Posted on 02/14/2002 9:56:49 AM PST by Gophack
GOP rivals take aim at Riordan
DEBATE: Jones and Simon turn up the heat on the front-runner, who focuses his fire on Gov. Davis.
LONG BEACH - Republican gubernatorial front-runner Richard Riordan fought off his opponents' attacks in the last GOP debate Wednesday night and assailed incumbent Democrat Gray Davis at every turn.
With the March 5 primary less than three weeks away, Secretary of State Bill Jones, the underdog in funding and polls, went after Riordan and Los Angeles investor Bill Simon.
Simon attacked Riordan and Davis.
Riordan, the former mayor of Los Angeles, avoided engaging with Jones and Simon. Instead he sought to keep the focus on the governor, whom he leads narrowly in polls.
"Gray Davis ought to be in Salt Lake City because he's going downhill much faster than any of the other skiers," Riordan said in his opening remarks. "Gray, you're a disgrace. You get in your office about 11 a.m. every day. You dial for dollars all day long."
As he has throughout the campaign, Riordan fielded questions during the hourlong debate at Cal State Long Beach about his stances on issues such as abortion and his contributions to Democrats.
Riordan continued to insist the only way for Republicans to attract female voters and win statewide office is by supporting abortion rights.
"Pro-life or pro-choice, this is a shorthand way for women to say if somebody is not pro-choice, they are not pro-afterschool care, they are not pro-day care for children, they are not pro-health care," Riordan said. "There is no way that a Republican can win in this state unless they respect women who are pro-choice."
Inland reaction
Don Donnelly of Rancho Mirage, who watched the debate on television, said Riordan erred by equating people who don't support abortion with those who don't care about children.
"Riordan wants to divide our party from that point of view," said Donnelly, a longtime Republican who supports Simon.
"Seems like it's a ridiculous issue when you think the governor has so little to do with abortions," he said. "Abortion is a moot point. This is in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court."
Donnelly saw Simon as "the only one who tried to talk about issues." He said Simon handled himself with dignity and credibility while respecting the other candidates.
Jones derided Riordan as "just another big-city liberal mayor" whose inconsistent stances show he cannot be trusted. Jones, the GOP's only statewide officeholder, focused on his own experience during years in politics and claimed he's the only one of the three candidates who's always been true to the Republican Party.
Shirlee Pigeon of Riverside said she saw Jones, the secretary of state, emerge in the debate as "decisive, aggressive, assertive, all kinds of good traits we want in a governor."
Pigeon, a conservative GOP activist, supports Nick Jesson, a candidate who wasn't included in the debates. But she said, "Of these three, (Jones) . . . would be the best governor if I can't have my Jesson."
Shauna Clark, a Riordan supporter who sat in the front row of the live audience, was surprised at Jones' attacks and saw him as the debate's loser.
Donnelly also saw Jones as the worst in the debate. Jones behaved badly as the state's highest-ranking Republican, Donnelly said, by repeatedly attacking a fellow party member, Riordan, and refusing to take part in a pledge to support the Republican who wins the March primary.
'The only one'
Clark, a former administrator for the city of San Bernardino who now works at Cal State San Bernardino, said she sees Riordan as "the only one who understands no one in Sacramento should be micromanaging cities and universities."
But she came away from her front-row seat in the audience without seeing a clear winner. There weren't enough questions about the real issues: education, the energy crisis and jobs, she said.
Simon criticized Riordan "for being inconsistent on a number of issues." He said he has held consistent stances throughout his career as a businessman and prosecutor, and insisted, "I am the conservative in this race."
It's a position Simon can lay increased claim to in the wake of last weekend's state GOP convention, where he won a nonbinding straw poll of the party faithful.
"It was a long-shot opportunity for dramatic gestures and dramatic mistakes and I don't think we saw either," said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College.
'We're not afraid of anybody'
Davis press secretary Roger Salazar shrugged off the attacks from Riordan, though the unusual barrage of pre-primary ads Davis has launched against Riordan suggest the governor believes Riordan will be his opponent in November.
"We're not afraid of anybody; we'll take any one of these candidate and beat them handily," Salazar said.
Wednesday night's debate was televised statewide, as was the first debate last month. There was another debate at last weekend's state GOP convention, but it was not televised.
The debate Wednesday was produced by the California Broadcasters Association in conjunction with the CSU system.
Staff writer Pat Murkland contributed to this report.
Davis is so cocky and self-assured and it will hurt him. Simon has the best ideas and presence and clear differences between Davis to beat him. I think Simon is the only candidate who can take down Gray Davis.
I think that any of three have a very good chance at defeating Governor Doofus.
I respectfully disagree. Riordan would lose to Davis. He's been on the opposite side of every major issue and has no core philosophy. Voters won't vote for someone they can't trust ... and changing your positions as often as Riordan is a death nail ... conservatives will stay home. For all of Riordan's talk of being "inclusive", he sure doesn't mean that for conservatives! He lost 30% of his electorate. With the conservative base, no Republican can win. Wilson won because he didn't alienate the conservative base until AFTER he was elected.
Jones MIGHT be able to beat Davis simply because Jones doesn't have a lot of political problems except for his vote for the largest tax increase in California history AND his switch from Bush to McCain. I think that latter would be forgiveable to the electorate who really doesn't care; the tax increase is a little harder to get away from. The major problem with Jones is that he can't raise money. He never has been able to raise money, even when he was the Assembly Republican Leader during the 1992 elections and we lost 3 seats.
Simon has the best chance of beating Davis. He has no problem raising money, has money of his own if there is a problem, has broad-based support (moderate Giuliani to conservative Herschensohn) and offers a CLEAR difference to Gray Davis. Voters need a clear contrast if we ask them to vote against the status quo. Simon is conservative on all the issues, but also appeals across the board becauase of his warm manner, compassionate ideas, and fiscal discipline. It will be hard for Davis to tie the extremist albatross around Simon's neck ... the same Bill Simon who gives millions to homeless kids, underprivledged children, and after-school programs.
I see absolutely no advantage to having Riordan as governor.
Jones' biggest slip was not answering the question on the "unity pledge." But to be fair, no way I would sign it because I couldn't vote for Davis-clone Riordan.
Reporters think its great that Republicans are divided on the issue, though they never point out that Democrats are just as divided. The only difference is that public dissent is not tolerated in the RAT party, so you never hear about it.
It's too bad that they woudln't cover the other stuff, because Bill Simon had the most to say on ALL of the important issues voters care about -- the issues where Davis and his Demonrat-controlled legislature have nearly ruined our great state over the past three decades.
I am probably one of the most prolife people in the state, but the question has been answered. Bill Simon has the best credentials on the issue, Riordan is the worst. Now lets get on with all the OTHER issues that will decide the election.
You're so right! I was so frustrated that the liberal press kept harping on abortion when education, the economy, transportation and energy are so much more important ... and what people are thinking about. Hopefully, the people will realize what the press is up to!
He doesn't stand for anything and will get nailed for how LA/DWP stung the State for power. Davis is already attacking him for his inconsistencies. His operatives are obviously paid thugs without innate enthusiasm. The only constituency he really owns are gay Republicans who don't want to pay taxes. There is no way he will beat Gray Davis.
Jones has the loyalty of his long-time affiliations in Sacramento, but that alienates him from the rest of the party. He comes across as a hard and bitter man.
As you know, my money is on Bill Simon. This is a candidate who is clearly honest, decent, and genuine. He knows how to lead and is capable of learning. You should see the obvious enthusiasm in the Party for this man.
That alone should tell you something. I've NEVER in my life put a bumper sticker on a car before. I haven't seen anyone like him since Reagan took the 1964 primary from George Christopher, the last Republican mayor of San Francisco. If we elect Riordan, he'll destroy the heart of the Party in this State, and we'll never recover it, just like George Christopher did to San Francisco. If Republicans vote their hearts instead of copping out for a political rationale, Simon will win.
I saw an ad on the TeeVee last night bout this very subject! What a slam on Riordan over the power issue. I didn't pay enough attention to see who sponsored the ad, however.
Well said. And, it needs to be pointed out that the so-called "political rationale" is a deception for all the reasons you names above, Riordan CAN'T beat Gray Davis.
Reorganization:
California’s GOP Would it professionalize the state Party?
Or submerge it? He controls no candidates, campaigns, or GOP office holders, but the CRP chairman is blamed for years of turmoil and too defeats. Will a state Party overhaul cure GOP woes? Or merely end grass roots’ last claim to power?California Political Review.
Every liberal from George Christopher and William Penn Patrick to George Skelton and Brooks Firestone say political reality demands that Republicans drop conservative principles if they want to win. Conservative reluctance to compromise drives away voters they say; those who won’t see this are fools not competent to carry out the Party’s essential tasks. They imply that Bush’s defeat here last year and earlier losses to Gray Davis and legislative Democrats all trace to this cause.
Now Gerald Parsky steps forward to say, one, that the GOP must become more “inclusive” — which no one disputes, until that is defined to mean forgetting about the right to life and the Second Amendment and, more broadly, adopting a Wilsonite flexibility toward compromise on every question — and, two, that it must “professionalize” — which, in turn, is opposed only when defined as replacing principled conservatives with people whose first passion is political campaign technology — a charitable way to describe a willingness to do or say anything that seems expedient at any given moment. Understanding last year’s (and earlier) Republican failure in California requires a more realistic evaluation of two basic questions: first, what was done wrong in 2000? and, second, who did it?
Ronald Reagan won elections. He did not fly from appeals to broad principle, nor did he drop those principles when it came to details and execution (except now and then on judges and taxes, which always brought political disaster). He launched his political career in 1964 by putting the real issue of our politics in unmistakable terms:
You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down — up to man’s age-old dream — the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
Reagan’s famous optimism about the good is here, but so is something rarely heard from later Republicans: a willingness to describe the evil alternative and to point directly to its source: anti-freedom liberalism. George W. Bush won the White House in 2000 because a bare minimum of Americans understood viscerally that the issue was this same essential moral question and that the evil answer to it was represented by Bill Clinton’s broad moral depravity, an answer Al Gore appeared ready to carry forward. While no one thought Gore shared Clinton’s infantile inability to control his gluttonous sexual appetite, he couldn’t seem to avoid telling even stupid, unnecessary lies in public. That convinced enough people they were voting on Clinton II and that the moral alternative, the choice to move up rather than down, was Bush (which, by the way, is why the last-minute pre-election disclosure of Bush’s quarter-century-old drunk driving arrest damaged him).
Bush’s California Campaign: The Steinberg Analysis
B Reagan did not just rely on voters’ visceral sense that his was the moral course. He regularly, repeatedly, and in detail explained how the issue played out in the everyday lives of real people. The Bush campaign in California could have done the same, employing high-profile education and property tax controversies to tap into key voting blocks, but did not do so.
Unlike Bob Dole four years earlier who never had a chance here, W. started out competitive in California. Respected pollster and campaign strategist Arnold Steinberg reported July 6, 2000, on National Review Online that “the new Steinberg survey ... places Bush at 37 percent and Gore at 40 percent among registered voters” with Bush enjoying “a clear lead over Gore among independent voters .... Bush wins among homeowners, loses decisively among renters. Bush would benefit from a strong campaign opposing Gray Davis’s measure to raise local property taxes for schools.”
This last point referred to the November ballot’s Proposition 39, essentially a second try to pass Proposition 26 with the slight refinement that the vote required to pass bonds would be 55 percent rather than 26’s simple majority. Bush’s decision not to talk about “specific initiatives on ballots” eliminated this opportunity to establish a clear connection in voters’ minds linking Bush’s appeal to broad conservative principles with a concrete, on-my-front-porch concern facing real people. It could have maximized turnout among pro-Bush homeowners and possibly even mobilized the Proposition 13 coalition, moving campaign momentum strongly in Bush’s direction. It never happened.
September 25, 2000, the Los Angeles Times, remarkably, all but endorsed Bush over Gore in a lead editorial — “Definite Choices on Schools” — which questioned the cost of Gore’s “cradle-to-grave” program (“an astonishing $115 billion”) while crediting Bush for his “tenure as an ‘education governor’” with a “more real- world feel for education.” It concluded that “Bush’s leadership quotient in education is more impressive than that of Gore.” The next day, Steinberg commented that “With this editorial, George Bush has quintessential third-party validation, and not just in California, where the LA Times’ words should be enshrined, immediately, in paid issues advertising. Indeed, this editorial could be a turning point in a national campaign where Gore aims to reduce Bush’s education policy to a caricature .... The Bush campaign needs to drop its beltway formulas and canned advertising and seize the moment, here and everywhere else.”
Judging by Steinberg’s running NR Online commentary throughout the campaign, the Bush effort never followed this advice, on this or other issues. A month after the Times editorial appeared, Steinberg told how GOP presidential campaigns handle funds: “Contributions from wealthy Californians are sent back to Washington where a portion never again leaves the beltway. The balance, admittedly still quite large, is returned (with strings) to California.” Steinberg mentioned this process in relation to a campaign opportunity presented by LA Mayor Dick Riordan’s heartfelt endorsement of Bush as the candidate who “understands what’s needed in education” and “who is not divisive.” “[Riordan’s] sincere message,” Steinberg wrote, “could resonate in television and radio commercials that connect with women voters. No wonder Bush/ Cheney California Chairman Gerry Parsky has promised, finally if belatedly, to use Riordan in advertisements in the state.
But can Parsky deliver? It’s hard to imagine the Washington folks creating an effective spot with Riordan looking directly into the camera and dramatically telling it like it is. Recycled Bush/RNC Victory 2000 television advertising here has used voice-over with graphics, rather than people saying something. Inexplicably, there’s been no radio.”
The Bush campaign’s generic, impersonal advertising became a Steinberg theme, which he summarized in an election day commentary: “millions were spent here ... on recycled ads with limited relevance for California, less impact on its voters. Obviously, California needed television spots with real people, with the right message, to reach targeted constituencies. And serious mail, not fluff.” The next day, he wrote that “for once, California was not a net exporter of campaign dollars.
But, as reported, the RNC squandered the money here on formula beltway-produced television advertising lacking any production values. The RNC actually refused polling data that showed the ads to be ineffectual. Similarly, millions of dollars were spent on mailings that failed to target women, independent voters, and other key groups with messages that matter. Nor was there an aggressive surrogate program or earned-media effort, let alone, for example, well-placed op-eds regularly spinning the Bush message .... True to form, Washington insiders now will say California is not winnable. We know better.” [emphasis added]
In late November, in a final salvo, Steinberg wrote that “Historically, the RNC has raised money effectively but spend it ineffectively, including legally laundering money through the California Republican Party and other state parties to favored beltway vendors outflanked by more competent Democrat strategists.... Thus, even a respected strategist like California Bush campaign chair, state Sen. Jim Brulte, had one hand, maybe both, tied behind his back.” [emphasis added]
The 2000 campaign included lots more incompetence damaging to Bush: Silicon Valley political neophyte Tim Draper’s disastrous $30 million school “voucher” campaign that drove up teacher (i.e., Gore voter) turnout — $30 million that could have elected several pro-educational choice GOP legislators; Republican liberal Tom Campbell’s nearly invisible U.S. Senate campaign with, among its few memorable moments, a TV spot Steinberg described as featuring “Campbell, looking like he’s on something, [attacking] ‘Dianne’ for being too hard-line on drugs”; business billionaires, with Pete Wilson serving as cheerleader, lavishly funding Proposition 39, the initiative to extract hundreds of thousands of dollars from property owners of modest means — great for Bush’s conservative Republican base, as was the specter of heavy business spending being diverted from Republican to Democrat legislative candidates, the corporate types having entered their best rats-jumping-ship mode.
But now the scalping knives are out for the CRP power structure because, we are told, last year’s chairman, no longer around, made mistakes hiring staff and acted foolishly over a slate mailing regarding an initiative that lost anyway. Who ran Victory 2000? Who decided Bush would take no position on Proposition 39? Who planned the major paid and earned media campaign for Bush in California? Who ignored “polling data that showed the Bush ads to be ineffectual” and “favored beltway vendors outflanked by more competent Democrat strategists”? Whose incompetence and willingness to place self-interest above the good of the candidate drove up Democrat turn-out and demoralized the GOP rank-and-file, damaging Bush here?
Who? The Republican National Committee, Gerald Parsky, Jim Brulte, Pete Wilson, Tim Draper, Tom Campbell, Silicon Valley political neophytes, business community political prostitutes, and, ’way on down the list, as a footnote, some decisions may have been made by John McGraw and CRP staff that actually contributed significantly to the debacle. About the only thing those really responsible for losing in 2000 don’t control is the day-to-day functioning of the CRP, but they mean to address that oversight through reorganization.
Parsky commutes to work via Gulfstream jet from his home in Rancho Santa Fe to his office in Westwood. After serving as the youngest ever assistant secretary of the treasury, Parsky went on to become a multi-millionaire venture capitalist investor with international clients, widespread clout, and what one recent commentator characterized as “a smooth ability to withstand any controversy or legal difficulties such work is known to create.” Indeed — a survivor. One such “difficulty” involved one of those international clients, Saudi Prince Nawaf Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. As reported in the April 2000 Vanity Fair, Parsky, while with Gibson, Dunn, found companies and property for Middle East clients to buy, with the law firm handling the legal work involved in the acquisitions. Parsky was credited with bringing an estimated $80 million in new business to the firm. But “just months after leaving Gibson, Dunn,” according to Vanity Fair:
The prince accused Parsky of steering him to bad real- estate investments in which Parsky or his Gibson, Dunn colleagues and clients had hidden interests, including one in which Parsky personally had an ownership stake. Parsky denied that he profited from the sale, but, as Forbes reported, he also refused to produce related documents. In July of 1991, a reported $20 million settlement, involving the repurchase from him of certain properties and the reimbursement of certain loans, was reached with the prince. Three WSGP [a partnership Parsky had formed with former Treasury Secretary William Simon] partners refused at the time to participate in the payback because, they implied, Parsky was the responsible party. The settlement, they felt, was as good as an admission of guilt. Simon [Sr.]did participate fully in the settlement, but two months later abruptly pulled out of WSGP, causing the collapse of a $300 million deal that was soon to close. “I totally lost trust and confidence in Gerald L. Parsky and no longer wished to be associated with him either professionally or personally,” Simon [Sr.] stated.Parsky and Simon’s [Sr.] lawyer, George Gillespie, disagree, reported Vanity Fair, about who handled the prince’s investments, Parsky saying Simon [Sr.] was the prince’s financial advisor, Gillespie saying the prince was Parsky’s client and that Simon [Sr.] provided the prince no financial assistance directly “and to suggest otherwise is ‘a bald-faced lie.’” According to Vanity Fair:
Gillespie adds that Parsky’s misdealings with the prince were “extremely serious,” and that when the prince uncovered them and complained, Parsky kept the news to himself. Gillespie had come to mistrust Parsky, he says, well before the prince complained. When the problem finally came to light, it was Gillespie who urged Simon to settle, and to sever the partnership, lest Simon’s [Sr.] reputation be marred. Parsky denies these charges and says, “William Simon [Sr.] and I participated in a number of investments years ago with many investors, including Prince Nawaf. All those investors were treated fairly and Bill Simon [Sr.] was very involved with the investments. He also borrowed approximately $6 million from Prince Nawaf to finance investments in certain U.S. thrifts. It is unfortunate that William Simon and his operatives continue to distort the truth about matters that occurred more than 15 years ago. I certainly misjudged William Simon [Sr.].”Vanity Fair reported that Parsky said this episode should be put “in perspective” by recording that his “10-year career since then has involved acquiring 120 companies with revenues in excess of $3 billion, establishing two investments funds, one with $220 million of equity, and the other with $780 million of equity, and every single transaction has been positive — with average returns to our investors of 40 percent annually.’”
Last April, Parsky told Copley News Service that Bush “is committed to changing the face of the Republican Party in California and to reach out to people that felt left out.” He said the national GOP will provide money for next year’s election and for redistricting “once we demonstrate to the donor community that we are taking a professional approach and learning from our past.”
Now according to Parsky’s plan, “taking a professional approach” does not mean reforming the RNC’s old-boy vendor network to make the preparation of California-relevant TV or radio spots the top priority, nor does “reaching out to people that felt left out” mean discouraging big business from selling-out taxpayers or encouraging GOP presidential candidates to champion middle-income homeowners against big labor/big business alliances to raise their taxes. Men who commute by Gulfstream jet rather than on congested freeways cannot be expected to think about things like that. They move too fast for the messy business of building consensus among the unruly grass roots. When they say “professionalize,” they mean installing a system where a largely-autonomous COO can listen to voices from above without having to contend with those from below.
As it happens, this approach is not really new. In 1990, Pete Wilson cleaned house at the CRP, installing a top staff of dependable yes-men, beholden only to the power at the top, freeing the governor to indulge his unilateral impulses, without checks and balances, straight into the 1992 GOP electoral collapse.
Along the way, the state Central Committee elected a conservative chairman — Jim Dignan — with enough backbone to fight Wilson. Dignan disrupted Pete’s unilateral crusade to dissolve all connection between the state GOP power structure and California’s conservative Republican base. No doubt the former governor is relieved to know that, under the Parsky plan, no future Dignan would be able to make himself so inconvenient again.
If Riordan gets the nomination, he'll clearly have trouble securing the votes of the conservative wing. They'd rather have Davis get the nod than to vote for Riordan. I question the wisdom of that, but I don't doubt it.
The only way Riordan wins is if he gets a sizeable amount of Democrats to vote for him. But, that's probably true of whomever the Republicans nominate, because you don't have the votes by yourselves.
The political equation is whether more Republicans would turn out to vote for Simon in the General Election, and in what numbers. I don't think it's a stretch to guess that Simon would get less Democrat voter support than Riordan would.
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