January 28, 2002
Hoping to Run California, and Recast the Republicans
By JAMES STERNGOLD
RVINE, Calif., Jan. 25 — As mayor of Los Angeles and before that a lawyer and takeover artist, Richard J. Riordan had always insisted he was a pragmatist with no use for ideological debates. Now that he is seeking the Republican nomination for governor of California, Mr. Riordan says he is trying not just to win but to refashion his party's traditional conservative ideology by steering it leftward.
To the consternation of many stalwarts in California's highly conservative Republican Party, Mr. Riordan, 72, is campaigning by avoiding many of the things his party has stood for — tax cuts, in particular — and adopting a liberal social agenda on issues like abortion, immigration, gay unions and education. So far, the strategy is working, with Mr. Riordan running well ahead of his two opponents in the March 5 primary.
Mr. Riordan insists he is a committed Republican and a fiscal conservative. He has denounced the Democratic incumbent, Gray Davis, for the state's ballooning budget deficit and his handling of last year's energy crisis. Mr. Davis, who won by a landslide in the last election and looked unassailable in his first two years in office, has had plummeting approval ratings since the crisis. But he is expected to have more than $50 million for his re-election campaign, so political experts expect him to be a tough candidate.
As he addressed a group of Hispanic businesspeople here this morning, Mr. Riordan only briefly mentioned his Republican credentials before launching into a spirited criticism of some of his party's policies, saying they alienated women and Latinos, who appear to favor him over his opponents — William E. Simon Jr., a wealthy investor and son of William E. Simon, the former United States treasury secretary; and Bill Jones, the California secretary of state.
"We've given the wrong message for too long," Mr. Riordan said. "Let's finally send the right message."
Mr. Riordan is unabashed in saying that he favors abortion rights, social services for illegal immigrants and permitting civil unions for gays. He discusses an overhaul of education in detail and opposes school vouchers.
He rarely mentions cutting taxes or shrinking government, among the themes discussed most commonly by Mr. Simon and Mr. Jones.
In an interview, Mr. Riordan went further, saying that he hoped his campaign pushed the national Republican Party to follow him to the left on social issues. But for this state, he says, it is not a matter of choice but of survival, in large part because of the sweeping demographic changes here.
"We're an endangered species now," he said. "If the Republican Party does what my opponents want, it will make us extinct."
The Republicans are in the midst of a losing streak in California. About 45 percent of active voters are registered Democrats and about 36 percent are Republicans, a gap that has widened over the last few decades as many immigrants initially register as Democrats. Democrats dominate the State Legislature and the Congressional delegation and occupy the governor's office. President Bush spent millions campaigning in California but lost by a wide margin.
"If the party was in great shape, I wouldn't be running and probably neither would Dick," Mr. Simon, probably the most conservative candidate, said in an interview. "But I think we go to our core values, not away from them."
Mr. Riordan has some definite liabilities, including the fact that he is little known outside of Los Angeles and has a tendency to make verbal gaffes. In a recent televised debate, he called the minimum wage the minimum tax, and he frequently gets names wrong.
But he is the top Republican fund- raiser in this race and has a personal fortune in the hundreds of millions. All the candidates have just begun heavy advertising, including Mr. Davis, who is already going after Mr. Riordan. Polls done before the debate showed Mr. Riordan with a lead of roughly 20 percentage points over his Republican opponents.
Mr. Riordan is plain in emphasizing that he is pursuing this ideological mission partly out of conviction and partly out of a desire to win statewide races. That is a theme that appeals even to some conservatives who find some of his programs anathema.
Dave Cox, the head of the Republican caucus in the State Assembly and a supporter of Mr. Jones, said the party could not stray far from its conservative base. But Mr. Cox added, "I think that the Republicans in the state of California are interested basically in winning."
Mr. Cox and other experts believe that as a somewhat liberal Republican, Mr. Riordan can appeal to many people who had voted for Mr. Davis, a relatively conservative Democrat.
Bill Campbell, another staunch Republican member of the Assembly and a Riordan supporter, said: "Can the party accept him, even with some of these policies? Yes, I believe it can."
Mr. Riordan is blunt on this issue.
"I'm not stupid," he said in the interview. "I'm not going to do something that guarantees you cannot win, like just talking about lowering taxes."
Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political scientist at the University of Southern California, said that that desire to win, and an intense dislike of the imperious Mr. Davis, does appear to be a compelling message for the Republicans.
"They'll abandon their ideological concerns if they think Riordan can give Davis fits, and he could," Ms. Jeffe said.
There are some similarities between Mr. Riordan's campaign and the successful race run by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, also a Republican. Both used their wealth to gain important offices without previous experience, and both tend to be more liberal than their party on social issues.
But Mr. Riordan is facing a more complex challenge because California is so huge and diverse, and it is rapidly growing younger and more Hispanic. Also, the Republicans carry some political baggage when it comes to immigrants.
The party suffered a blow when the previous governor, Pete Wilson, a Republican, strongly supported a measure denying social services to illegal immigrants and their children. The measure was thrown out by the courts, but the party was plastered with an anti-immigrant label. Mr. Riordan is arguing that he can remove it.
"For the past 10 years the Republicans have been building walls, resisting the demographic shifts," said Mike Madrid, a partner in Futuro Strategies, a consulting company based in Texas that is working to bring more Hispanics into the Republican Party. "Riordan is a test case for showing that this can change and be effective," Mr. Madrid said. "Forget about cutting capital gains taxes. The main issues are things like education."