Posted on 03/04/2002 10:52:20 PM PST by JohnHuang2
As a single issue voter – I like my candidates to win – I was open to being persuaded by Bill Jones, Dick Riordan or Bill Simon, the three leading candidates for the GOP nomination to run against California's ungovernor, Gray Davis. I have interviewed each of these men on television and radio, and all three are affable, enjoyable and competent professionals.
Each one of them would be a huge improvement over Davis, now widely viewed as a cross between Iago, Boss Tweed and Homer Simpson. For me, it came down to the candidate best positioned to run hard from Wednesday forward and tough enough to put up with an increasingly desperate Davis. Who, in short, would have the best shot against Governor Clouseau in the fall?
I am voting for Bill Simon.
By now many will have been persuaded by out-of-state reporters that a Simon victory will be a great win for Davis; that Davis poured millions into beating Riordan; and that a Simon nomination represents a replay of the losing candidacy of Dan Lungren in 1998. As is usually the case, it's best to ask the locals for a real view of the geography, and when doing so, to avoid the ideologically blinkered. Sunday's New York Times found a resident lefty to agree with all of these points. Imagine the surprise on the East Coast when a Davis-Simon race is among the most riveting in the country.
Let's start with some history. Lungren did lose, part of the wipeout that followed the disastrous issuance of the Starr Report and the counter-impeachment undertow of the fall of 1998. The blowback from Latino voters to 1994's Prop 187 also contributed. The Lungren campaign was also hobbled by management issues. California's legendary political consultant, Ken Khachigian, sat it out. Davis also benefited, mightily, from an incumbent president at his service.
Liberals disguised as "reporters" like to talk about Lungren's pro-life views as the cause of his collapse, but that is just agenda-journalism dressed up as analysis. These folks never explain why liberal GOP Congressman Tom Campbell got blown out by Dianne Feinstein, why Matt Fong managed to lose to the off-the-charts liberal Barbara Boxer or how pro-life George Deukmejian beat Tom Bradley twice. The answer – that the life/choice debate doesn't drive more than 2 percent of the electorate – doesn't fit the agenda, so it is disregarded.
California elections come down to this – an energized base, plus credibility on the central issues of the moment, plus a highly disciplined, professional campaign. Even three months ago, Riordan looked like the guy to put this package together. Folks like me who are pro-life were willing to vote big tent in order to put up a candidate that could attack Davis with discipline and vigor.
Riordan instead retained advisers who persuaded him that attacking the base rather than wooing it was a fine idea, and then the Riordan campaign found itself wobbling along without a message of optimism from a man who led Los Angeles almost solely from optimism for eight years. The wheels came off.
Over in the Simon camp, the message of competence was underscored by the appearance of Mayor Giuliani barnstorming the state with his old prosecuting partner – a nice double, since Rudy is also the sort of center-left Republican that the pro-choice GOP loves. The memory of 1966 and the sudden emergence of Reagan began to spread among insiders.
Others thought that the hapless Davis had done it again – he had set out to wound but not kill Riordan, but spent $10 million on helping nominate a young father of four with demonstrated appeal among Latinos who can most assuredly read a balance statement. Davis is claiming he's delighted with the Simon surge. Six months ago, Davis was claiming he was delighted with the ruinous power contracts he'd negotiated for the state. Now he wants those contracts voided. Wherever he is, it's the greatest place to be, until he's left for some new place.
Davis won't make it easy for Bill Simon. The Stepford Governor is nothing except unprincipled and ambitious, and there is nothing he won't do or say to win. Davis is one-third of a Cerberean campaign, the other two heads of which are Gary South and Bob Mulholland. South and Mulholland are never invited to polite gatherings, but they make Murray Chotiner look like Barney. (And if you don't know who Murray Chotiner is, I sure hope you aren't giving out opinions on California politics.) Expect dirty tricks like the one Mulholland played on Herschensohn in 1992 which, aided by the partisan hacks at the Los Angeles Times, gave the country Barbara Boxer in the first place.
I decided on Simon after interviewing all three GOP candidates on my radio program last week. He's upbeat, energized, ready to answer baseless attacks, and he doesn't condescend to the voter. After the attacks on America, Simon is an almost ideal candidate to deliver the big three: honor, candor, and purpose. Simon will not only run strong in California, he's a perfect new face for the GOP nationally as well.
The central issue in California in 2002 is the almost breathtaking incompetence of Gray Davis, a career political hack who found himself in the biggest job in the state and froze. On issue after issue Davis has fumbled the ball and called it a touchdown. He believes he can spin himself out of his disastrous handling of the state power shortage and his mismanagement of the state's budget. "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" is not a question for voters, it's a laugh line. As the Simon campaign reminds people, Davis' slogan four years ago was "Experience money can't buy." Now we know why --there'd be no takers, period.
So Davis will attack, and attack, and attack. Here is where the real Reagan parallel comes in. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter was surrounded by the ruins of his first term in office and confronting an upbeat optimist from the West Coast in Reagan. So Carter attacked, again and again, and tried to persuade America that Reagan was a reckless ideologue. But 1980 was one of those years in which the American voter was unwilling to be spun. Americans were held hostage, and a war had broken out in Afghanistan. It was time for a change, and a big one. Reagan won in a walk.
Sound familiar? If Bill Simon stays upbeat and on message, if he focuses on California's tottering economy and collapsed schools, and if he conveys the same wide-open embrace of all hard-working Americans, the worst governor in California's history will also be the first one in a century to lose his first campaign for re-election.
This morning I sent an email out to 50 Californians reminding them and urging them to vote for Simon. Later I will email and phone those at work to remind them to please stop at the polls and vote for Simon before they go home.
Then, after we make history by making him the victor today, we can start closing the book on the Fadeout Fascist Davis!
California and America can't afford four more years of the Fascist Davis!
I spent a few hours on the telephone Sunday calling "likely GOP" voters, and they were at least 10 to 1 in favor of.... BILL SIMON!!!
I also get the sense that the Dems aren't very excited about Davis, although core voters will obviously vote for him.
All New Jersey Freepers should read this, since this statement describes precisely the same central issue that will face Jim McGreevey in 2005. Buckle up and enjoy the ride -- It's going to be a bumpy one, but I wouldn't miss it for the world.
RonDog, who do you recommend for Lt. Gov? Sec. of State? Treasurer? Insurance Commissioner?
Sorry, CG - I have no firm advice on those races.I was voting for ANYBODY but Riordan.
Priceless. I just got back from voting for Simon. Also voted for John Adams (actual write in) against child molestor Judge Klein, No on 45 and No on W.
Go Simon!
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