FRESNO — There was no way to anticipate it at the time, but Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bill Jones owes his political career to a black student radical with the tongue-twisting name of Bill Riddlesprigger. It was 1970, and Jones, conservative son of a Central Valley rancher, had just been elected president of the Cal State Fresno student government. In his long-sleeved sweater with the cuffs folded back an inch, Jones had the anachronistic look of a Four Freshmen Republican in a Jimi Hendrix world, puffing on a pipe while many in his generation smoldered with rage. There was a...