CAMPAIGNING ON CHARACTER RISKY; CANDIDATES, CONSULTANTS TREAD LIGHTLY, FEAR BACKLASH.

Byline: David R. Baker Daily News Staff Writer

In this scandal-racked election season, character has become a big issue - but how voters react is unpredictable.

Candidates whose ads tout personal integrity over policy issues suddenly face a chilling, post-Monica Lewinsky question: Have voters grown too jaded to believe character-based pitches?

While some speculate that voters sickened by the president's admission that he lied about an extramarital affair might flock to candidates emphasizing their sterling virtues, others fear voters might automatically dismiss such appeals as fake, too.

``There's a danger that voters are saying, I can't believe any of these people,'' said Mark Baldassare, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.

Recent polls give little help discerning the public's mood. One survey shows voters obsessed with the character issue, and another shows them tuning it out.

With less than two months to go before elections, the issue is hardly academic. The Republican candidate for California governor, Dan Lungren, has carpeted the airwaves with ads stressing his personal values while his Democratic opponent, Gray Davis, discusses specific topics such as abortion.

In the San Fernando Valley, Randy Hoffman, the Republican businessman vying to unseat U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Woodland Hills, has mailed voters glossy booklets - titled ``The Randy Hoffman Story: Values Forged From Fire'' - that give a brief history of his life.

The photo-packed booklets spend five pages describing how Hoffman survived a childhood with an abusive stepfather, worked his way through college and achieved success in business. The final page describes his policy proposals.

Both Lungren's and Hoffman's ad campaigns were planned before Clinton's admissions of an inappropriate relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and well in advance of Kenneth Starr's graphic report on the president's affair.

But the public anger and disgust generated by those disclosures could determine whether California candidates' ads resonate among voters or ring hollow.

The problem is, no one is really sure which. With the scandal still unfolding, gauging the public's mood is difficult.

``Even a lot of Republicans are saying, A pox on both your houses,'' said Glendale-based political consultant Kathleen Crow, who managed Lungren's first two congressional campaigns. ``The public has gotten very cynical. I don't think they trust anybody.''

Hoffman, the former head of a company that makes satellite navigation systems, said his six-page booklets are a matter of necessity. As a political newcomer, he needed to introduce himself to voters before he could concentrate on issues, he said.

``My biggest challenge early in the process is name I.D.,'' he said. ``People don't know anything about me.''

For his part, Lungren argues that concentrating on character makes sense in a gubernatorial race that has no defining issues.

``You don't have the death penalty or `three strikes,' so people will judge based on the candidates,'' he said.

His ads often show him close up, shirt unbuttoned, a family portrait in the background, talking about his sense of values. One closes with the maxim, ``Character is doing what's right when no one's looking.''

Upcoming ads will focus on such topics as crime and education, said Lungren spokesman Bob Brown.

``Character is the groundwork that connects all of the issues,'' he said.

As safe as such ads seem, they arrive at an extraordinary and volatile moment that makes their reception difficult to predict.

A nationwide poll released Sept. 8 suggested that people might be yearning for just this kind of pitch. The bipartisan Battleground '98 survey showed that restoring moral values had become the leading issue among voters, more important even than improving education or cutting government spending.

But a week later, the Public Policy Institute of California released a survey showing California voters were far more interested in specific policy positions than in character.

``They have discounted character as an issue and have gotten into this mode of, What is this candidate going to do for me?'' said Baldassare, who directed the survey.

Even in normal election years, emphasizing character carries some risks. Opponents can charge that a candidate is trying to duck issues, as Davis' campaign says about Lungren.

``Dan Lungren can't run on the issues Californians care about - education, choice, assault weapons, health,'' said Davis spokesman Michael Bustamante. ``He's out of step and out of synch with Californians on those issues.''

In this election cycle, however, even character ads that don't mention Clinton might raise the scandal in voters' minds, posing a whole new set of problems for candidates.

``The danger of playing the character card too much is that voters will see it as a cynical or opportunistic effort to stay away from issues and take advantage of the president's fall from grace,'' Baldassare said.

Still, there is a chance the pitches could tap into public yearning for cleaner public officials. Some political scientists and campaign consultants argue that voters are more concerned than ever with virtue - even those who don't admit it.

``They may say they're fed up and they've had enough details (about Clinton) and they're more interested in `real issues,' but when it comes time to vote, they're going to look at integrity and character,'' said Shanto Iyengar, a political science and communications professor at Stanford University who has studied campaign ads.