Saunders: Why Not Win? (California Republicans)

Townhall.com ^ | 5-23-03 | Debra Saunders

[cgk]

Why not win?
Debra Saunders (archive)

May 23, 2003 | Print | Send

Here's my question for the political team at the White House:

How many elections do California Republicans have to lose because the White House is afraid that certain candidates and issues will cost the GOP wins elsewhere in the country or in the future?

As Chuck Todd reported in the National Journal, "Republicans this side of the White House lawn" are opposed to efforts by Californians to push former Gov. Pete Wilson to run against Sen. Barbara Boxer.

It doesn't matter that Wilson has won four statewide runs for office. Or that Republicans lost bids for every statewide office in November. The Bushies fear that Wilson will alienate Latino voters.

Forget Wilson for a second: It's the attitude that really bites.

The Bushies are free to write off California as impossible to win in 2004 -- if they choose to ignore the Field poll that found 61 percent of California voters approve of Bush's job performance.

But it's not their place to discourage the one Republican most likely to win in California.

Especially when their objection is that Wilson supported a 1994 initiative -- Proposition 187, which sought to deny benefits to illegal immigrants -- that 59 percent of state voters supported.

Note to Karl Rove: Popularity wins elections.

A few words about Prop. 187: It's the bogeyman tale GOP strategists tell their clients to keep them up at night. Once upon a time, Wilson's support for Prop. 187 chased Latinos away from the GOP because he made the GOP look racist.

Nonsense. Prop. 187 passed not because Californians were anti-immigrant, but because they objected to paying for benefits for illegal immigrants. In fact, a Los Angeles Times exit poll found that 23 percent of Latino voters supported Prop. 187.

Latino California Assemblyman Robert Pacheco noted with regret that Democrats have managed to turn Prop. 187 into a "wedge" against Republicans.

Fair enough, but I doubt that Boxer wants to remind Californians that Wilson backed the same measure that a majority of them backed -- only to see it overturned by the courts. Not when California has suffered a $38 billion budget shortfall and L.A. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich complained recently that the county has becoming "an HMO for illegal immigrants."

Word is that the White House won't take sides in the primary. It seems that the Bushies learned their lesson with former L.A. Mayor Dick Riordan, whom they coaxed into the governor's race only to watch him lose the primary to the bumbling Bill Simon.

Still, party solons have floated the name of U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin, a Latina who worked for seven years in the allegedly racist Wilson administration. Marin announced her resignation this morning. Rep. George Radanovich, R-Calif., and Simon have looked at the race. Former Los Altos Hills Mayor Toni Casey has announced. No disrespect is intended, but these folks are learning how to crawl, while Wilson has won the marathon four times.

The GOP hasn't won a top California statewide office since Wilson won in 1994. There's no Republican to greet President Bush when he comes off the plane here.

When Bush came to Santa Clara this month, he had to reach into the Central Valley to find a Republican he could even name, Rep. Richard Pombo.

Even if President Bush doesn't try to win California, he'll be coming to the state to raise money. Do White House biggies really want to risk Bush running for re-election with his arm draped around another bumbler?

©2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Contact Debra Saunders | Read Saunders's biography

[Mister Baredog]

Exactly how does it benefit the GOP to have whackjobs like those two who vote against the majority?

You must be kidding. Without them DASHOLE would be setting the agenda and running the committees. They don't ALWAYS vote against the GOP, if fact they mostly do vote with their party, quit complaining.

Regaining the Senate in 2002 was a pleasant historical MIRACLE, thanks to a hardworking President laying himself on the line.

[Mister Baredog]

I only wish people other than those who watched Brit Hume (or maybe C-SPAN) had seen it.

It was on the local news last night here in LA. By the way FOX network just knocked ABC into 4th place, now that's NEWS!

[RobbyS]

Spector is likely to remain on the reservation, because a strong, young. conservative contender will face him in the primary. Rove is smart but he forgets that to win a horse race one must first have a horse.

[Saundra Duffy]

Karl Rove can kiss my butt.

[BlessedByLiberty]

There is a new angle to anyone wanting to run against Boxer and that is the proposed Indian gaming casino in Sonoma county near Sears Point Raceway. Turns out her son represents the Indian tribe (for whom I believe she helped Grayout Davis gain federal recognition so that they would qualify). She missed the meeting held last week with Marin/Sonoma voters regarding this issue. And this one is explosive...the complex is huge - with a hotel, etc.

Other developers have never been allowed to devlop this land - and the Marin enviro types are incensed. This pitting one liberal faction against another (the enviros and hypenated classes-Indians) is fascinating and instructive. It could mean a walk for an alternate candidate - voters in this area are strangling under heavy taxation and regulations. However, none of those regulations are applicable for Inidian casinos, even exempted from Enviro Impact Reports as I understand it.

[cgk]

Wow! Well, I stand corrected. Shows how much I know about what local news covers ;). Last time I checked it was a lot of dog shows, consumer reports on diet fads, recall info on cars, and gang shootings.

[ElkGroveDan]

Wilson would be a colassal disaster for the Republican Party.

If we want to win so badly and that's all that matters – winning, why not encourage Bill Clinton to move to California and register as a Republican? Why not draft him to run?

Think about it. All that matters is that a Republican wins. As Debra and many others are so fond of pointing out we need to put all the nasty social issues and deeply held convictions behind us so that we can just win.

With Clinton on the ticket as a Republican we could save all the GOP money for down ticket races since he would surely win our liberal state with out a dollar spent.

I think its time for us to admit that despite the view in the popular press, it wasn't 187 that did-in our party. It was Wilson's liberal Republican jihad against the values mainstream conservatives hold dear.

Who will ever forget Pete travelling to New Hampshire in 1976 to denounce Ronald Reagan? Is that the image we want for our standard bearer?

Who will ever forget the memorable quotes; "Conservatives are f***ing irrelevant," opponents of special rights for gays are "mean-spirited bigots?"

Who will forget the 1992 primaries and the legislative holy wars that Wilson lost 14-2 and left our nominees with empty bank accounts when we were poised to capture the majority in the Assembly?

Who will forget Wilson’s letter of support for Paul Horcher in 1993 when conservatives were pondering a primary challenge to Willie Brown’s lap dog? Thank you Pete Wilson for all you have done for the Republican Party.

Note to Debra Saunders: building a party with rotten candidates is like building a house with rotten wood. It’s only a matter of time until the whole thing collapses.

If all we want is to win, and we want to see more of the kind of GOP destruction that Wilson did to our party, we really should go the entire route and draft Clinton. We will win by a bigger margin and we will effectively destroy the Republican Party, but it will be quick and painless this time. With either man at the helm the Republican Party would be just as doomed.

[Amerigomag]

I for one am sick and tired of the Rove/Bush election strategy which is implimemted at the expense of my state, my personal economics and my personal well being.

Screw them both if they plan to win the election by turning a blind eye to the massive migration from central and northern Mexico into California.

From my perspective there is no real difference between Bush and any other candidate if his policies reduce one of the largest states to a third world, bulkanized ghetto.

[Uncle Hal]

A pretty good article by Saunders. She is the Chronicles token Republican. I do not agree with her on everything. She is some times a little off the wall. She said she did not vote for Simon in the last election which I thought was a stab in the back to the party. At times she is insightful.

[dagnabbit]

Good point. Bush is a dud. He's done less than nothing in two years to stem massive third-world population transfers to this country, despite having control of Congress, despite getting a blank check, post 9-11, to re-write U.S. immigration law, and despite popular support for immigration reduction. Instead this inarticulate wonder restores welfare to immigrants (cut off under Clinton!), tries to sneak amnesties through with other legislation, and now conspires to bring about an extra-legal "Matricula card" stealth amnesty.

[Consort]

Even a RINO like Oly Snowe, or Voinovich? Exactly how does it benefit the GOP to have whackjobs like those two who vote against the majority?

Post #5 was exactly correct. Can't you see that? If a RINO helps the GOP to keep control the Senate, the it benefits the Conservatives in the GOP, even if the RINO is a whackjob. Without control of Congress there would have been a tax increase...not a tax cut. Yes? No?