Nobody thought Bill Simon had a prayer of winning California’s statehouse. What’s he doing in a dead heat?
By Karen BreslauJune 17 issue — In Orange County, once represented by Rep. “B-1 Bob” Dornan, it’s impossible to say anything too harsh about a Democrat—especially if his name is Gov. Gray Davis and you are the Republican nominee gunning for his job.
SPEAKING LAST WEEK to the Lincoln Club, the GOP’s most faithful, Bill Simon gave it his best shot. “I want to run a positive campaign, so I hope you’ll permit me to bring up a few things about Gray Davis,” said Simon, with a sly grin. “He’s a good campaigner and a good fund-raiser, but he just happens to be an awful governor.” The Lincoln Club waited for the knockout punch, but it never came; Simon cut short his assault before it had even begun. The well-heeled crowd snickered appreciatively and stared at their plates, still hungry for red meat. But by then, Simon was back on message, looking every bit like Clark Kent as he lectured earnestly about building roads and boosting water supplies.
It was this decorous, Eagle Scout quality that made many Republicans doubt whether Simon, a businessman who has never held elective office, could win the Republican primary in the first place. But last March he overcame a 30-point gap in the polls to defeat former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan. Simon’s victory stunned the Bush administration, which had backed the more moderate Riordan. And it delighted Davis, who had blasted Riordan during the primary with $10 million in negative ads, anticipating that Simon’s conservative stands on abortion, gun control and environmental regulation would make him a weaker opponent in November. “If people knew anything about him it was, ‘Oh, my God, he’s a right-wing Republican’,” says Davis polltaker Paul Maslin.
BUSH’S BELATED EMBRACE
But a funny thing happened on the way to the landslide: instead of collapsing, Simon, 50, has advanced in recent weeks into a virtual dead heat with Davis. While Simon has yet to issue coherent policies, he has moved deftly to defuse perhaps his biggest political liability in pro-choice California. He recently told a GOP women’s group that, as governor, he would never interfere with a woman’s legal right to an abortion. Simon is also enjoying the belated embrace of George W. Bush, who is helping with fund-raising chores—and sending his wife, Laura, for a rare political appearance in San Francisco this week.
Meanwhile, Davis, scarred by California’s energy crisis and a mounting budget deficit, has seen his popularity plunge. Suddenly, the prospect of a Simon victory is no longer as farfetched as it seemed three months ago. “Voters may not know much about Bill, but they know plenty about Davis,” says former governor Pete Wilson. “That’s enough for Bill.”
But Davis, who has spent decades in California politics, still has enormous advantages, starting with the fact that California is an overwhelmingly Democratic state. With $40 million in the bank, Davis last week launched TV ads to repair his tattered image. Ads attacking Simon are in the can. “He’s a babe in the woods,” says Davis adviser Garry South.
While Simon lags in fund-raising, he can dip into a personal fortune—he founded a successful investment firm with his father, former Nixon Treasury secretary William E. Simon. The candidate says his lack of political experience shouldn’t scare voters away. “There are times it’s good to have an outsider,” Simon told NEWSWEEK. “I’ve had the kind of experience where you sign the front of the check instead of the back.” If he plans on being governor of California, Bill Simon had better keep his pen handy.