By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 7, 1998; Page A03

LOS ANGELES—California voters, having weathered one of the most negative gubernatorial primary campaigns in the history of the state this spring, have this to look forward to in the general election: more of the same.

Democratic nominee Gray Davis plans a divisive wedge-issue strategy against Republican nominee Dan Lungren, built around such issues as abortion, gun control, the environment and tobacco. Lungren, said Davis campaign manager Garry South, is "clearly out of the mainstream." His record, South said, is that of "a right-wing zealot."

"They want to paint him as a fanatical extremist," Lungren campaign director Dave Puglia said. "I think in this climate in 1998, voters are skeptical of that hyperventilated charge. I think there is a huge risk of it backfiring."

The outcome of the Davis-Lungren race will shape the economic and political future of the diverse and still growing Golden State. But its significance comes from two additional factors, as well: The contest will influence the presidential election in 2000 and may determine who controls the House of Representatives during the first decade of the next century.

Together Davis and Lungren will spend an estimated $40 million over the next four months, and their contest will attract more outside help and attention than any other race in the country. Each candidate will make a virtue of his experience; each will have to overcome past baggage.

No one in central casting would have picked Davis, the current lieutenant governor, and Lungren, the state attorney general, to play the main roles in what is billed as the most important election in America this year. White, Catholic and middle-aged, Davis and Lungren are a pair of political veterans with more than 40 years of government service between them.

Davis has roots deep in the traditional base of his party. He has been lieutenant governor, state controller, a member of the state Assembly and chief of staff to former governor Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr.

Lungren, the Republican, is equally well-grounded in the conservative wing of his party. Attorney general since 1990, he spent 12 years in the House, where he was an ideological soul mate of House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) during Gingrich's days as a young rabble-rouser.

Davis and Lungren share another trait: Both are reasonably popular with the electorate. "Both have a very favorable image," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the independent Field Poll in California.

Despite his strongly conservative record, Lungren is well-liked, even by many Democrats, DiCamillo said. Davis, for his part, managed to emerge from a hard-fought primary with his image enhanced, a rarity in politics today. "Davis's image was stronger at the end of the primary campaign than at the beginning," DiCamillo said.

Recent gubernatorial elections have had intriguing subplots: In the 1980s, then-Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley twice sought to become the state's first African American governor. In the 1990s, Gov. Pete Wilson (R) defeated two women seeking to be the first of their gender to lead the state.

This year, there will be little of the flair that came with those contests. Instead, the Davis-Lungren campaign will be a straight-ahead race in which each candidate will try to secure the center of the political spectrum before the other. "This is not going to be a campaign about who has the most grandiose ideas for the state of California," South said.

Lungren has built his hopes around a series of five (possibly more) debates, the first of them scheduled for the end of this month. The GOP nominee hopes to use these television encounters to project an appealing, upbeat personality to soften his conservative record.

Davis, the blander of the two candidates, banks on a strategy reminiscent of the campaigns Republicans used against Democrats in the 1980s. Davis hopes to use Lungren's record against him to dislodge moderate Republicans from Lungren's camp and attract political independents.

Lungren is staunchly opposed to abortion in a state that, for the past 10 years, has not voted for a presidential, gubernatorial or senatorial candidate who opposes abortion rights.

Davis also plans to attack Lungren for having opposed a ban on offshore drilling, although Lungren's advisers say he is quite comfortable with the recent presidential extension of the ban until 2012; for lax enforcement of the ban on assault weapons; and for being slow in joining other state attorneys general in taking on the tobacco industry.

Lungren plans to portray Davis as a prisoner of liberal special interests with an undistinguished record. "He's been absent from the fight," Puglia said.

The biggest issue in the campaign, as in virtually every other governor's race around the country this year, is education, with school choice the biggest divide between the candidates. Lungren favors vouchers for private schools; Davis opposes them.

Democrats believe Davis will hold the high ground on an issue that usually favors them. But Lungren's advisers believe they can portray Davis as an agent of the educational bureaucracy in California. "The status quo has failed, and he's tied to it," Puglia said.

Lungren also will stress his advocacy of lower taxes – like many candidates this year, he favors elimination of the car tax – and his work as attorney general to reduce crime.

The burgeoning Latino vote in California poses one of the biggest strategic challenges to Lungren. Republicans have suffered among Latino voters because of two recent ballot initiatives – the anti-immigration Proposition 187, passed in 1994, and Proposition 209, passed in 1996, which barred affirmative action.

Both initiatives were promoted by Wilson, and Lungren will have to decide just how openly he should distance himself from the Republican governor. In the primary, he split with Wilson and joined with Davis to oppose the ballot initiative to end bilingual education; the measure was approved. But he captured just 17 percent of the Latino vote.

The primary campaign suggested that Californians are content with the status quo, but it isn't clear which candidate benefits from that mood in the general election. Republicans have controlled the governor's office in California for the past 16 years, and just three Democrats have won the office this century. But the Los Angeles Times exit poll of primary voters last month found that, by 56 percent to 44 percent, Californians said it is time to change the party controlling the governor's office.