DEMOCRATS AMBUSH GOP IN EAST VALLEY.

Byline: Lee Condon Daily News Staff Writer

Glendale-Burbank Republicans were stunned Wednesday morning when they awoke to find the GOP dynasty that had lasted here for decades had crumbled.

Democrat Adam Schiff had won the 21st District Senate seat, Democrat Scott Wildman held a razor-thin lead over Republican John Geranios in the 43rd District Assembly race, and Democrat Jack Scott had unseated incumbent Republican Bill Hoge in the 44th District Assembly race.

The Republicans salvaged their only clear victory when state Assembly Majority Leader James Rogan, R-Glendale, won his bid for Congress.

``It's just incredible what happened,'' said Mike Radlovic, executive director of the Los Angeles County Republican Party. ``I think a great lesson was learned this time: Don't take anything for granted.''

Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer, D-Hayward, said Republicans did not realize the region was vulnerable until it was too late.

``I think there was a lot of smugness and overconfidence,'' Lockyer said. ``They thought it was a cinch that Republicans would win and that the Democrats were wasting their time.''

The story of how Democrats toppled this Republican stronghold goes beyond President Clinton's coattails. Eyeing three open seats and the rising number of registered Democratic voters, the party launched an all-out effort to take these traditionally conservative communities.

At the core of the effort was money. In the past the party had written off local Democrats, giving them only token support, but not this year.

In the last two weeks before the election, Schiff received $727,444 in late contributions, the majority of it from the state party and labor unions. Since Oct. 20, Wildman has received $348,470 from the party and unions, more than double what he raised in his yearlong bid for the seat.

Schiff, a former federal prosecutor, and Scott, former president of Pasadena City College, were considered contenders from the beginning and were supported generously by party regulars.

But Wildman earned the support of the party by pulling ahead in tracking polls in the weeks before the election.

On Friday, Wildman was leading Geranios by 378 votes - 46,543 to 46,165 - with absentee votes yet to be counted.

A complete political unknown, the Democrat was given little chance of beating Republican John Geranios, a businessman who spent $450,000 of his own money to take out nine contenders in the March primary. His campaign reported Oct. 19 he had raised just $136,000, compared to $700,000 for Geranios.

Wildman, a union representative for United Teachers Los Angeles, had been notified that party resources would not be directed toward his campaign because it was such a long shot.

``From the very beginning, I was told I was kind of a sacrificial lamb and that there was nothing they could do to help me, because a Democrat couldn't win here,'' Wildman said.

But two weeks before the election, Wildman's polling numbers peaked, putting him in a dead heat with Geranios. Besides the cash infusion, an army of 1,000 volunteers, most of them from local unions, canvassed the 43rd District in the days prior to the election.

``If we win, it will be a miracle, a major upset,'' Wildman said. ``We just rolled up our sleeves and just worked and worked and did it the old-fashioned way. I think the Republicans had the expectation that they weren't going to have to work.''

Radlovic said the Republicans used a similar tactic of dumping big money into unlikely winners in 1994, adding the Democrats were simply copying their formula.

``These last-second sneak attacks have proven to work pretty good,'' Radlovic said.

Former Glendale Mayor Ginger Bremberg said she knew her GOP was in trouble on Election Day. Working as a volunteer at a local polling place, she saw Wildman volunteers come in every hour checking to see who had voted. Bremberg said she knew that in her city, the get-out-the-vote effort is more important than presidential coattails or registration swings.

``In the past, Republicans were always well funded here and the Democrats weren't. You just went and voted for your candidate, and if you were a Republican, your candidate won,'' she said.

She faulted the Republicans running this time around for relying too much on consultants from Sacramento and ignoring the advice of locals like herself.

``Nobody wanted to hear what us old-timers thought. They just said, send money,'' Bremberg said. ``They don't want our advice or participation.''

Republicans have had a lock on the congressional, state Senate and Assembly seats for decades in the Glendale-Burbank area. All five members of the Glendale City Council are Republicans.

But a variety of forces came together to make the unlikely shift to the Democrats this year.

Rep. Carlos Moorhead, R-Glendale, decided to retire after 22 years in office. Sen. Newton Russell, R-Glendale, who has held the post since 1974, was pushed out by term limits, and Rogan gave up his Assembly post to run for Moorhead's seat in Congress.

The Glendale-Burbank area had caught the eye of Democrats back in 1992 when President Clinton became the first Democrat to win the area since Franklin Roosevelt. The registration numbers, which for years favored the Republicans, were shifting Democratic. A 1992 reapportionment also helped Democrats increase their numbers.

The Democrats settled early on Schiff and Wildman as their candidates and started an aggressive voter registration effort, while the Republicans were locked in bruising primary battles. Between February and October, 13,181 new Democrats registered to vote in the 43rd Assembly District compared to 1,032 Republicans.

The Senate race was make-or-break for Schiff, a two-time loser in bids for Assembly seats in 1991 and 1994.

While the former federal prosecutor was hopeful, he said friends and supporters often questioned the logic of repeatedly entering races in GOP territory.

Schiff was a party star this year, yet in 1994 the California Democratic Party had little interest in his race for the 43rd Assembly District and gave him hardly any funds - in contrast to the assistance lavished on Wildman for the same seat this year.

``We were absolutely left out in the cold,'' Schiff said, explaining the party focused on incumbents in trouble, rather than long shot challengers like himself.

``They didn't touch him two years ago, and now they're giving him $700,000. Money is everything,'' said Radlovic of the county Republican party.

The financial help was invaluable against Schiff's opponent, well-known Assemblywoman Paula Boland, R-Granada Hills.

Park Skelton, Schiff's lead political consultant, said Boland's campaign strategy might have worked a couple of years ago, but that the district now has more moderate voters.

``It's not a district you can win just by calling your opponent a liberal over and over again,'' Skelton said.

Boland said she was beat because of an avalanche of support for Schiff from labor unions and the Democratic efforts to boost registration in the area.

While the popular Rogan was the natural choice to run for Moorhead's congressional seat, the Republican struggled to field a strong candidate to run for his Assembly seat. A crowded field of 10 entered the primary, including a total unknown named John Geranios.

Geranios, a business professor at Mount St. Mary's and the owner of a small business, was not considered a serious candidate until he spent $450,000 of his own money in the primary.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who held the 43rd District seat in the 1970s, said that in the past all a Glendale Republican had to do was win the primary, and the race was over.

Once Geranios won the primary, many Republicans did consider the race concluded, in part because of Wildman's virtually nonexistent political profile.

But Antonovich said that with the rising Democratic registration, the old assumptionSs no longer held.

Dick Rosengarten, publisher of an insider political newsletter called California Political Week, said it's been clear for weeks that Geranios was in trouble.

``The hard-line conservatives were on the warpath because he's a social moderate,'' Rosengarten said. ``His base was not secure.''

Unlike other Glendale Republicans who have been staunch conservatives, Geranios is pro-choice, favors gun control and agreed to speak to a group of gay Republicans during the campaign.

Alan Brandstater, a conservative Republican consultant and publicist in Glendale, was among conservatives disappointed with Geranios. He angered some Republican friends when he decided to support Democrat Wildman, calling Geranios a synthetic candidate who was trying to buy the election.

The Democrats beat the Republicans at their own game in Glendale, he said.

``None of them should have lost,'' he added. ``We were just outfoxed.''

Rosengarten disputes Republicans were caught off guard, adding they realized there were problems with some of the candidates. Boland had moved into the district from Granada Hills and Geranios, too, lacked roots in the community.

``The Republicans knew they were in trouble from Day One,'' Rosengarten said, adding that the Democrats took full advantage of the situation.

``They worked their butts off. They knew they had vulnerable candidates to run against,'' Rosengarten said. ``This area can no longer be considered safe Republican, period.''