Posted on 01/30/2002 5:39:49 PM PST by KneelBeforeZod
GOP hopefuls try less-divisive tack in effort to attract women, Latinos
HARSH RHETORIC ON IMMIGRATION, ABORTION NOW SEEN AS DAMAGING
Mercury News
This spring's Republican primary race for governor marks a major shift for California's wounded GOP.
Gone are the attacks on illegal immigrants and the cost of educating their kids that worked for Pete Wilson's 1994 gubernatorial bid. Even opposing abortion lost its luster as a Republican rallying point after Dan Lungren's epic loss four years later.
At the heart of the shift is a simple acknowledgment of the demographic and social changes that began to haunt the Republican Party in the aftermath of Proposition 187 -- the 1994 initiative that tried to deny government benefits to illegal immigrants -- and doomed the party's candidates in 1998.
The growth in Latino population portends millions of new voters whom the anti-immigrant rhetoric could offend. Meanwhile, Republican women, who have been deserting the party by the thousands, are leery of candidates with hard-line views against abortion.
The GOP campaign's shift away from divisive social issues is largely a result of former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan's status as the front-runner. In a Field Poll released Monday, 46 percent of likely Republican voters supported Riordan, compared with 13 percent each for his opponents -- Secretary of State Bill Jones and wealthy political novice Bill Simon.
A maverick, Riordan has never hewed to the party line. And he is the most liberal candidate in years to emerge from California's Republican ranks.
GOP women respond
His campaign so far -- particularly his support for a woman's right to abortion, which pollsters say most California Republicans support -- is almost perfectly in tune with disaffected Republican women, whose departure has frightened party officials.
``We need a platform that's going to respect differences of opinion if we're going to get Republicans elected,'' Riordan said at last week's San Jose debate. ``I'm against abortion, but I respect a woman's right to make her own decisions.''
Riordan's pro-choice stance threatened Gov. Gray Davis enough to spark the first real confrontation of the campaign. In television ads launched Friday, Davis attacked Riordan's abortion-rights pedigree by pointing to donations he made to an anti-abortion group, as well as to candidates opposed to abortion.
``He's scared because Riordan is basically opening up the party to women again, and thank God for that,'' said Jillian Manus-Salzman, a Palo Alto literary agent who has been at odds with the Republican Party over its anti-abortion position.
She joined other members of a Republican women's group called the WISH List, which ordinarily supports pro-choice female candidates, to endorse Riordan in San Francisco on Monday. She said it was the first time the group had endorsed a male candidate.
Even Jones and Simon, the more conservative candidates in the race, have trod carefully on the hot-button issues for fear of upsetting women voters and alienating Latinos, the fastest-growing segment of the California electorate.
``It's a difference not so much in ideology as in tone,'' said Dan Schnur, a Republican strategist who was Pete Wilson's spokesman. ``You have two conservative candidates in Jones and Simon who have learned the lesson many Republicans around the state and country have learned: A conservative ideology doesn't necessarily have to be accompanied by a confrontational, aggressive personal style.''
Both Jones and Simon oppose abortion rights, but only Simon has come out with a clear anti-abortion position. Jones, who describes himself as ``pro-life,'' points out that abortion is a federal issue and therefore the governor can't control it.
Learning from the past
It's a position Lungren's former campaign manager, Dave Puglia, wishes his candidate had taken.
``In '98 we had intense internal debates, with some of us hoping our candidate would say the same thing,'' he said.
Instead, Lungren loudly proclaimed his anti-abortion views. Many now see that as a key reason for his humiliating defeat, with just 38 percent of the vote. Puglia commended Jones for learning from Lungren's mistakes.
``Who says Republicans can't learn how to make a common-sense appeal to voters?'' Puglia asked.
On immigration, too, Riordan has run far to the left of his party, while his opponents have tried to seem conservative without appearing mean.
At the recent debate, Riordan recently proclaimed every child's ``God-given right to have a quality education and quality health care'' regardless of whether they are in this country legally.
Simon, who opposed Proposition 187, and Jones, who supported it, simply demurred. Both spoke of children, though, not the ``illegal aliens'' of the Proposition 187 campaign. Simon spoke of his philanthropic efforts to help the poor. ``We're all sensitive,'' said Jones, although he later demanded to know how Riordan would pay the health care costs for illegal immigrants.
Neither candidate came close to employing the fierce rhetoric used in the Proposition 187 debate. The television campaign waged in support of that initiative is now widely viewed as a serious mistake for the Republican Party. While it worked for Pete Wilson, who won re-election, it did long-term damage to the GOP in the eyes of Latino voters.
``I was very unnerved by 187,'' said Natalie Cardenas, a 28-year-old Republican from Campbell, who marched against the measure as a college student in Southern California, when she was a Democrat. Now a Republican, she hopes the issue will not resurface.
``My reasons for being a Republican are so much different than that issue,'' she said. ``I believe in the core values of the Republican Party, smaller government.''
Backlash to 187
The initiative led waves of Latino immigrants who had lived here for years to become citizens and then to register to vote -- largely for Democrats.
``The long-term prognosis is you need to win Latino votes if you're going to stay competitive in California,'' said Bruce Cain, a political scientist at the University of California-Berkeley. ``You can't afford to let Latinos be 80 to 90 percent for the Democrats. That would be death.''
Cain was amused to watch Jones -- who early in his career as secretary of state led an investigation into Latino voter fraud -- announce over and over at the debate how he had won the endorsement of MAPA, the Mexican American Political Association.
``If you can't come right out and say, `I voted against 187,' you can at least wave your MAPA endorsement,'' Cain said. How much good the endorsement will do for Jones isn't clear, though, since the MAPA president later denied it and backed Riordan and Davis instead.
Party leaders are assuming that Riordan, by far the most popular Republican candidate, will become their nominee. But California Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 1.6 million voters. To prevail in a general election, a candidate must win back the Republican women's vote and lure new Latino voters, as well as independents and Democrats.
Riordan -- who for now is outpolling Davis by 7 points -- appears to be the Republicans' best chance. But in a party as divided as the GOP, fielding a liberal candidate could alienate the hard-core conservatives who have been the party's stalwarts.
-That's why I moved from California ___ years ago.
-California is getting what they deserve for electing Davis.
-Only in California.
-California is a liberal cesspool.
If this is what passes for "common-sense", please call me a complete idiot.
Then ... you believe in initiating force?
Then in what sense do you regard yourself a libertarian?
A nice example of biased reporting.
-That's why I moved from California 9 years ago.
I don't agree with the antiwar.com crowd or a lot that goes on at lewrockwell.com.
I know some Libertarians that totally embrace the antiwar philosophy but from
what I have seen most don't.
Most libertarians do however, totally embrace "The Golden Rule" just as you learned
it as a child. The non-initiation of force is an extension of that. Would you feel it
proper for a man to pass you on the street and then turn around and deck you with
no provocation what-so-ever, simply because he feared that you might do it to him
first. Libertarians have sworn never to strike first. We never said that we would
never strike at all. This is the only way a civilized person or society should act.
Otherwise we would all applaud and admire the Japanese for their surprise first strike
attack on Pearl Harbor. The Libertarian Party did a poll of members to see what
we thought of the attack on the World Trade Center. 94.8% said that we have an
obligation to bring terrorists to justice. Follow the link to the whole story.
Online survey: LP members support
military strikes against terrorists
Despite Libertarians' long-standing aversion to foreign military
intervention, 94.8% of survey respondents said they agree the
U.S. government "has an obligation to bring the terrorists who
are responsible for the September 11 attacks to justice."
—
"Libertarians believe that individuals and nations do not have
the right to initiate force against others, but they tend to agree
that the use of force for self-defense -- against rogue nations,
criminals, or terrorists -- is appropriate," he said.
"These poll results seem to indicate that most Libertarians think
the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC qualified
as initiation of force, and that a strong military response
constitutes legitimate self-defense by our nation."
Non-initiation of force is a very honorable position. I'm curious, what circumstances
or situations do you feel might cause a preemptive strike to be necessary?
| To find all articles tagged or indexed using calgov2002, click below: | ||||
| click here >>> | calgov2002 | <<< click here | ||
| (To view all FR Bump Lists, click here) | ||||
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.