ELECTION 2002
A State of Gray
In the Golden State, a governor's race devoid of luster.
URL:http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002532
BY DAN WALTERS
Sunday, October 27, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT
SACRAMENTO--It's not surprising that the Los Angeles Times endorsed Democratic Gov. Gray Davis for re-election, since it usually opts for Democrats.
What's surprising is what the endorsement editorial said, because it echoed what Republican challenger Bill Simon chants: "Davis' obsessive pursuit of every last campaign dollar from special interests is unseemly, and the governor has been slow to grasp the lead on critical issues. . . . Davis is aloof. He agonizes over minor decisions most governors would leave to aides. He is robotic and largely humorless. He is often at war with the Legislature."
Shift to Lyn Nofziger, the crusty keeper of Ronald Reagan's flame, who wrote last month: "They [California voters] can re-elect an inept, corrupt incumbent Democrat named Gray Davis. Or they can elect an inept, weak and not very bright Republican named Bill Simon. Take your pick. But be smart. Bet on Davis. Simon is too dumb to win and his senior consultant, Sal Russo, isn't much better."
If their partisans are saying such negative things about the contenders for the nation's second most important political office, what are the state's voters to do? Polls indicate that they feel much the same way, with a whopping two-thirds in one poll expressing the wish that they had choices other than Mr. Davis, who bungled the two major crises of his first term, and Mr. Simon, who changes themes, facts and campaign advisers as often as folks change their socks.
The odds certainly favor Mr. Davis, but the 2002 gubernatorial contest is guaranteed to go into the books as the oddest and most frustrating--particularly to voters--in state history. It will be remembered, also, as the one in which Republicans bungled a golden opportunity to make themselves relevant again in the Golden State.
Mr. Davis's election four years ago was something of a fluke. Long the butt of jokes for his automaton-like manner, his lack of interest in serious matters, his ceaseless fund-raising and his penchant for cheesy media stunts, he had climbed up the political ladder rung by rung to the lieutenant governorship but it appeared that would be his high point. He caught a huge break, however, when Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the favorite of Democratic leaders to run for governor in 1998, dithered for months and then opted out at the last moment. He caught another break when the much-feared Republican candidate, Attorney General Dan Lungren, self-destructed by insisting on running a quirky personalized campaign that alienated much of his GOP base.
Mr. Davis, hewing to a carefully crafted and largely passive centrism that avoided alienating anyone, not only won the election but enjoyed strong approval ratings for the first two-plus years of his governorship--a condition helped by California's economic boom. But those ratings plummeted when he clearly mishandled the state's energy crisis in 2001 and remained well below 50% when he ducked a multibillion-dollar budget crisis that erupted that year, created largely by his own fiscal mismanagement.
Polls said most California voters wanted someone else as governor and the White House, sensing an opportunity to recapture momentum in a state that George W. Bush lost by more than a million votes in 2000, encouraged former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan, a popular and wealthy businessman who leaned to the left of Mr. Davis on some issues, to make the run. Mr. Davis and his advisers were scared of Mr. Riordan's appeal to Latinos, Democrats and independents, so they spent about $10 million to trash him in a series of TV spots. The most telling was one in which Mr. Riordan, a public supporter of abortion rights, was shown in an old bit of videotape declaring his moral opposition to abortion.
Mr. Riordan, meanwhile, proved to be a prickly and gaffe-prone campaigner, and the White House intervention exacerbated a years-long internal struggle in the state party over power and ideology, since Mr. Bush was evidently siding with the moderates who wanted to displace dominant conservatives.
If conservatives wanted Mr. Simon to win the primary to reinforce their internal party standing, so did Mr. Davis, seeing him as a much easier foe than Mr. Riordan or even the third man in the race, Secretary of State Bill Jones. While Mr. Jones, the only Republican in statewide office, might have been a formidable Davis challenger, he had little fundraising capacity and had alienated the Bush camp by endorsing Sen. John McCain in 2000. Mr. Davis and GOP rightists got their wish when Mr. Simon won, thanks in part to spending millions of his own dollars.
Given his inexperience, his relative lack of money (Mr. Davis already had $50 million in special interest dollars socked away), and his conservative social views that could alienate swing voters, Mr. Simon had to do everything right to have a chance against the ruthlessly efficient, well-oiled Davis campaign machine, but he managed to do just about everything wrong. Rather than make Mr. Davis and his failures the defining issue, Mr. Simon, with Mr. Davis's help, made his own integrity the issue through a series of miscues--such as refusing for months to reveal his personal finances.
Mr. Davis, meanwhile, was rebuilding his shaky Democratic base by signing dozens of bills that labor unions, gay rights advocates, personal injury attorneys, environmentalists and other party factions had pushed through a very liberal legislature, including measures that he had opposed in the past. Chief among them: a bill aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, huge increases in workers' compensation, unemployment and disability benefits, a new program of "family leave" for workers, and a landmark bill to force farmers into signing contracts with the United Farm Workers Union.
With a fortnight remaining before the election, Republicans still hope that the anti-Davis disgust evinced in the polls will turn the tide. They point to the single-digit margins and the huge undecided bloc. But for Mr. Simon to win, he'd have to capture about three-fourths of the undecided, most of whom are independents and Democrats, and he's demonstrated no capacity to do so.
Mr. Walters is a columnist at the Sacramento Bee. |
