Support group needs to 'CRAFT' a less-scary GOP brand

SACRAMENTO -- The first step on the road to recovery is admitting there is a problem. Some influential Republicans did that last week in announcing formation of a support group.

"The problem is clear: Republicans have been largely uncompetitive in statewide races," said Paul Folino, a major financial supporter of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and executive chairman of Emulex Corp., a Costa Mesa high-tech company.

"Hard to believe . . . since 1998 Republicans have won less than 20% of all statewide races."

No, that's not hard to believe at all. And the one big winner, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, is barely a Republican, at least by today's rigid-right party standards.

Folino is a founding vice chairman of a new group called California Republicans Aligned for Tomorrow, or CRAFT. The group's chairman is another generous Schwarzenegger and GOP donor, Larry Dodge, chairman of American Sterling in Orange County, a banking and insurance firm. Both are frustrated with the party's dead-end direction in California. So is the group's executive director, Duf Sundheim of Palo Alto, a pragmatic and moderate former state party chairman.

"Like any good business or athletic team, to win on a consistent basis, a political party needs a deep talent pool," said Sundheim, a former Stanford football player. The group's goal, he told reporters, "is to create a deep and lasting farm team of qualified Republican candidates to run statewide."

Former Gov. Pete Wilson, another member of the group, says: "We're looking for people who are bright and attractive and articulate -- in short, electable.

"A lot of people who might be first-rate candidates and office holders are not encouraged. And therefore, if they think of running at all, they don't think about it very long. They think, 'What chance have I got? I have no name ID.' This is an effort to find people who have done a good job as mayor or D.A. or have some clear qualifications. We're not looking for people who fit an ideological template."

So the group, stocked with some very rich GOP contributors, will be out recruiting, advising and training candidates it deems to be potential winners. But it'll avoid the word "recruit." The preferred verb is "encourage."

"Recruit" connotes "select," Wilson says. They don't want to be seen as party pooh-bahs anointing nominees.

I wouldn't get caught up in the semantics. The core problem here is that the California GOP -- Schwarzenegger aside -- has become a loser. That's an indisputable fact. The causes are many, not merely listless recruitment.

Start with the brand name. It's a turnoff for many California voters, most of whom are Democrats or left-of-center-independents. (The latest statewide voter registration figures as of Friday: Democrats 43.5%, Republicans 32.8%, declined to state 19.3%.)

The GOP scares many people. It's seen as the party of naysayers and intolerance. Democrats -- "taxers and spenders" -- scare people too. But not as many as the GOP does.

"Parties are defined by their leaders," says Republican consultant Sal Russo, a veteran of statewide campaigns. "The Republican Party in California is defined by George Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger."

And that's a serious problem, he says.

Bush's reelection strategy for 2004 was to form a right-of-center coalition just big enough to win the needed electoral votes, Russo notes. That excluded even trying to appeal to left-leaning California.

"The mitigating factor for California," the consultant continues, "is that we have a Republican governor who's also a major player in defining the party. But he distances himself and tries to portray himself as the 'reasonable' person between the two 'unreasonable' parties. Arnold has done a terrible disservice to the Republican Party by treating it like an alien party.

"When he complains that the Republican Party is 'dying at the box office,' he's right. But part of the reason is he's telling people it's a bad party. We're being defined by George Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger and they're putting out a bad brand."

But it also doesn't help the party that in Sacramento the conservative GOP legislative caucuses often treat the governor as an alien Republican. There's a mutual disdain.

GOP consultant Kevin Spillane says the party needs to field more candidates that reflect California's growing diversity.