Posted on 02/23/2003 12:32:11 AM PST by winner3000
Edited on 05/26/2004 5:12:15 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
I believe that New York Republicans, including Pataki, will cave in to Democrat demands for higher taxes. They were co-conspirators in getting the state in a $ 10 billion (minimum) fiscal hole.
In the eyes of California Republicans over 25, the last re-election effort for a president named Bush ended in unqualified disaster.
George Bush's 1992 loss to Democrat Bill Clinton in California helped deny re-election to a sitting GOP president for the first time since Herbert Hoover's Depression-era ouster in 1932.
Perhaps worse, the Bush campaign virtually shut down its California operation in the closing weeks of the race, depressing voter interest in an election in which two Democrats won U.S. Senate terms, and larger Democratic margins in the congressional delegation and the state Assembly were established.
Eleven years later, as the state party struggles to regain its legs amid Democratic control at all levels in California, there are suggestions that President Bush will have difficulty doing what his father couldn't accomplish.
Unity remains elusive. The state party's outgoing chairman, Shawn Steel, on Friday blasted Bush's handpicked point man in California, Gerald L. Parsky, as incompetent and "the most divisive person in our party."
Bush himself has shown little interest in face time in the state. He has visited five times since his election, while traveling to other vote-rich states far more often -- nearly 20 times to Pennsylvania.
Experts say underlying demographic trends, particularly the Democrats' dominance in attracting Latino and other nonwhite voters in the '90s, have made it even more difficult for a Republican presidential candidate to carry the state -- nearly impossible if he or she needs it to win the presidency.
At least some evidence was provided in the tight 2000 election, they say, where in California the younger Bush outspent Democrat Al Gore by at least $15 million, but captured only 29 percent of a growing Latino vote and lost by 1.3 million votes -- nearly a 12-percentage-point gap.
Bottom line: Republicans haven't come close to winning the state since 1988, when the elder Bush narrowly beat a weak Democrat in Michael Dukakis.
"You can see a scenario where Bush carries the state, but in that scenario he is winning by a landslide nationwide and would go over the top without California's electoral votes," said John J. Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College and former research director for the Republican National Committee.
"In a reasonably close (nationwide) election, the president has an uphill battle in California to say the least," he said. "As far as making a serious effort to win the state in 2004, I think California is well back in the line."
The theory is acknowledged wearily by the most avid Republicans in private conversations, although not necessarily accepted by them publicly.
GOP activists -- including those at this weekend's state convention in Sacramento -- are formulating strategy for a 2004 campaign at least some believe could deliver California's 55 electoral votes.
Bush has the power of the incumbency and enjoyed high performance ratings from as many as 60 percent of the state's voters in statewide polls last fall. While those marks were down from a peak of 80 percent immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, they were well above the 41 percent approval ratings just before 9/11.
And Bush's 2004 Democratic opponent, whoever it turns out to be, will not have the power of Bill Clinton's popularity here to help, said state Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga.
"This is a state that all things being equal wants to vote Democrat," Brulte said. "The way a Republican wins is making sure things aren't equal."
But Brulte, the highest-ranking GOP official in California after last fall's Democratic sweep of statewide offices, acknowledged that California either will be "the icing on the cake" for a Bush landslide re-election or, even in defeat, will force the Democrats to expend critical time and money they would rather use in other states. Either way, it will contribute to Bush's re-election.
"We will make the Democrats pay mightily to carry this state," Brulte said.
Another high-profile Republican, racial-preferences foe Ward Connerly, was less optimistic but predicted Bush will likely do better than he did in the 2000 race.
"If the president can find the right equation here, he can be competitive," Connerly said. "I'm not saying he can win, but I think he can be competitive provided the economy turns around and provided this war thing doesn't get out of control. It's a tough road, but I don't think California is going to be a must win (for Bush to be re-elected). It's not make or break."
Parsky, the Los Angeles investor whom the White House has entrusted with rebuilding a fractured party organization and guiding the re-election bid, remains upbeat.
Bush, he said, is gaining popularity among minority voters and will use his administration's Latino appointees to help attract Latino voters to the GOP next year. Senior citizen and female voters, many of whom abandoned Bush in the final days of the 2000 race out of fear of the unknown, "now see how he has governed" and will support Bush in greater numbers, Parsky said.
Pollster Mark DiCamillo noted that Bush actually fared better than 1998 gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren in attracting Latino votes. "There's always been this hope among Republicans that they will stop the bleeding with a candidate who appeals to Latinos, and Bush may fit that bill," he said.
Bush's tax-cut proposals will contrast nicely with California Democrats' move to raise taxes to solve the state budget crisis, Parsky said.
"I don't think you concede California to the Democrats and I don't think you need to, and (Bush political adviser) Karl Rove knows that," Parsky said.
Steel, a foe of Parsky's efforts to professionalize the state GOP's fund-raising and campaign efforts, blamed him for many of the party's ills as the convention weekend opened Friday. The party membership remains too white, and the efforts in 2000 to get out the vote failed miserably, Steel said.
"Clearly if Mr. Parsky is the person that's in charge of the Bush campaign in California, it means it will not be a serious effort," Steel said. "If Parsky is not involved, it means it will be a mainstream battleground and (California's) electoral votes will be up for grabs. ... He was supposed to come in and unite us. He failed to do that. He divided us."
Steel said the party needs to expand the number of delegates at state conventions "because we have too few of expanding communities" to reflect California's diversity.
"When we decide that we want to really change the party culture, really open it up to the hundreds of new ethnic communities that are growing and developing in California, then we'll become a dominant majority party," Steel said. "My plea to the Republican legislators particularly is stop appointing your wives and your family members and try to find people who emerging leaders in these ethnic communities and bring them into the party."
California Democrats are licking their chops, even though they have no idea who will carry their message in the 2004 race.
The party's campaign in California will blame Bush for the energy crisis and the economic slowdown and blast him for his environmental policies and a funding crisis at Los Angeles' health care clinics, said Bob Mulholland, the state party's political adviser.
State Democrats hope Bush does one thing differently than his father did in 1992; they want him to campaign in California often.
"We want him out here all the time," Mulholland said. "It'll be a waste of money."
And a good-size chunk of the rest is living in and around Hollywood. Maybe this "tax the rich" stuff isn't entirely a bad idea. If there were just a way to limit it to rich Democrats, I could get behind it 100%.
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