CALIFORNIA'S CRAZY CAMPAIGN

...His public appearances are usually without dramatic flaw, as was classically demonstrated at a San Diego dinner rally early in the campaign...

...The audience of 1,000 persons shook their heads in wonder when it was announced that despite his illness Reagan would make an appearance that night...

...Despite the fact that the city over which he presides is choking in smog, is ensnarled in traffic, and has been grossly insensitive to racial problems (as the Watts riots demonstrated), Yorty entered the gubernatorial race because, as he put it, "California needs a state administration with an understanding of urban problems...

...Right on cue, Reagan entered the room, responding to the standing ovation with an expression of modest surprise...

...In recent weeks, however, Brown has become more incisive both in defending his record and in scorning his opponents' attempts to find discreditable issues...

...The picture of a "Kennedy versus Johnson" clash in California is an intriguing one for many, but in mid-May neither Hand nor Braden seemed likely to win the nomination from the incumbent Lieutenant Governor Glenn Anderson...

...Some of you," he thundered, "don't have sense enough to know that way back in the shadows . . . it is the Communists who are pulling the strings...

...He said the psychological effects of nuclear weapons "might be good" because they were feared by the Chinese Communists...

...Reagan's public demeanor is built around the image of the "good guy...

...Nonetheless, Brown faces major hurdles...

...And even his supporters can become infuriated: When striking grape workers marched 300 miles from Delano to Sacramento seeking his help in behalf of much-needed farm labor legislation, Brown, who had shown sympathy for the strikers, refused to meet them at the capitol at the dramatic conclusion of their march on Easter Sunday...

...Vietnam gave Yorty new inspiration...

...The speaker, the star "hawk" at a University of California at Los Angeles "teach-out" on Vietnam, was none other than Samuel W. Yorty, mayor of Los Angeles and a Democratic candidate for governor...

...The sixty-one-year-old governor began his public career as district attorney of San Francisco in 1943, served a second term, and then in 1950 was elected state attorney general...

...Christopher enjoys the support of some prominent party figures, ranging from Kuchel to former CIA director John McCone, and has concentrated on pre-empting the Republican middle-of-the-road from Reagan—scoring well in pre-primary polls...

...In 1960, Yorty endorsed Nixon and issued a tract entitled "I Cannot Take Kennedy," a sharp attack upon their Presidential nominee which Democratic stalwarts continually recall to the voters—for Brown's benefit...

...The CRA endorsed him anyway, without the formality of a roll call vote...

...In 1958, Brown sought the governorship and won by more than a million votes over conservative William F. Knowland, who had resigned from the U.S...

...In selecting a nominee for governor, the Democrats will choose either the incumbent, Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, who is seeking a third term, or the challenger, Sam Yorty, a party maverick who supported Richard Nixon in 1960...

...The conservative California Republican Assembly, once a middle-of-the-road organization formed in 1935, is now the haven of the extreme right, hurling condemnations at human relations boards, "metropolitan government," and "the so-called American Civil Liberties Union"—to the extent that some of Reagan's backers feared a CRA endorsement would do him more harm than good...

...Sometimes, in their zeal, the volunteer organizations cause more embarrassment than benefit to their favorite candidates...

...Brown assumed the underdog role again in 1962, against Richard Nixon, and swept to victory by a considerably smaller but still comfortable margin...

...The 1966 California campaign has all the flamboyance, the unpredictability, and the oddball qualities that characterize the politics in this bizarre state...

...The Lieutenant Governor, who is not a forceful public personality, was roundly criticized for not sending the national guard into Watts soon enough...

...He flashes an easy grin, speaks softly, and prefaces answers to questions with homely expressions like "Gee...

...Any voids in the political spectrum are happily filled by such bizarre organizations as the California Young Republicans, described sorrowfully by the liberal Republican Ripon Society as holding "the dubious honor of being the first Republican group to be captured by the extreme right-wing faction of the Republican Party . . ." It was revealed recently that three of four CYR statewide officers were members of the John Birch Society...

...At an elaborate news conference in which he announced his candidacy, Hand, whose manner of speech sometimes approaches a drawl, repeatedly asserted: "I'm not President Johnson's man...

...But there are bits and pieces for the conservatives, who look at each other in silent approval as he charges that "we are helping a segment of our citizens turn welfare into a profession...

...Tension in Watts is attributed to "lawless elements" and never to a lack of civic leadership ("I think we're running the city all right," he says...

...Christopher, it must be noted, is quite capable of malapropisms himself: He once promised to "restore moral turpitude to government...

...Lest there be doubt as to where he stood ideologically, he asserted he would "rather be 100 times dead than red...

...There was a tone of resignation in Governor Brown's bid for a third term...

...He has employed Spencer-Roberts & Associates, the highly professional public relations firm that ran campaigns for Senator Kuchel and for Governor Nelson Rockefeller in his California primary bid in 1964...

...He is careful to avoid statements that make him out a right-winger...

...Senate...

...his aides said he was fighting a 102-degree temperature...

...Reagan's chief opponent is George Christopher, a fifty-nine-year-old dairy owner who was twice elected mayor of San Francisco and who became the hope of the Republican moderates after Senator Kuchel decided against running for governor...

...He is often recalled as the man who was photographed falling off a surfboard in Hawaii, or spilling coffee in his lap while visiting with the late President Kennedy...

...The reported rise in crime is ascribed by Yorty to "technicalities" in recent court decisions made by "politically-appointed" judges...

...cross-filing (since abandoned) to permit a candidate to run in the primaries of both parties was adopted, substantially reducing the importance of party labels...

...The "LBJ" label has been tied to thirty-seven-year old Lloyd Hand, President Johnson's protege and chief of protocol, who resigned suddenly from that post this spring to enter the California race...

...In addition to the gaudy gubernatorial campaign, the contest for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor has taken on proportions far beyond its normal scope...

...Senate) into an after-dinner advocate of private enterprise, a tub-thumper for Barry Goldwater who in turn urged him to run in California, and now a formidable Republican gubernatorial candidate...

...Senate to make the race...

...I wanted to ask the President when he was here whether I had anything to do with the Honolulu meeting, but I never got a chance to talk to him about it," said Yorty...

...In its eight years the Brown administration, despite truly formidable problems in transportation, taxation, conservation, and air and water pollution —all intensified by a growth rate of 500,000 new residents a year—has seen the development of a massive statewide water system, expansion of a widely-respected system of higher education, and a huge, if not altogether solid, growth in the state's economy...

...Braden, because his friendship with Senator Robert F. Kennedy has been widely noted, has had to treat his relationship with the Kennedys carefully lest the issue of "outside control" haunt him as it does Hand...

...The marchers spent Easter vilifying his name at the capitol steps while Brown was far away in Palm Springs, resting at the estate of Frank Sinatra, a setting not altogether appropriate for a champion of the deprived...

...At this point, the Mayor turned to a larger matter—the war in Vietnam...

...He served in the state legislature where he became the first chairman of an un-American activities committee, was a Congressman for two terms, and in 1961 was elected mayor of Los Angeles...

...one woman screamed...

...indeed, much of the speech sounds almost moderate ("Maybe we don't cancel any programs . . . maybe we just get the people more for their dollar...

...With splendid inconsistency he declared in a Rotary club speech denouncing "bearded kooks who go around demonstrating," that Vietnam "is not a subject for politics...

...Yorty looks everywhere but to city hall for solutions to Los Angeles' problems...

...Senate instead of Democrat Pierre Salinger...

...Two minor candidates have further complicated the Republican campaign...

...and civil service was extended throughout state government, leaving little patronage to hand out...

...Yorty suggested the use of nuclear tactical weapons in Vietnam because U.S...

...The group's new president, Mike Djordjevich, while disclaiming Birch membership, did disclose that he favored getting the United States out of the United Nations (and vice-versa) and abolishing the graduated income tax...

...A lot of us," said one disgruntled marcher later, "would have liked to spend Easter with our families...

...Republican candidate Ronald Reagan, like Yorty, has seen the folly of his once-liberal ways...

...Last fall, as his city was struggling to face the problems unveiled by Watts, Mayor Yorty and some fellow city officials took off on a thirty-day trade mission to the Far East...

...He had distinguished himself in past months as forthrightly opposed to evil—championing a highly emotional campaign for an initiative measure called the "Decency Petition" that would give local government broad powers in prosecuting sex offenders...

...Party moderates are hoping voters will forget that when two officers of the Long Beach Young Republicans were ousted last winter for their activities in the American Nazi Party, one of them was quoted as describing Adolf Hitler as a "good man...

...As the jeers mingled with cheers, he pointed an accusing finger at his detractors...

...Moreover, Brown has steered clear of scandal, and his political opponents are hard-pressed to assault his administration with anything more significant than the usual cries of "bureaucracy" or "playing politics...

...At least three prominent members of the cast —Yorty, Hand, and Braden—are widely reported to have an eye on 1968 when Thomas Kuchel seeks reelection to the U.S...

...Earl Warren, a Republican who solidly established himself as a "non-partisan," was elected governor three times—once, in 1946, winning both major party nominations (then permissible under the "cross-filing" system...

...Christopher is perhaps at his best when needling Reagan or Brown...

...On June 7, about seven million Cal-ifornians will be eligible to go to the polls in the primary election...

...As Yorty explained to a Los Angeles Times correspondent in South Vietnam: "They told me that more people of my caliber should come to Vietnam so that we can return home and tell the people the story of what's going on there...

...In keeping with the traditional ironies of California politics, Senator Thomas H. Kuchel, the Republican regarded as potentially the strongest challenger to Brown, has declined to enter the gubernatorial race—presumably because as a liberal he would probably lose the primary to his own party's hard-eyed right wing...

...He suggested "knocking out" the port of Haiphong, and, as a further possibility, he said, "Maybe there ought to be a little talk, at least, about liberating North Vietnam...

...He said later he had not "walked out" —as had been headlined—but the damage had been done, and his opponents have not let the public forget the picture of Reagan as a man who is too short-tempered for the pressures of the governorship...

...More recently, he...

...The incongruity of a mayor inexhaustibly discussing foreign policy while running for governor might startle outsiders, but the unusual and the "far-out" are wholly within the free-wheeling tradition of California politics...

...On his return to Los Angeles, the Times editorialized, ". . . the sad truth...

...The other candidate, William Penn Patrick, a thirty-five-year old millionaire cosmetics manufacturer, has succeeded primarily in irritating his fellow Republicans...

...As the primary campaign entered its final phase there was speculation that even those candidates who meet defeat will not be long forgotten...

...forces "are entitled to the best weapons we have to save their lives...

...He denounced anti-war demonstrators as "really treasonable" and "actually prolonging the war and making the successful culmination of it more difficult...

...As a performer, Reagan has picked up a few pointers from years before the cameras wooing Ann Sheridan, battling desperados, and then, as a television host, selling General Electric's image and Borateem laundry soap...

...Yet, as Republicans readily admit, Brown's public pratfalls contribute to the underdog role he savors—and when matched against such dour opponents as Knowland and Nixon, this role can work to his benefit...

...led an unsuccessful effort to ban the works of artist Edward Kienholz from the county art museum as "obscene" and "pornographic...

...But Californians have a history of setting aside party loyalties, bucking national tides, and electing underdogs to office...

...His customary speech has just the right mixture of humor (hoisting a thick copy of Governor's Brown's budget, he smiles: "We might shorten the war a little if we dropped this on Hanoi") and sober concern ("There is growing unrest in our state...

...Nevertheless, Brown's supporters maintain that while they are confident of disposing of the conservative Reagan, the moderate Christopher would be a far tougher opponent...

...Reagan had spent most of the day in bed with the flu...

...Political opponents point gleefully to Brown's verbal miscues, such as his remark upon viewing a northern California flood some years ago: "This is the worst disaster we've had since I became governor...

...are selected in non-partisan elections, and formal party organizations are not permitted to endorse candidates before primary elections...

...He left the trade mission for four days to visit Saigon and Danong...

...As the primary campaign progressed, Yorty was the only gubernatorial candidate discussing foreign policy...

...Anderson had attracted little attention until last August when, in Brown's absence, he found himself in charge of the state with a riot erupting in Los Angeles...

...The governor's Democratic opponent, Sam Yorty, a fifty-six-year-old native of Nebraska, began his political career as a liberal, then veered right...

...The "RFK" label has been attached to the other challenger, Thomas Braden, state board of education president and a newspaper publisher who was a leading California campaigner for John F. Kennedy in 1960...

...The absence of well-oiled party operations has encouraged the formation of volunteer political groups that tend to veer left or right of the political mainstream...

...Over the years he has transformed himself from a New Dealer, an American Veterans Committee leader, a United World Federalist, and, as he puts it, "a hemophilic liberal" (he supported Helen Gahagan Douglas against Nixon in her losing bid to win reelection to the U.S...

...As a favorite of the far right, Reagan enjoys two major advantages over other Republicans: He is a well-financed candidate, backed by the treasure amassed by conservative businessmen, and his supporters, down to the grass roots level, are seized by the kind of fervor that sends them out in droves to ring doorbells, distribute leaflets, and get out the voters on election day...

...The Reagan campaign is skillful...

...Both of his opponents have made much of Anderson's seeming hesitancy—indeed, Bra-den's campaign billboards are inscribed simply with the word "Guts...

...Hand, who came from Texas in 1961 to live in California, had barely returned from Washington when the "carpetbagger" issue was thrown at him...

...Reagan has taken a cram course in California problems from a team of anonymous UCLA professors...

...One of our finest allies," he says, "is Pat Brown [and his] . . . bottomless reservoir of complete ineptitude...

...He leaped to his feet, snapping, "I resent the implication that there is any bigotry in my nature—don't anyone ever imply that . . ." With tears in his eyes and a clenched fist, he strode from the room...

...His entry into the race was no surprise—"Reagan for Governor" bumper stickers appeared within days after the 1964 election...

...Today school, county, and city officers PHILIP HAGER is a staff correspondent in California for Newsweek magazine...

...After President Johnson had met with South Vietnamese leaders in Honolulu and stopped briefly in Los Angeles to confer with Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Yorty, with characteristic modesty, revealed that he earlier had urged the President to hold a "summit conference" in Hawaii...

...The White House later said the idea came from Mc-George Bundy...

...I felt I'd like to do something else," he said, "but when I thought of Reagan or Christopher . . . becoming governor of California, I really felt they would do harm...

...And in 1964, when Republican candidates elsewhere were trampled in the Goldwater debacle, the voters sent song-and-dance-man George Murphy to the U.S...

...He explained lamely that he had promised to spend the day with his family...

...I'm nobody's man—I'm a Lloyd Hand man...

...The Republicans will nominate either movie actor Ronald Reagan, the new hero of the Goldwater right, or George Christopher, the former mayor of San Francisco who stepped into a void to become the "moderate" candidate of the GOP...

...This did not deter the Mayor, who through a series of public speeches, news conferences, and television programs formulated an assortment of suggestions on Vietnam that led Congressman Thomas Rees, California Democrat, to remark: "Los Angeles is the only city in the country with its own foreign policy...

...The liberal California Democratic Council, formed in 1953 as an outgrowth of the Stevenson Presidential campaign, this year ousted its president, publisher Simon Casady, whose barbed criticisms of President Johnson's Vietnam policy threatened to impede Governor Brown's campaign for re-election...

...Air pollution, transportation, and unemployment are deftly relegated to the jurisdiction of the Federal and state governments...

...The impotence of California's party machinery traces back to a reform movement in the first two decades of this century...

...One, Los Angeles county supervisor Warren Dorn, entered the gubernatorial race at the last minute...

...He makes the most of a full speaking schedule, precious television time, and a nationwide press that, if not enthusiastic about his policies, recognizes the attraction of the former film star as one of the few glamorous candidates in this off-year election...

...The California campaign may seem unorthodox to those who are used to politics within a framework of conventional candidates, issues, and party organizations...

...In 1912, the majority of voters supported the Progressive (Bull Moose) ticket of Theodore Roosevelt for President and California Governor Hiram Johnson for Vice President but Woodrow Wilson and Thomas Marshall won...

...is that there are critical issues right here at home to which His Honor ought to be devoting his full attention...

...At a meeting before a small Negro Republican group, Reagan felt his opponents had implied he was bigoted because he had opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964...

...A corrupt convention system was replaced with direct primaries...

...Keep him alive, that's what's important...

...When the Los Angeles county human relations commission modestly proposed that 5,000 jobs be created to ease severe unemployment in Watts, Yorty replied that such action would "skyrocket property taxes...

...It's time we quit being snobs and be the party of the people," he once told a glaring audience of party leaders...

...Californians have often shown they prefer "nice guys" to "clever politicians," and Brown is the personification of the hapless but harmless fellow next door...

...First, as any officeholder will attest, over a tenure as long as eight years a governor amasses a large "anti" vote—persons who find it convenient to blame their troubles on a familiar, if remote, public official...

...But he can become upset in public, too...

...Second, although he is likable personally, Brown has acquired among many the reputation of a "bungler" who has the habit of stumbling into embarrassing situations...