, Davis contrasted his position on guns, abortion, education and the environment with Lungren’s--and Boxer’s with her GOP rival Matt Fong.

As Davis plies his message-a-day theme, the front-runner is also sprinkling his speeches with agenda items for the opening months of an anticipated Davis administration. Before virtually every crowd, he states his intention to call a special legislative session “my first day in office” to focus on education reform.

Times political writer Cathleen Decker contributed to this story.