Posted on 03/11/2002 12:16:04 PM PST by ElkGroveDan
If so, it is for embracing the real problems of California’s real people in a principled way.
Republican Whip Ray Haynes represents California’s 36th state Senate District.
I don’t usually comment on elections because hundreds of people are already handicapping them: assessing strategy and dissecting outcomes. But I am making an exception here because March 5 was so unique; it deserves an analysis other than the standard “Davis beat Riordan” horse race comment most people are writing.
First, the GOP governor’s primary: The standard analysis says Davis’s $10 million attack on Riordan cost Riordan the nomination. Davis supposedly spent a lot of money convincing Republican voters that Riordan is really pro-life (not pro-choice as Riordan claims), so that the Republican voters would desert Riordan and vote for the admittedly pro-life Bill Simon. Stating the premise demonstrates its absurdity. In fact, the Davis commercials strengthened Riordan’s hand in the Republican primary, since many pro-life Republicans actually believed the Davis commercials, and decided they could vote for Riordan.
Riordan then lashed back at Davis, insisting he was indeed absolutely “pro-choice,” and that Republicans ought to be ashamed for being pro-life. That is what lost the election for Riordan, not the Davis commercials. Everything Davis did to try to rehabilitate Riordan in Republican voters’ minds was reversed by Riordan’s preachy, country-clubbish attitude towards the Republican little people.
Simon, on the other hand, affirmed the voter, proudly proclaiming his conservative credentials, and won the faith and confidence of rank-and-file conservative voters. That, not Davis’s money, made the difference.
Second, the Legislature: The primary was a statewide conservative resurgence within the Party. In every race where the issue was clearly defined, the conservative won. The conservative movement, just months ago dying from lack of funds and a clear vision of its future, rose from the ashes and defeated the moderates in almost every case. The most interesting aspect of this re-emerging movement is that the moderates focused their money through groups like the New Majority, much like conservatives had in the early 1990s when they were winning. But even with this focused investment the moderates lost big everywhere.
The vote counts in statewide races are even more interesting. After the recession of the early 1990s, the Republican Party lost about one million of its most reliable voters to neighboring Nevada, Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, and other states. Much of the California GOP’s electoral failure since 1996 resulted from this migration of defense workers and small business owners.
This primary, however, saw a near tie in the number of votes cast in the statewide races. Attorney General Bill Lockyer, after four years in office, garnered fewer votes than Senator Dick Ackerman — not a good sign for Lockyer. Republicans received more Primary votes than Democrats in the governor’s, lieutenant governor’s, and controller’s races, coming within 100,000 votes in the rest of the races. This should worry Democrats. With more people willing to vote for Republicans, the general election could be much closer than anyone predicts.
Could the California Republican Party be in the midst of a renaissance? If it is, it is not for having embraced some mushy, middle sort of philosophy. It is for embracing the real problems of California’s real people in a principled way. That is the key. That is how this California Phoenix will rise.
Democrats have done a better GOTV effort in the past 4-6 years, and have turned out higher than Republicans. That can not last, otherwise we WILL lose. This means that Freepers ... conservatives, Christians, activists ... need to get out there are start working NOW for our victory in November. Simon's success in the primary was due in large part to word-of-mouth grassroots politics. We need to keep this up.
Interesting comment ? Remember, Simon plus Jones vote equal almost 70% to RHINOdans 30%.
I should start reading the preview!
As a California resident, I do hope this guy is right. But there is one big factor that is overlooked in the above:
Davis was virtually unoppossed for the Demo bid. The republicans had a valid reason for voting: three choices. Thus there was incentive for Republicans to vote.
I hesitatingly voted for Riordin, for reasons unrelated to Simon, and I will have no problem voting for Simon. I believe he will have a great chance to win especially since davis has made such an idiot out of himself!
This past Sunday there was a long Page One feature in the Ventura Star (and its satellite papers around the county) carrying on about pedophilia among priests in the Catholic church. There is a local angle since the Seminary in Camarillo has been identified as a place where some priests had weekend retreats to recruit young boys. The story was fairly well handled despite the dicey subject matter. Still, it was sensational and was implicitly a smear on Catholics and their church.
Was it mere coincidence that a couple of pages into the A-Section there was a major AP story about Simon and his generous contributions to Catholic causes? The story, with 2-column photograph, ran 45 column inches including a sidebar graph detailing his contribution history.
What made this particular piece so utterly biased and is that the first four emotionally-charged paragraphs focused on Simon and his charitable foundation's gifts to Catholic causes, and in the 5th graph the writer Jim Wasserman, out of the Sacramento AP bureau, got around to saying:
"Simon, who pulled off a stunning come-from-behind victory in Tuesday's primary, now faces Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat whose Catholic religious affiliation is largely unknown publicly." Wasserman goes on: "Davis, who is seldom photographed in church and makes almost no public references to his religion, easily defeated the Republican Party's last conservative Catholic nominee, Attorney General Dan Lungren, in 1998." And that's all Wasserman has to say about Davis.
Were I writing the piece I'd find this the logical place to point out that Davis is pro-abortion despite his Church's stand on the issue, and is thereby a complete hypocrite. Davis slammed Riordan with a $10 million TV ad campaign implying that the ex-L.A. Mayor was likely to work toward outlawing abortion in California -- another lie because Riordan is as pro-abortion as Davis. Instead, Wasserman went on to imply that Simon was going to let his Church -- pedophiles and all -- dominate his actions if elected governor.
The fact the anti-Simon media campaign has geared up this early is a good sign: they think he has a strong chance. But we're in for month after month of shameless propaganda and innuendo from the state's socialist media, especially from the AP. While the paper offers a chance to email staff writers, there's never the same option for AP-sourced stories. Can you Sacramento Freepers help out? I think AP ought to hear some of our thoughts about them.
Glad to have friends like you outside of our golden state! Thank you for your support ... conservatives around the country need to be united against liberals of all stripes, Republican OR Democrat.
..and that Simon is pro-death penalty despite his Church's stand on the issue, and thereby a complete hypocrite??
Conservatives are geting a little carried away.
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