Senators: Among the Mavericks

The Senate has long been a congenial home for flamboyant independent thinkers.

In races in Connecticut and California, a pair of the nation's leading political iconoclasts is trying to keep it that way. Two hard-fought House races show the struggle of minority candidates--one a Hispanic Republican, the other a black Democrat from Mississippi--to build the coalitions necessary for victory.

Title fight

In speech after speech, at fair after fair and parade after parade, Republican Senator Lowell Weicker stresses his maverick ways. NOBODY'S MAN BUT YOURS his billboards proclaim. But that is just the problem, retorts his rival, four-term Democratic Congressman Toby Moffett: "Nobody's man is part of nobody's plan." Weicker is so independent, suggests Moffett, that he is a political hermit devoid of effectiveness.

The Weicker-Moffett match-up is the long-awaited title fight between two of Connecticut's best-known politicians. Even before Weicker, 51, came to national prominence as a member of the Senate Watergate committee, he was building a reputation as a social liberal and iconoclast. Lately he has been following a more conventional Republican line, consistently supporting President Reagan on economic, military and even environmental policy. On the campaign trail, however, the two-term incumbent stresses his liberal stance on social issues. Weicker portrays himself as a modern knight wielding the Constitution as a shield to ward off the dragon of the New Right. "Please don't let them politicize our Constitution," he pleads. "If I go down, you go down."

Moffett, 38, irritatedly replies that Weicker is not part of the solution but, as a Republican in the Republican-controlled Senate, part of the problem: Moffett's own liberal credentials on both economic and social issues are letter-perfect, and his sharp criticism of Administration policies has given him a high profile in the House. An earnest former Nader Raider who came to the House as part of the reform-bent class of '74 in Watergate's wake, he asserts that Reaganomics is "cruel and destructive." He contends that the defense budget must be substantially cut. While depicting Weicker as hopelessly isolated, Moffett constantly stresses the argument that his own election will help the Democrats regain control of the Senate by 1984.

In the past, Weicker depended on the votes of disillusioned Democrats. Now he is wooing traditional Republicans by claiming that an independent Republican is better than no Republican at all. Says he: "I think I'm a very good Republican, because, No. 1, I get elected." Whether he does so again could depend on Conservative Candidate Lucien DiFazio, 39, a Hartford lawyer who entered the race only nine weeks ago. Although DiFazio has no chance of winning, he has substantial financial backing from the New Right and might siphon off votes from Weicker. With Weicker leading Moffett by only a few points in the polls, even a small swing to DiFazio could affect the outcome.

Survival course

In the annals of kidney-punching political advertisements, it is hard to top Lyndon Johnson who, in his presidential race against Barry Goldwater in 1964, aired a commercial showing a little girl plucking petals from a daisy, and then a nuclear mushroom cloud. Now Jerry Brown has struck a derivative and even lower blow. One of his ads has Actress Candice Bergen, Composer Leonard Bernstein, Los Angeles Dodger Ron Cey and finally a small boy tell why they "want to go on living." While they are speaking, a huge mushroom cloud fills the screen and the message concludes: "Pete Wilson opposes the nuclear-arms freeze. Jerry Brown supports it. Vote for your life. Elect Jerry Brown to the U.S. Senate." In fact, Californians are being asked to save Brown's political life.

The Democratic Governor trailed by 22 survey points at the start. After eight controversial years, including two abortive presidential tries and some unconventional policies that prompted detractors to label him "Governor Moonbeam," some Californians wished he would simply fade from the scene. Wilson, 49, the moderate Republican mayor of San Diego since 1972, gained early ground by making Brown the principal campaign issue.

But Brown, 44, a liberal on such issues as the environment, equal rights and abortion, also reminds voters that 2.3 million jobs were created in the state during his tenure, and a $495 million prison-building bond issue was approved last June with his support. He cheerfully admits that he "made a few mistakes along the way." In the Senate, he promises, "no more moonbeams. I'm going to be working in the trenches."

As a campaigner, Wilson seems to be vying for the title "Mayor Moonbeam." His vague suggestion that younger workers might contribute less to Social Security led to a devastating Brown TV ad that accused him of wanting to slash benefits for the elderly. Trying to portray himself as a crime fighter by criticizing Brown's judicial appointments, Wilson suggested that all federal judges, including U.S. Supreme Court Justices, should be elected. Countered Brown: "He's tampering with the fundamental principles of the Republic." Then came the revelations that Wilson, after splitting from his wife, lived in rent-free apartments supplied by wealthy San Diego businessmen, and that the Wilsons paid no federal income taxes on their 1980 earnings of $75,000. At a Los Angeles fund raiser in August, President Reagan delivered perhaps the year's most tepid endorsement of a G.O.P. candidate: "If you can't send Pete Wilson, don't send anybody."

The Governor's campaign theme, "Take another look at Jerry Brown," has proved prophetic as Wilson has blundered. A Mervin Field poll shows Brown edging ahead, 46% to 45%. Perhaps more telling, it shows 15% of G.O.P. voters supporting the one Democrat they vowed to defeat this year.

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