CALIFORNIA, WAVE OF THE PAST
BARNES, FRED
CALIFORNIA, WAVE OF THE PAST The Nation’s Political Trendsetter Turns Reactionary By Fred Barnes Riverside, Calif. Gray Davis is no trendsetter. Candidates for statewide office in...
...They’ve set their sights low...
...And paycheck protection—the practice of forcing unions to get written permission before using a worker’s dues for politics—was smothered as a national issue when it was defeated in a California referendum last June...
...Davis emerged from the June primary with a favorable rating in polls higher than when he announced...
...The governors of Florida and Texas—the Bush brothers, both Republicans—will have as much impact on redistricting...
...Serious crime is down 35 percent in California...
...Once a quiet backer of three-strikes, which mandates a long prison term for third-time felons, he’s now an enthusiast...
...Jane Harman, had their own money to spend...
...The problem from a political standpoint is that conservative anti-crime proposals—the death penalty, three-strikes-and-you’re-out, more prisons—have been enacted, and they work...
...Dan Lungren, the Republican candidate for governor, is a reliable conservative...
...I got a taste of California’s media priorities last week after covering the Riverside rally and later interviewing Lungren...
...He even criticizes teachers occasionally...
...Rather than trendsetting, this is the politics of hindsight...
...As a result, “they’re more interested in doing lifestyle or entertainment or weather or whatever...
...What made California politically unique was something larger...
...A GOP sweep would not only elect Lungren and Fong, it might return the noisiest Republican of all, Bob Dornan, to Congress...
...Davis, the Democratic candidate for governor, is likable but totally conventional...
...A Los Angeles Times poll in mid-October found she’d jumped to a 5-point lead among likely voters...
...As for education, Davis is backing most of the conservative reform agenda except vouchers...
...That occurred once Checchi unleashed a barrage of negative ads about Harman...
...Bill Carrick, the premier Democratic consultant in California, says TV stations convene focus groups to find out what viewers want...
...California isn’t quite a political backwater...
...Several things had to happen that were out of his control...
...Democrats gripe, too...
...He attacked Davis for opposing parental consent and backing taxpayer- funded abortions, then concluded: “Isn’t it time to get back to the major issues of this campaign...
...They relish an end to 16 years of Republican governors in California, nothing more...
...But he concedes there’s “no outstanding issue” in California in 1998...
...It went on and on and on, a dozen police cruisers following a single car thief who finally gave up peacefully...
...I’ve enjoyed the special moments with Dan,” he said sarcastically...
...But California today is where political trends die...
...And it helps Davis where Democrats often falter—among white male voters in the state’s inland areas...
...That may have helped WilFred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...But national political trends are not being made in California this fall...
...But Gov...
...In a 30- second spot, he zinged Lungren for sponsoring bills “to outlaw abortion, even in cases of rape and incest...
...THE ONLY POLITICAL EXPORT FROM CALIFORNIA TO HAVE ANY REAL IMPACT IN 1998 IS MONICA LEWINSKY...
...And in a debate with Lungren, Davis blurted, “Singapore is a good starting point in terms of law and order...
...Not surprisingly, the political class in California is having trouble accepting the fact California is no longer the trendsetter...
...Still, Garry South, Gray Davis’s campaign manager, says if Lungren were running for the Senate, he’d beat Boxer easily...
...Ronald Brownstein, the political writer for the Los Angeles Times, tried to resurrect this role by arguing the Davis-Lungren clash foreshadows the 2000 presidential race...
...To her, anyone to the right of President Clinton is an “extremist,” so Fong qualifies...
...Maybe, but what’s striking is how backward-looking Davis’s position is...
...Pete Wilson pushed a 25 percent reduction through the California legislature this year, taking the issue off the table...
...This fall, the referendum that’s gotten the most attention involves whether casino gambling should be allowed on Indian reservations, hardly a novelty...
...A new study found that the Los Angeles Times has given the 1998 governor’s race less than half the coverage it gave the 1994 contest between Wilson and Democrat Kathleen Brown...
...He says judges should have the discretion to lower the minimum age for capital punishment to 14...
...I’m proud of everyone who answered the call...
...Davis has managed at times to outflank Lungren to the right on crime...
...For a Democrat, Davis plays an unusual card: his Vietnam record...
...For one, Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein had to stay out, and she did...
...To get covered, he says, “I might have my next press conference in a slow white Bronco going down the freeway...
...Boxer told a labor gathering: “Five more [Republican] votes in the Senate, and there will be no more rights for working people...
...It’s on the ballot in Washington state this year...
...Davis eagerly endorsed the cut...
...And just like the governor of California, they’ll be viewed as potential presidential or vice presidential candidates...
...Once an opponent of the death penalty, he’s now for it...
...Campaign manager South says Davis had planned not to raise the abortion issue, but changed his mind after seeing polls on how pro-choice California is...
...She calls him “the gun lobby’s favorite candidate,” despite his support for the 1994 federal ban on assault weapons...
...But in the October 12 debate she became so rattled, she merely insisted “it is time to move on . . . to the issues that the people care about...
...But Fong’s real passion— he’s an Air Force Academy graduate—is national security, not a cutting-edge issue in 1998...
...Polls show Boxer is loathed by a majority of male voters in California...
...Lungren fired back with his own ad...
...With a sharply Republican tilt in turnout on November 3, a GOP sweep could develop...
...To be honest, most Republican strategists in California aren’t predicting this, and neither am I. But if it happens, you can be sure it’s a preview of 2000...
...Now all are gone...
...Lungren thinks his army of 82,000 volunteers may help produce this...
...Fong will rearrange the Republican electorate slightly by picking up normally Democratic Asian-American votes...
...I doubt it...
...Boxer herself—her personality, her liberalism, and what’s known here as the “hypocrisy question”— is the issue...
...He wanted to focus his campaign on a cut in the car tax, an idea copied from Republican Jim Gilmore’s winning bid for the Virginia governorship last year...
...Anything but politics...
...Unlike World War II, when serving was “clear-cut,” Vietnam service was a tough decision, he says...
...THE STATE IS NOT A HARBINGER...
...Actually, another export may be coming, a negative one...
...Yet she has a solid chance of winning reelection...
...It’s the most populous state, and the next governor will be a major factor in shaping reapportionment of the House of Representatives after 2000...
...Why, she was asked repeatedly in her two TV debates with Fong, had she insisted on running Republican Bob Packwood out of the Senate for groping women but been so reluctant to criticize Clinton...
...All the stations were broadcasting a car chase live from cameras in their traffic helicopters...
...He has methodically altered a liberal image created by his tenure as chief of staff to Democratic governor Jerry Brown in the 1970s...
...That suggested abortion isn’t one, annoying pro-lifers...
...Except in one respect, the other major race is as prosaic as the campaign for governor...
...The result of all this...
...It’s the issue that sealed his fate,” insists South...
...It was made up of trial lawyers, union members, and elected Democratic officials—the only folks excited about Davis’s candidacy...
...What Davis lacks in charisma, he makes up for in discipline...
...This is reactionary liberalism...
...But this doesn’t make the governor of California unique...
...Issues like tax cuts and term limits and a ban on racial preferences...
...And if they weren’t, then the subjects they raised, or the issues put on the state ballot in referendums, were...
...The popular notion that a wellheeled business leader could become an attractive, credible candidate went belly up when zillionaire Al Checchi was swamped by politician-for-life Davis in the Democratic primary for governor...
...The idea was that political changes, like lifestyle trends, happened first in California...
...Davis is exploiting issues—abortion, gun control, the environment, tobacco, education— that the Democratic nominee is likely to use effectively against a conservative GOP presidential candidate, he wrote...
...The small crowd that gathered to cheer him at a parking-lot rally in Riverside, 50 miles east of Los Angeles, didn’t seem to care...
...they crippled her while backfiring on him...
...Crime, however, doesn’t have the appeal it once did...
...Davis followed with a touching plea to “recover that almost mystical belief that all things are possible in California...
...He’s a liberal turned centrist whose spiel about education and the environment and gun control leaves the impression he’s a clever tactician, not a policy innovator on a mission...
...Fong shot back, “Barbara Boxer, your silence for seven months [on Clinton’s relations with Lewinsky] was certainly deafening, but your hypocrisy is ear-splitting...
...He says he’s eager to restore the caring attitude of the teachers he had growing up in the 1950s...
...As a life-long Catholic, I believe abortion is wrong, but I understand the need to make exceptions in cases of rape and incest,” Lungren declared...
...In fact, the mild recession that began in 1990 ended long before Clinton took office, inheriting a robust economy...
...It was the state’s genius for charting America’s political future...
...Lungren, outspent by Davis, is especially indignant about the inattention...
...It’s my ace in the hole,” he says...
...California used to be divided politically between the liberal north (San Francisco) and conservative south (L.A...
...Since then, he’s run a no-risk campaign...
...television, and the problem isn’t just TV...
...Breakthroughs in medical science, innovations in prenatal care, new thinking about the morality of abortion—all are ignored to preserve the right to abortion on demand...
...If that happens—and there’s a good chance it will— they’ll gain the simple spoils of politics as usual, jobs and influence...
...Now the split is between the liberal coast and the conservative Central Valley and Inland Empire...
...Tobacco is a negligible issue, and countering Democrats on guns, the environment, and education won’t be difficult...
...In almost every speech, he cites Vietnam, where he served as an Army Signal Corps officer...
...Davis was lucky just to get this far...
...It’s between Democratic senator Barbara Boxer and Republican Matt Fong, and the difference, of course, is Boxer, one of the Senate’s most unswerving liberals...
...There’s a way California could be a precursor this year...
...Davis has had to raise his...
...And after exhausting his funds in defeating wealthy businessman Darrell Issa in the GOP primary, he’s being outspent now by Boxer...
...And Davis and other Democrats drift beyond that into nostalgic liberalism...
...Many did, notably Proposition 13, the 1978 ballot measure that slashed property taxes and spurred a national anti-tax movement...
...It’s more valuable for a Democrat to be a decorated war veteran than for a Republican...
...But Lungren isn’t running for the Senate, and defeating Davis is something else again...
...Davis said he’d spent enough time with Lungren...
...And on abortion, my guess is the GOP candidate will have a position closer to Fong’s than Lungren’s...
...For another, Davis needed the $1,000 limit on campaign contributions to be tossed out, and a judge did so...
...The final two (of four) debates between Lungren and Davis weren’t shown on L.A...
...It’s against type...
...Normally she responds by saying Clinton was “wrong...
...We don’t talk about the fact he didn’t serve,” says South, grinning...
...He calls himself a supply-sider and favors a flat tax, and he supports gay rights, wants to keep first-trimester abortions legal, and never raises social issues in his stump speech...
...His Democratic opponents, Checchi and Rep...
...A half-dozen seats in Congress may be at stake in California alone...
...The daily back-and-forth with Lungren, the debates, and the TV spots have been stale and uninteresting...
...In truth, the only political export from California to have any real impact in 1998 is Monica Lewinsky...
...TV reporters swarmed around Davis after his speech, pressing him about why he’d backed out of a fifth debate with Lungren...
...son’s expected presidential bid in 2000, but it was no favor to Lungren...
...Last, Davis needed Checchi and Harman to destroy each other...
...More recently, the effort to kill race and gender preferences in hiring, promotions, and college admissions has been exported to other states...
...A local Democrat who spoke just before Davis in Riverside harked back to the postwar years of Democratic rule when California had “the finest” schools and highways and the “fairest” society...
...Nor is he a forceful speaker...
...Once TV stations in Los Angeles and San Francisco kept bureaus in Sacramento, the state capital...
...Candidates for statewide office in California—Earl Warren, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan—have often been the wave of the future...
...She also gives Clinton credit for having lifted the country out of “the worst recession since the Great Depression...
...That’s the lack of media coverage of politics and government...
...Hard to top that...
...They skimp on televising debates...
...California, in short, is losing what Michael Barone has called its “harbinger status...
...That left crime and schools as Lungren’s issues...
...His campaign is basically passive, relying on antipathy to Boxer to motivate his voters...
...This suggests Fong is a less than perfect fit with California’s libertarian leanings...
...I’m really proud of it,” he told me...
...Clinton may not be harmful to all Democratic candidates, but he’s hurt Boxer...
...He didn’t mention the reporters’ stations probably wouldn’t carry the debate anyway...
...One reason he mentions Vietnam is Lungren, who received a medical deferment in 1968...
...Davis is calm, Lungren passionate, Fong cautious—but Boxer is obstreperous and grating...
...Later, after listening to Lungren’s press bashing, I watched the 10 o’clock news in L.A...
...Well before then, Davis had lurched to their right by declaring his opposition to gay marriage and his intention to implement, not seek to overturn, the ban on racial preferences...
...Lungren has a point...
Vol. 4 • November 1998 • No. 8
