Posted on 03/06/2002 8:10:50 PM PST by Pokey78
It's the end of an era in California politics. And with the backdrop of the war, it could be the beginning of a new era in local elections.
WITH THE upset victory of businessman Bill Simon over former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan, the Republican primary in the California governor's race marks the end of an era. Not just the end of the Riordan era, but the end of an era when Republican politics seemed to follow identifiable national trends.
Upset is actually the wrong word for what happened on Tuesday. It's true that Riordan began the campaign so heavily favored that Simon was thought a mere nuisance candidate when he persisted in running. Riordan also had the backing of George W. Bush, the expertise of White House chief of staff Karl Rove, and $100 million of his own that he was reportedly ready to spend in next fall's general election against Gray Davis. (In the event, he didn't tap a cent of it.)
But for weeks now, reporters (including the Weekly Standard's) have been returning from the West Coast with reports that Simon was surging. Governor Davis, a moderate Democrat who feared the centrist Riordan, in effect joined the Simon effort, with a wide-ranging campaign of press events painting Riordan as a theocrat-in-sheep's-clothing on abortion and guns. Although it needn't have, this PR campaign drove Riordan to the left, and away from his GOP base.
That is the tried and true Democratic general election strategy--painting a candidate as "out of the mainstream," even when his opinions may be closer than those of his opponents to those the electorate reveals in polls--and its novel application in another party's primary serves the ultimate aim of garnering a general election opponent who is even more out of the mainstream.
But the real story is that the Bush administration read the situation in California badly. The Bushies reckoned that, with the state's shifting demographics, the easygoing centrist who rescued the country's first post-melting pot metropolis in the months after the Rodney King riots would be the year's model, and that the Reagan-era regulars, bowing to the obvious, would get with the program.
Spectacularly, that did not happen. What's the explanation? You could say that we're in the middle of a conservative mini-resurgence in the Republican party, and that Simon is merely following a trend started by right-wing insurgent Bret Schundler in last year's New Jersey governor's primary. (If so, given that Simon looks set to get clocked as badly as Schundler did in the general election, the Republican right will have to see the writing on the wall eventually.)
Or you could say that September 11 has meant smoother sailing for local political establishments--that pressing national matters have focused voters' attention beyond the power of television ads and get-out-the-vote efforts to distract them. Victory will now go, more often than not, to the most energetic party activists, regardless of their ideology. In this reading, national purpose means local flightiness.
Either way, Riordan will be missed. I remember a rally in a park underneath a freeway in Los Angeles a month before the 1993 mayoral race when a supporter hollered, "We love you, Dick! Don't let anyone make you defensive about your money!"
"I agree!" Riordan replied. "What do you want? Someone to run this city who's a failure?"
It's the typical losers mentality of the alleged conservatives that write for the Meekly Standard.
This line right here tells you the viewpoint of the writer. Gray Davis is a moderate, and Riordan is a centrist. I suppose if you're a socialist marxist, Davis is a moderate.
California has a failed Democratic Governor in a liberal state. And the best the Republican can do with a clean slate is a 2 point lead. That is disaster city with a capitol D.
The lowest Davis will be is today. He has endured a year and more of bad publicity. He had no one to run against. That is always the low point. Look at all the candidates that were in troble. Harry Truman in 48 was down 30 points to Dewey. Ford was down 20 points to Carter in 1976 and broght it to within 3 points. Humphry was down 30 points at the start of the 1968 campaign and brought it to within 5. Bush had 20 point lead on Gore at this point in 2000 and we know what happened then.
The lowest an in office politician goes is when it is bad him against nobody. Now it will be bad him against Simple Simon. That is no contest. Unless Davis really screwes up this is a Davis blow out.
Davis starts this race with a 2 point Simon lead. That has to look like heaven to Davis. He will attack and drive Simon's negatives up. Simon can attack all he wants and Davis's negatives will not go any higher.
Simon will fall behind by 15 to 20 points by this fall's election. Bush and the national republicans knew that.. so did Davis.
never say never. Simon hasn't even started running ads against Davis.
If Gray Davis is reduced to running on his education record, he will lose. So Davis will do his best to make the issue Bill Simon. Davis can not win when the focus is on him and his failed term as governor. It is going to be a very ugly next eight months.
Gee, I seem to recall a mushy moderate Republican named Bob Franks losing to John Corzine in New Jersey.
Oh really? March of 2000? Nope, I don't think so...
It is important, I believe, to understand why a liberal scumbag like this Caldwell would say something like this. Why would he believe that the "Republican right" would abandon its principles? (This is clearly what he infers must happen.) It can only be because Caldwell himself has no principles. His quote above reveals a shallowness and lack of character usually seen only in the lowest and most corrupt political hacks. And somebody like that can never be trusted.
I won't bother with this author again.
In 1993, Pete Wilson had a 15% (YES, FIFTEEN PERCENT) job approval rating... in 1994, he smashed Kathleen Brown. It is hard to knock off an incumbent, even one that looks quite vulnerable.
Squishy liberal ("moderate") Republicans who are challenged by conservatives nearly always lose. McCrazy is another one who tried going liberal in the Republican primary and ended up getting clocked by Dubya. These traitorous "moderates" need to be cut out of the Republican Party like festering malignant tumors. I feel gratified every time another one gets trounced.
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