BALLOT FULL FOR BLANKET PRIMARY.

Byline: Paul Hefner Daily News Sacramento Bureau

Like a trip to a well-stocked smorgasbord, voters who like choices should be looking forward to Tuesday's California primary.

With nine initiatives, 90 candidates for statewide office and 164 partisan races on the ballot across the state, folks heading to the polls for California's first blanket primary may want to bring a pillow.

``People will need rest periods while they're voting,'' said Bob Mulholland, campaign adviser for the state's Democratic Party.

Most of the attention has gone to just a few of the races, including the three-way Democratic contest for governor and Proposition 227, an initiative to end bilingual education.

The action in the San Fernando Valley has been among Democrats as well: City Councilman Richard Alarcon and former Assemblyman Richard Katz will square off for the Valley's main seat in the state Senate, and incumbent Rep. Howard Berman, Mission Hills, faces a primary challenge from San Fernando Mayor Raul Godinez.

For Ventura County voters, the race for the 37th Assembly seat captured the most attention after Republican Rich Sybert was videotaped tearing down an opponent's campaign signs. Voters there also will chose a new assessor from among seven candidates and will tap a replacement for a judge who decided to retire after being arrested for drunk driving.

But despite all the options on the ballot - and the accompanying deluge of campaign advertising - political strategists concede that the public has greeted the campaign season with a yawn.

``I've been saying for months there hasn't been much interest,'' said Mike Madrid, political director for the California Republican Party. ``It's a potholes-and-turnout year - people are just worried about local issues.''

Secretary of State Bill Jones predicted last week that 42 percent of the state's 14.6 million registered voters will cast ballots. If he's right, it would be the best gubernatorial primary turnout since 1982.

Jones said he based his prediction on the success of efforts to clean ``deadwood'' off the voter rolls, record requests for absentee ballots and the state's new blanket primary.

``Californians like choices. They like options,'' Jones said. ``We're giving them that with the blanket primary.''

But elections officials tend to be overly optimistic about turnout. Jones predicted 47 percent would come out for the 1996 primary - when only 41.9 percent voted.

A prediction of 39.8 percent turnout for the last gubernatorial primary in 1994 - made by then-Secretary of State March Fong Eu - was off the mark, too. Only 35.1 percent of those registered bothered to cast ballots, the record low for a California gubernatorial primary.

With Attorney General Dan Lungren facing only token opposition in the GOP gubernatorial primary, the big race has been among Democrats looking for a chance to square off with Lungren in November.

Public opinion surveys suggest Lt. Gov. Gray Davis is building a substantial lead over businessman Al Checchi and Rep. Jane Harman, Torrance. Davis' charge comes as something of a shock to pundits who had all but written him off.

With voters in a political slumber, Davis may stand to gain if large numbers of traditional Democrats are drawn to the polls by a pair of controversial ballot initiatives.

Union leaders are pushing to get members to the polls to oppose Proposition 226, which would require labor organizations to get written permission from members to spend dues on political causes.

Teachers unions, meanwhile, are campaigning hard against Proposition 227, the initiative backed by Silicon Valley businessman Ron Unz to dismantle the state's bilingual education programs.

High turnout among those groups could dampen the effect of Republicans and independents who - under the new blanket primary system - have the option of voting Democrat.

``I was convinced, if it looks like a closed-primary turnout, that favors a traditional Democrat - and that's Davis,'' said political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe.

But Jeffe cautioned against reading too much into the latest round of opinion surveys.

``You can't count anybody out,'' she said. ``We've never gone through an election like this before.''

The statewide Republican race that has garnered the most attention is the contest between state Treasurer Matt Fong and car-alarm magnate Darrell Issa for the chance to challenge incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer in November.

Issa has spent millions of his personal fortune to fund his campaign. After polling indicated that Issa was the front-runner, Fong claimed to have narrowed the gap with television commercials of his own.

But some voters, like Vince Garofalo of Tarzana, say they are tuning out political ads.

``I don't listen to them. I just hit the mute button,'' he said.

Garofalo said political ads have too little substance to merit much attention.

``It's like putting too much mustard on a corned beef sandwich,'' he said. ``You lose the essence of the food itself.''