CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / ATTORNEY GENERAL : Smith Lacks Knockout Issue in Battle With Lungren

Whoever coined the phrase “lightning never strikes twice” apparently never met Democratic state attorney general candidate Arlo Smith.

Eleven years ago, Smith, a little-known administrator in the attorney general’s office, was elected district attorney of San Francisco after a rough-and-tumble campaign in which he relentlessly attacked a well-known incumbent over the botched prosecution of mayoral assassin Dan White.

Last spring, Smith rode the reverberations of the unsuccessful McMartin child molestation case to victory in the Democratic attorney general primary, coming out of obscurity to defeat nationally known Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner.

This fall, Smith will have to make it on his own. No longer an underdog and without an overwhelming media-grabbing issue, Smith, 62, is facing an aggressive Republican general election foe, former Rep. Dan Lungren.

“Smith knows how to run one type of campaign and it’s been successful for him twice,” said San Francisco political consultant Sam Singer, who managed Reiner’s campaign. “But now he’s running against a candidate that doesn’t fit that profile.”

Smith is seeking to meet the challenge by hammering away at his conservative opponent’s congressional voting record. Lungren, he points out, has consistently sought to curb abortion rights and voted against most environmental protection funding bills during his five-term tenure that ended in 1988.

“This race is different than other campaigns Arlo has been in,” conceded Marc Dann, Smith’s campaign manager. “But it’s the kind of campaign that’s the candidate’s dream. You always say you want to run on the issues. The beauty of this race is that we literally win on the issues.”

A mediocre public speaker but a tireless campaigner, Smith is frenetically racing across the state, holding frequent press conferences from Sacramento to San Diego in which he employs a dizzying array of gimmicks to draw optimum TV news coverage. To highlight Lungren’s lack of prosecutorial experience, he recently met reporters in the office of a legal placement firm, stamping a poster-sized Lungren resume “Rejected.” That effort almost backfired when Smith nearly stamped his own resume by mistake before campaign staffers frantically yelled a warning.

The San Francisco prosecutor is receiving help from labor, ethnic, environmental and women’s groups that opposed Lungren’s unsuccessful nomination to the post of state treasurer in 1988. Last week, Smith was endorsed by the state’s leading environmental protection organizations, whose leaders termed Lungren an anti-environmental extremist. Smith also was strongly endorsed by once-bitter foe Reiner. “Arlo Smith will argue that (restrictions on abortion rights) are constitutionally impermissible and Dan Lungren will not,” Reiner said at a $500-a-plate campaign dinner. With the November vote nearing and the two candidates neck and neck in the polls, the jury is out on the effectiveness of Smith’s efforts.

For one thing, it remains to be seen whether social issues are of prime concern to voters for a job widely viewed as the state’s top law enforcement post.

“People expect the attorney general to fight crime,” said Sal Russo, a Republican campaign consultant based in Sacramento. “Intellectually, they know (the attorney general) does a lot of things. But in their gut they want a crime fighter.”

Lungren, insisting that drugs and violence are the key issues, has stressed a hard-line, anti-crime image, highlighting the key role he played in passage of tough federal crime-fighting legislation during the Reagan Administration.

Smith has countered by comparing resumes. Emphasizing that Lungren has never prosecuted a criminal case, Smith has pointed to his 36 years as a district attorney and deputy attorney general, including a stint as chief of its criminal division.

There also is the question of whether the public is paying attention to the upcoming vote.

A recent Los Angeles Times poll showed that only half the voters had made up their minds on Lungren or Smith. Another poll indicated that fewer than 4 in 10 registered voters across the state could identify the two candidates.

Without the hot news value of a McMartin trial that dominated the primary campaign, newspapers and TV news broadcasts have been providing limited coverage. Smith, who squared off against Lungren in several moderator-free debates before the June Democratic primary, has refused to participate in similar encounters this fall.

Lungren claims that Smith, who has agreed only to three joint appearances on 30-minute TV news conference broadcasts, is afraid to debate in an uncontrolled format.

Smith’s toughest problem, perhaps, is that for the first time in his political career, he faces an opponent who is not underestimating his chances.

In 1979, Smith shocked overconfident San Francisco prosecutor Joe Freitas by attacking his prosecution of White, who received less than eight years in prison for killing Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Smith faced no opposition in his two subsequent local reelection bids.

In the Democratic primary for attorney general, Reiner generally ignored Smith in the hope of depriving him of a statewide forum.

Reiner’s strategy short-circuited because of the deluge of negative publicity he received in connection with the McMartin trial. While the Los Angeles prosecutor made few public appearances, the peripatetic Smith hustled around the state, portraying himself as an alternative.

“Arlo has always done his best when he had some particular case or situation when he can show a major flaw in his opponent,” said Joe Shumate, a Republican campaign consultant based in San Francisco. “Arlo is a 100% tough campaigner and you just can’t take him lightly.”

Lungren has not. Seeking to place Smith on the defensive, he repeatedly cites state statistics showing that Smith’s office prosecuted just under 50% of the felony arrests in San Francisco in 1988. Smith has called the statistics misleading.

Lungren also has publicized letters from Smith’s boss during the early 1980s, then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein, questioning Smith’s performance as district attorney. Feinstein, now running for governor as a Democrat, has responded by praising Smith.

Lungren’s first TV campaign ad questioned Smith’s crime-fighting prowess in the prosecution of influential San Francisco businessman Donald Werby, a onetime Smith campaign contributor. Smith, citing problems with the evidence, recently accepted a misdemeanor plea bargain from Werby on sex and drug charges involving teen-age prostitutes.

“I’ve been in politics since I was 6 and I’ve seen lots of races where people did not take their opponent seriously until the day after the vote--when it was too late,” said Lungren, 44. “There are weaknesses in his record, to be sure. Obviously, we’re going to point those out.”

Smith has reacted by stressing his experience and by trying to out-tough Lungren on certain crime issues. After Lungren called for life sentences for criminals convicted of kidnaping for the purpose of rape, Smith announced his support for the death penalty in rape and kidnaping cases where victims suffer great physical harm. Smith also has called for mandatory incarceration in first-time convictions of drug dealers.

Experts say the outcome of the Smith-Lungren race could hinge on the success of their TV ad campaigns. At this point, it is unclear just how much money either candidate will raise for his final push.

Campaign finance reports filed Oct. 5 showed that Smith had $299,000 while Lungren had $106,000, having spent more than $200,000 on his first two TV ads.

With a federal court recently declaring unconstitutional the fund-raising limits established by Proposition 73, Smith and Lungren have the opportunity to add considerably to their war chests.

Lungren’s ads have appeared to had limited impact in the polls. In fact, the Werby attack ad generated a backlash of negative editorials.

Smith is expected to wait until the final days of the campaign to launch a statewide TV ad blitz.

“We simply have to lay out the case on abortion, environment and job qualifications,” said Dann, Smith’s campaign manager. “The electorate is tired of mudslinging. . . . But if he attacks us, we’re not going to get our face kicked in. We’re not going to take it.”