Posted on 03/09/2002 7:40:54 AM PST by Pokey78
Bill Simon pulls an upset in California's gubernatorial primary. Can he do it again in the fall?
LOS ANGELES
When poll results a week before California's gubernatorial primary showed political neophyte Bill Simon with a six-point lead over two-term Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan, directors of California's Field Poll suggested voters were witnessing "one of the most remarkable turnarounds in California election history." That assessment, dismissed by many observers at the time as an exaggeration, turned out to be an understatement.
A month before the March 5 primary, Riordan led Simon by more than 30 percentage points. In fact, Riordan had a 2-to-1 lead over the combined total of Simon and the third candidate in the race, Secretary of State Bill Jones. But last Tuesday Simon crushed Riordan, with 49 percent of the vote to Riordan's 31 and Jones's 17. In so doing, he earned the right to challenge the man largely responsible for his victory--incumbent Democratic governor Gray Davis.
Davis spent $10 million dollars during the Republican primary, most of it on ads attacking Riordan, whom Davis advisers considered their toughest potential competitor. Top California Democrats have already dismissed Simon as "road kill," and Davis wasted no time in labeling his opponent a fringe candidate, a far right-winger out of step with average Californians.
To make that point, Davis kicked off his general election campaign by talking mainly about social issues--gun control, gay rights, and especially abortion. Simon, naturally, is talking about those issues that make Davis one of the most vulnerable incumbent governors up for reelection this year--energy woes, the struggling economy, and a historic California budget deficit. In one recent Los Angeles Times poll, nearly 4 in 10 Democrats said they were not impressed with Davis's leadership in his first term.
Two tenets of conventional wisdom will thus collide in California this year: On the one hand, we're told, conservatives can't win in the state. But on the other, neither can a deeply unpopular incumbent in times of economic difficulty.
LAST WEDNESDAY, March 6, when Richard Riordan finished a brief concession speech at a post-primary "unity breakfast," the first man on his feet, applauding enthusiastically, was Bill Simon. Moments later, Riordan stood between Simon and Bill Jones, the three posing like victorious boxers, their clasped hands held high. When photographers rushed to take pictures of the trio, Riordan graciously stepped aside, nudged Simon to the center, and brought full-circle one of the more bizarre primaries in recent memory.
When Bill Simon first began giving serious consideration to the governor's race in late 2000, he turned to Riordan for advice. Simon, the son of Nixon-era Treasury secretary William E. Simon, had been friends with the L.A. mayor for years. They attend the same church and share interests in politics and philanthropy. Riordan had no plans to run himself, and enthusiastically encouraged the nascent Simon for Governor campaign. In January 2001, Riordan hosted a dinner attended by many top California Republicans. He introduced Simon as a "potential gubernatorial candidate," and urged others to consider supporting his friend.
Simon's political experience was scant. He was a successful investor and generous philanthropist. He helped establish PAX-TV, the family-friendly television cable network, and served for a spell on the board of the Heritage Foundation. Before that, he had worked for three years under then-U.S. attorney Rudolph Giuliani in New York. Simon moved to Southern California in 1990 to set up a West Coast office of Simon and Sons, the investment firm he controlled with his father and brother, Peter.
Simon tapped his own network and Riordan's and, pleased with the feedback he was getting, set up a three-month exploratory committee and geared up for a campaign against Secretary of State Jones.
That summer, though, Riordan had a change of heart--one he says was inspired by the White House. Riordan received a call from President Bush on May 1. Reports at the time indicated that Bush wished Riordan a happy birthday and encouraged him to consider running for governor. "I think he sees this as a chance to revive the party, and the president was extremely encouraging and very persuasive," Riordan told the National Journal. "As you know, the Republican party in California has been an endangered species now for several years."
Others say the White House was not keen on any of the three, and simply settled on Riordan because he was most likely to give Davis a good race. Supporting Jones was never an option. After first backing Bush in the 2000 presidential primary, Jones made a high-profile switch to John McCain after McCain had shown himself to be a viable candidate.
The White House also had issues with Simon. When Simon's dad was in the Nixon and Ford administrations, a young man named Gerry Parsky worked under him, later going into business with the elder Simon. After several years of successful ventures, Simon Sr. and Parsky had a bitter split, each publicly accusing the other of duplicity. That dispute is still being litigated (Simon Sr. died two years ago), and several sources say hard feelings remain between Parsky and the younger Simon. (Bill Simon Jr. denies that, saying that the lawsuit "isn't even relevant today," adding, "Gerry and I have a fine relationship.")
Parsky today is George W. Bush's top adviser in California. "Almost nothing happens in California with the White House or cabinet members unless Parsky is on board," says one top Republican in the state. Parsky was not "on board" for a Simon candidacy initially and, even after the primary victory, is publicly doubting Simon's chances. "If you are an extreme conservative, you cannot win in California," Parsky told the New York Times late last week.
And that left Riordan. There are conflicting accounts as to exactly how actively the White House sought to help Riordan. At least once, the White House appeared to give Riordan a heads-up on an upcoming policy initiative, providing the mayor an opportunity to look both prescient and connected. And several sources mentioned a proposed deal in which Simon would abandon his gubernatorial bid for a job as the chief deputy to Tom Ridge in the Office of Homeland Security. Simon says he heard such "rumors" but didn't put much stock in them.
For much of the primary, Riordan held commanding leads over both Simon and Jones. So he shrugged off the GOP base--at times even seeming to lecture conservatives on the finer points of being a good Republican--and started targeting Davis. The governor, hoping to weaken Riordan significantly for the general election, used the criticism as an excuse to hit back hard.
On January 20, Davis began running ads attacking Riordan. The most effective of these suggested a Riordan flip-flop on abortion. At the very same time Riordan was criss-crossing the state touting his pro-choice credentials, Davis unleashed an ad featuring Riordan's thoughts on abortion from more than a decade earlier ("I think it's murder").
Simon began his ads a short time later, and Riordan's support began to crumble. One ad featured a strong endorsement of Simon from his old boss Giuliani, now one of the most popular public figures in America. And when Giuliani came to California in February to stump with Simon, he finally caught up with Riordan.
As internal polls showed Simon pulling ahead, Riordan panicked and started flailing at Simon, in ways that no doubt have Gray Davis's ad team excited about next fall. Simon had "turned out to be a sanctimonious hypocrite," Riordan said. And using language that couldn't have been better scripted by Davis strategist Garry South, Riordan added, "I didn't realize how extreme [Simon] is."
Such attacks stung Simon, not because they came from the vanquished frontrunner, but because they came from a friend. In the days before the primary, Simon had publicly predicted that he and Riordan would "be friends again, just like we were before." But his advisers and top Republicans in California and Washington weren't quite as sanguine. Those doubts gave way to a tremendous sense of relief when Riordan graciously conceded on Election Night and gave Simon his spirited backing at the "unity breakfast."
Riordan declared Simon "the hope to bring back glory to the Golden State." He said his old friend was just the man to "get rid of Gray Davis." That task began in earnest on Wednesday, even as Republicans try to understand exactly what happened in the primary.
The White House says the Riordan campaign was inept. Riordan says $10 million in Gray Davis ads was decisive. Simon says his ideas carried the day. And in the final analysis, they're all right.
FOR GRAY DAVIS, the March 5 primary was a formality. He used his speech that evening to set the tone for the coming campaign against Simon. And the first policy issue he raised in that speech was abortion. He mentioned it at every stop on his statewide victory lap the following day.
At first blush, abortion is a curious topic to choose as the centerpiece of a gubernatorial campaign. By Davis's own tally, he has signed just seven abortion-related bills in his first three years in office. (Local experts say the total number of bills Davis has signed is easily in the thousands.) And, of course, the precise effect of Roe v. Wade was to remove the issue from the purview of states and governors. But Davis seems determined to avoid distractions like discussions of his record, and if the first few days of the campaign are any indication, Simon and Davis will spend the next eight months essentially talking past each other.
Consider this exchange with Judy Woodruff on CNN's Inside Politics the day after Simon won the GOP primary.
WOODRUFF: Another thing Bill Simon said last night, he said you turned what was an $8 billion budget surplus in the state of California into an enormous record deficit. And he said you tried to hide the red ink.
DAVIS: Bill Simon's vision of the future is totally out of step and out of sync with California's. He's pro-life, pro-gun, pro a crazy deregulation scheme and pro-privatization. This is not California's vision of the future. I am proudly pro-choice. I signed the toughest gun safety laws in America. And I solved, as best any governor can, this crazy deregulation scheme I inherited.
True, answering a budget question by calling your opponent pro-life will seem silly to voters who pay attention to such things. But Californians should get used to such non sequiturs, because Davis will return to abortion again and again, largely for three reasons.
One, Davis has successfully exploited the abortion issue to topple two recent challengers--former California attorney general Dan Lungren in 1998, and Riordan in this year's primary. If one can help defeat a famously pro-choice Republican like Riordan by questioning his views on abortion, the thinking goes, surely a pro-life political newcomer will be even easier.
Two, reporters are overwhelmingly pro-choice, and are always eager to report, write, and broadcast stories on abortion. This is especially true in gender-obsessed California. The day before Simon swept to his historic victory, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carla Marinucci gave this account of his campaign on Inside Politics: "Simon has had some problems in the last days of his campaign. He doesn't have a single woman in a visible role in the campaign. That is a glaring omission in California, where the women's vote is very, very important and Latinos, too."
That was a "problem" only because Marinucci had just written an article for the Chronicle comparing the number of high-visibility women in the Riordan and Simon campaigns, something even the most concerned voter would be unlikely to do.
Two days after Simon's primary win, a reporter for one of California's top papers sat down for a one-on-one interview with Simon adviser Sal Russo. He peppered the strategist with six consecutive questions about abortion, and returned to the topic later in the interview. Why ask about water reclamation, energy contracts, or budget deficits, when, taking your cues from the governor, you can talk about a woman's "right to choose"?
Finally and most obvious, Davis wants to talk about anything other than the issues that have consumed most of his time for the last three years--energy shortages, the sagging economy, and more recently a ballooning budget deficit.
Davis reasonably suggests that he inherited some of the state's massive energy problems. But California voters don't seem to be making that distinction. And they give him very low marks for his leadership on the issue, saying that he was late in recognizing the severity of the problem.
The slow national economy hit high-tech California particularly hard. And while Davis points out that he has presided over the creation of 900,000 new jobs, few analysts believe he'll get points from voters for that. "It's like him taking credit for the turn of the century," says Bill Whalen, a former speechwriter for Pete Wilson and a fellow at the Hoover Institution, who believes Davis is one of the most vulnerable incumbent governors in the nation in 2002. (Whalen says, by comparison, Pete Wilson oversaw the creation of 400,000 new jobs in his last full year.) "It's just hard to see how the quality of life has improved under Davis."
The economic slowdown is one of two factors leading to what may become Davis's biggest problem: He turned an $8 billion budget surplus when he took office into a $17 billion budget deficit today. Some of this may just be bad timing. But critics say Davis ignored signs of the coming recession, and at the same time grew government spending at an explosive rate--37 percent over his first two years. By comparison, most other large states kept spending growth to single digits. And Davis, unlike President Bush, can't blame deficits on a war on terrorism.
Unless the economy improves dramatically in the next two months, Davis's budget woes will likely get worse. Deficit figures will be adjusted in May, and several experts believe those numbers will worsen, presenting Davis with an unenviable choice: Cut government programs and risk upsetting his liberal base, or raise taxes and risk upsetting everyone else.
As much as Davis tries to shift blame from himself, voters here seem to hold him responsible. While poll numbers for other California politicians--the state legislature and senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein--have remained constant or even improved, Davis's approval ratings have dropped.
If Bill Simon can keep voters' attention on Davis's record, he will present Davis with a strong challenge in November. If he can't, it certainly won't be for lack of trying.
At a press conference the morning after his victory, a reporter asks Simon whether he intends to answer or avoid questions about social issues. Simon's answer--he's going to avoid them--reflects either the naivete one might expect from a political neophyte or the message discipline of a seasoned candidate.
"Social issues to me are not the centerpiece of my agenda," he says. "I want to spotlight my ideology of smaller government, local government, individual empowerment, and opportunity."
Several times in an interview last Thursday, Simon gently scolds me for asking about politics, process, and, yes, abortion. "Every second we spend not discussing Gray Davis's record is a wasted second," he admonishes. It was virtually the only time all week that his boyish, toothy grin disappeared from his face.
This pleasant demeanor and general friendliness will make it hard for Davis to cast him as a fire-breathing right-winger. And it serves him well on the trail, making up for the campaigners' tricks he has yet to acquire.
On Thursday--education day for the Simon campaign--the first stop was Camellia Basic Elementary, a magnet school in Sacramento. Simon spent much of the bus trip from the airport to the school fielding questions from reporters on such topics as campaign funding and his friendship with Riordan. But Camellia School fifth graders asked tougher questions.
"What are you going to do if you lose?" asked one. "Do you get nervous before you have to give a speech?" wondered another, no doubt summoning a good bit of courage himself, with a half-dozen TV cameras in his face. (Simon's answers: "Help Californians in other ways," and, "I used to, but not anymore.")
Simon concedes he's still learning the fine art of campaigning. There are awkward moments at each of the schools. Simon's demeanor betrays the fact that there's something just plain weird about walking into a classroom of first graders, listening to them read aloud for two minutes, congratulating their teacher, moving down the hall, and getting worked up over someone else's kid's science project. Still, while he isn't as smooth as a more practiced public figure, he comes across as interested in the kids and their studies.
He's also adjusting to his newfound celebrity. Before he emerged as a serious candidate, he spoke mostly to small audiences with perhaps a few local reporters in tow. Now, he's doing live interviews with CNN, and his press staffers are fielding calls from "Meet the Press" and "This Week." The day after he won, he gave 29 different interviews.
Later on Thursday, Simon was greeted warmly by students at a high school outside of San Francisco. Though it wasn't billed as open to the public, his visit drew several other members of the Burlingame community, including two middle-aged men with "Gray Davis for Governor" signs. Mike Murray, a leader in the local Democratic party, also came to see Simon in person. But he wasn't there to protest.
"I just want to hear what he has to say," explains Murray, who briefly introduced himself to the candidate. "He's talking about the issues I care about--energy, schools, and taxes. I hate to say it as a Democrat, but I'm getting sick of the taxes. People are moving out of our state because of taxes. Old people can't afford to retire here anymore--they go to Florida." Murray hasn't committed to Simon quite yet, but he says he's not a Davis fan.
Later, when I ask Simon about his crossover appeal and his campaign's plans to create a bloc of Simon Democrats, he mentions Murray by name. (That alone is impressive, as Simon met hundreds of potential voters over the course of the 12-hour trip.)
Winning the support of moderate Democrats won't be easy, especially since Davis still has more than $25 million to spend on the race, after spending $10 million on the GOP primary. Simon, who is personally wealthy (he won't say how wealthy), says his campaign will be adequately financed. He estimates that he will need $30-$40 million to remain competitive over the next eight months--a goal that means he will have to raise money or self-finance at a rate of $1 million per week. "I will wage a credible campaign," he insists, indicating a willingness to spend some of his own money, but insisting that he will be successful in raising funds from others. "Outside support is key. If you can't get people to support you not only intellectually and emotionally, but also financially, then you're not a good candidate."
That fund-raising started as soon as he won the primary. "I had lots of people that said, 'You seem like quite a nice young man--talk to me after the primary.' Now, many of them are calling me, and we're calling all of the others."
The Simon upset is already being compared to another race for California governor, the one in 1966. That year, Democratic incumbent Pat Brown desperately wanted to avoid facing a moderate, big-city mayor in the general election, San Francisco's George Christopher. Instead, Brown wanted to face a political unknown he figured was too conservative for the California electorate. Brown got his wish, and Ronald Reagan went on to beat him in the general election.
Simon's advisers love that comparison, of course, but even Simon acknowledges that he's not a second Ronald Reagan. "We have a lot of the same ideas, but I'm not nearly the great communicator he was," says Simon. "Yet."
It is important that he learn to smile like Reagan, when he makes a principled Conservative point. That was the real key to Reagan's success. He always seemed like just too nice a guy to be the evil reactionary the Left needed to demonize. It was a happy, smiling manner that gave Reagan the edge over other Conservatives of his era.
Most people are not ideological. With the right smile and a firm commitment to your principles--necessary to convince those who may not share those principles that you are sincere, and therefore trustworthy--what Reagan did remains doable.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Even though Riordan seems to have been cured of his aversion to conservatives, it appears that Riordan's disease has spread to other high-level California Republicans.
Had Gore in fact a winning smile, and had he remained the apparently principled moderately Conservative, he appeared as in the Senate, rather than a cyncial Clinton clone pandering to degenerates and professional minorities, he would be President today. Had Bush not allowed the political dysron, Karl Rove, to distract him from the Bush that fought the South Carolina Primary, Bush would have won by an immense landslide, including California.
Again, most people are not ideological. If you meet the Leftwing ideologue on the issues, but with an engaging smile and an obvious sincerity, many of those who ordinarily respond to the Leftwing pitch will be won over--not to necessarily agree with your argument--but to your personality.
Reagan is the best example of the smile factor. There are legions of examples of the sincerity factor.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Let's not parse words-- Parsky's opinions are not shared by a majority of voters, who recognize a critical need for LEADERSHIP in CA.
Davis is extremely vulnerable, a poll came out this week showing Simon 2 points ahead. Davis is going to have an uphill battle, considering that he is the incumbent, those are horrible numbers for him.
When Davis starts calling Simon an extremist that's not going to stick, because Simon is going to have Dubya and Giuliani campaigning for him, and no one can call them extreme (they are the most popular politicians in America).
Gray's unwillingness to answer questions on his record won't help either.
I see the LA Weekly(*) crowd sitting this one out. The Weekly is going to endorse Davis, in a lengthly article saying how much they hate him. Then they'll say they hate Simon even more, but I think the end result is going to make lefty voters apathetic. (Sometimes, ironically enough, the Weekly is their own worst enemy).
Throw in the traditional higher Republican turnout and I think Simon can win this one, and by a surprising margin, too.
D
(*) The LA Weekly is the West Coast Village Voice; in fact, it's owned by the same people. It runs lengthly, high pretentious political articles by noted lefty authors.
Are you really satisfied with the public school your kid attends?
Are all the layoffs in this state making you just a little bit nervous about your job?
Simon can answer any charges of social-issue extremism by countering that Davis has a demonstrated record of drastically mismanaging the energy crisis, and the economy in general. If there is such a thing as economic policy extremism, Davis embodies it. (He's also a social policy extremist, but many Californians miss that.)
Simon can drag up the spectre of Davis asking Californians to trust him blindly during private negotiations with the likes of Enron. If he can stay on message, it should be a slam dunk...
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