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Posted on 05/06/2002 8:40:12 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
In the first few weeks after conservative William Simon, Jr. captured the California Republican gubernatorial nomination, Golden State conservatives were asking, "How much will the White House help?"Last week they got their answer when President Bush showed up in the state for two days of enthusiastic campaigning. Bush has now placed a big bet on California in this mid-term election.
It was no secret that Bush and White House political director Karl Rove would have preferred liberal former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan to win the California gubernatorial primary. After Simon demolished Riordan in the March 5 voting, ugly rumors circulated that the White House would "write off" California—a state that Democrats have carried by more than a million votes in four of the last five statewide contests.
Bush has now put those rumors to rest.
During his two-day swing through California, the President appeared at two Simon fund-raising events and strongly boosted the Republican nominee against Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.
At a sold-out Simon dinner at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, Bush hailed the conservative leader as "an entrepreneur with a generous heart" and someone who "is willing to lead, doesn’t need a poll or a focus group to tell him what to think, a man who will stand on principle, and a man who has the courage to do what is right for the people of California."
Likening criticism of first-time office seeker Simon to criticisms made of him in his winning race against Democratic Gov. Ann Richards of Texas in 1994, Bush drew laughter when he said: "Democrats are saying this is a fellow who’s never held elective office. Heck, he is a successful businessman. What can he possibly know about running an organization? Sounds familiar. Sounds like Ann Richards is advising the campaign!"
The Simon camp and state Republican headquarters originally hoped that Bush’s trip would net the gubernatorial candidate $3 million in contributions. In the end, the President actually raised more than $4.5 million.
The funding boost could not have come at a better time. While most polls show Simon in a neck-and-neck race with Davis, the Los Angeles lawyer-businessman is badly trailing the Democratic incumbent in fundraising. Between the March primary and Bush’s arrival, Simon had raised only $486,900 (one third of it from his three sisters), while Davis had taken in a whopping $1,287,624.
State GOP Chairman Shawn Steel and Simon campaign quarterback Sal Russo now confirm that Bush has promised additional fund-raising visits to California and that several Cabinet members and other administration officials will make campaign swings for Simon later in the year.
The aggressive pro-Simon, pro-California stance by Bush may be designed in part to make it up to California Republicans for the short-changing many in the state believe they received from his father. After carrying the nation’s largest state over Michael Dukakis in 1988, the elder Bush visited California infrequently. When he sought re-election in 1992, he all but conceded the state’s 54 electoral votes to Bill Clinton. Accordingly, the Democratic nominee rolled up nearly half the state’s votes in a three-way race.
Many California Republicans believed that Bush’s non-existent 1992 California campaign contributed to Republican Bruce Herschensohn’s narrow loss of a Senate seat to Democrat Barbara Boxer and to the defeat of Republican candidates in several close House races.
Noting that the elder Bush’s attitude toward California has long been remembered by Republicans operatives, Chairman Steel told me, "That is now put behind us by the performance of this President for our party and our candidate."
But even though they now know what the White House will do, California Republicans still wonder, "What will Gerry do?"
"Gerry" is Los Angeles investment banker Gerald Parsky, the President’s closest political friend in California. Thanks to a controversial plan that bears his name and limits the power of the state GOP chairman in favor of a special five-member operations committee, the 59-year-old Parsky is also the most powerful figure in the California GOP.
Yet despite Parsky’s boasts that his plan would help bring in more money for the party and its candidates, this has not happened, causing much grassroots criticism, especially in regard to the Simon campaign. As one veteran Republican political consultant told me: "In a state where there are no limits on donations to statewide races, it would be easy for Parsky to call 20 of his business friends on Bill’s behalf, and then he could match Davis dollar-for-dollar. But so far, he’s not doing it."
Others have suggested that the 50-year-old Simon—whose namesake-father, the late secretary of the Treasury, was a business partner of Parsky before the pair had an acrimonious, much-publicized fallout—reach out to Parsky and make him finance chairman, or at least co-chairman, of his campaign.
Doubts about Parsky on the right reached a high point two days after the gubernatorial primary, when the New York Times’ Richard Berke quoted Parsky as saying that "he was hoping, but not convinced, that Mr. Simon would run enough of a broadly-based campaign" to defeat Davis.
"‘A lot will depend on how the campaign is run," Parsky was quoted as saying. "If you are an extreme conservative, you cannot win in California.’"
Simon will win, the Times reported Parsky as predicting, only "if he is prepared to adopt the formula I describe."
For his part, Parsky insisted his remarks were misquoted and out of context. "I saw [Berke] only once and for about a minute-and-a-half, at the unity breakfast in Los Angeles on the morning after the primary," he told me several days after the Times story ran, "and I was not talking at all about Bill Simon but about the Republican Party itself and how it must avoid the perception of extremism. And that’s something I have been saying for more than a year. I certainly didn’t intend for people to take it the way they did."
Parsky went on to say that, differences with the candidate’s late father notwithstanding, "Bill Simon, Jr. and I are friends" and that he supports him. When I asked him whether he would go all out to raise money for Simon, Parsky was noncommittal.
Some conservatives were offended by Parsky’s remarks to the Times. Former California GOP Chairman John McGraw, and early Simon backer, told me, "If an extremist is defined as someone who is pro-life and pro-2nd Amendment, I am guilty as charged. But so is the President, the one Parsky is supposed to represent. If we want the party cleaned up, maybe Mr. Parsky should start at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."
But one former state GOP official who is a conservative and no friend of Parsky insisted that a gubernatorial campaign year was no time for internecine warfare in the party. "No quotes on Parsky," he said. "We have an election to win."
Bush is set to help Simon and California Republicans win the governorship. Will Parsky chip in?
indexing
Got to ping some folks to read this!
calgov2002:
 calgov2002: for old calgov2002 articles. calgov2002: for new calgov2002 articles. Other Bump Lists at: Free Republic Bump List Register |
"United we stand, divided we fall." And, held together by 'truth', not agreement.
George Herbert Walker Bush Library Foundation
The 'Trustee' list contains some very disturbing names, with NWO/globalist concerns, not to mention 'deals'. I know this is the library of GHW Bush, but....
Some of the names (famous and infamous)--
Tony Coelho--Alexandria, Virginia
Lodwrick M. Cook--Los Angeles, California
Barbara Fish Daniel--Houston, Texas
C. Boyden Gray--Washington, D.C.
Kenneth L. Lay--Houston, Texas
Edward N. Ney--New York, New York
Gerald L. Parsky--Los Angeles, California
Arnold Schwarzenegger--Santa Monica, California
Brent Scowcroft--Washington, D.C.
Jack Valenti--Washington, D.C.
Jerry Weintraub--Burbank, California
John F. Welch--Fairfield, Connecticut
Gary Winnick--Beverly Hills, California
'TRUTH has set, and TRUTH shall keep, us free'
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