Conservative-Moderate Gulf Haunts State GOP

Facing a fresh chance to rejuvenate their party, California Republicans are falling into an old habit: feuding over whether they must compromise their conservative principles to elect a Republican governor.

The question rests at the core of the increasingly intense competition between the two main Republicans left in the recall race, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Sen. Tom McClintock of Thousand Oaks.

Backers of Schwarzenegger say Republicans should accept his permissive stand on issues such as abortion and gay rights to broaden the party’s appeal to independents and crossover Democrats, the swing voters who are often vital to winning statewide elections in California.

McClintock’s supporters say there is little point in backing a candidate they consider a Republican in name only, even if it makes for an uphill battle against the only major Democrat in the race, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.

Many of the GOP faithful, trying to balance their beliefs and a deep hunger for victory, find themselves somewhere between the two poles as the Oct. 7 recall election approaches.

John Stelzmiller, Republican chairman in rural El Dorado County, is one of them.

Although the staunchly conservative McClintock is a favorite among true-blue GOP activists, Stelzmiller suggested Schwarzenegger may be the more electable choice in a state that has tended toward centrism over the last 20 years.

“It’s a tossup,” Stelzmiller said, between the head and heart. “We basically lost pretty badly in the last election, so we’re trying to regroup where we can.”

McClintock and Schwarzenegger will face an important test this weekend, as will the state Republican Party, when hundreds of loyalists gather for three days of politicking and positioning at the semiannual GOP convention in Los Angeles.

The party’s plans for the weekend underscore the tension between Schwarzenegger, the leading Republican in all independent polls, and McClintock. There will be no formal endorsement by delegates -- party bylaws forbid it.

Though both men will be there, there will also be no debate between them, despite the best efforts of McClintock and his supporters to goad Schwarzenegger into a convention face-off.

Still, the event will be an important opportunity for the two rivals to pitch themselves to the most energetic and devoted members of the Republican Party, which regularly features warfare between moderates and conservatives at its gatherings.

The convention comes amid growing Republican concerns about the fate of the effort to oust Democratic Gov. Gray Davis.

With the vote less than a month away, most Republicans believe their only hope of beating Bustamante is to quickly get behind a single candidate.

“I ultimately believe that is the right thing to do, for a Republican to step aside for another one,” said Assemblyman Ray Haynes of Murrieta, who joined McClintock in pushing the recall but remains neutral in the replacement race because he is not convinced that his fellow conservative can win.

The question then is, who should leave the GOP race? And that, in turn, suggests a larger question: Does victory lie in hewing to undiluted party principles? Or should the faithful compromise on certain bedrock beliefs in pursuit of victory?

Supporters of Schwarzenegger say Republicans should “embrace the 80% of him they’re passionate about,” as one campaign strategist put it. “The alternative is a Bustamante victory.”

While staking out more liberal positions on such issues as abortion, gay rights and gun control, Schwarzenegger has campaigned as a conservative on fiscal issues and most economic matters.

He has captured a number of blue-chip endorsements from organizations such as the California Chamber of Commerce, the Western Growers Assn. and the California Farm Bureau, which reflect the business-minded Republican mainstream in Sacramento.

But many conservative activists -- the party’s foot soldiers and most reliable GOP voters -- are skeptical if not downright hostile toward Schwarzenegger and his candidacy.

“You’ve had piecemeal policy pronouncements in a scripted format,” said Mike Spence, president of the California Republican Assembly, a conservative grass-roots organization that supports McClintock. “But you’re not going to be able to script your entire government. I want to know his vision. Where’s he going to take California?”

The GOP convention also comes as polls show Schwarzenegger struggling to overtake Bustamante in the race to succeed Davis, should he lose the recall vote. McClintock is running third among viable contestants.

The prospect of Bustamante succeeding Davis -- and staying in office for many more years than the term-limited incumbent -- has begun to raise Republican doubts about the recall.

The party establishment, from the White House down, did little to help force the election, which was pushed by a small band of richly endowed conservative activists.

State GOP leaders began mustering enthusiasm only after it was clear that the recall qualification drive was destined to succeed regardless of their wishes.

“It’s just possible that California is going to be worse off,” said Brooks Firestone, a former state assemblyman who was skeptical of the recall from the start. “It has given us the possibility of a person who is, I believe, less prepared for the job and more liberal

For the most part, however, the party remains strongly united in support of the recall effort.

Leaders hope to focus the convention this weekend on bashing Davis and boosting the recall campaign. That strategy has the added benefit of downplaying tensions between backers of Schwarzenegger and McClintock. The latter are particularly wary of any tilt toward the actor.

“If the California Republican Party does anything to coronate Arnold, there’s going to be a major mutiny,” said Ken Campbell, the Placer County GOP chairman. “Because, from what I see in the grass roots in my county, they’re not going to put up with that.”

Mindful of such rumblings, Duf Sundheim, the new head of the state GOP, insisted that the party is “playing it right down the middle.”

“We’re focusing on the failed leadership of Davis,” he said.

California Republicans have a good deal riding on the recall.

The GOP has been on a California losing streak since November 1994, when Pete Wilson won his second and final term as governor. Since then, Republicans have lost nearly every statewide race -- more than two dozen in all -- as well as the last two presidential contests.

The party may have hit bottom last November, when Democrats captured all eight statewide offices in the biggest partisan blowout in more than 50 years.

The recall election offers an opportunity to reverse that course and resuscitate the state GOP virtually overnight. A Republican incumbent could give the party a big leg up in the 2006 governor’s race -- assuming the economy rebounds by then -- and might also give President Bush a lift in his uphill fight to carry California as he seeks reelection next year.

Republicans are not the only ones divided among their ranks. On the Democratic side, Davis and Bustamante are barely on speaking terms, and their leading campaign consultants are sworn enemies.

The Democrats plan to hold a special one-day convention in Los Angeles on Saturday. Delegates are expected to formally endorse the no-on-recall, yes-on-Bustamante strategy that most party leaders -- although not Davis -- already have embraced.

The differences among Democrats may prove less significant, however, than the divisions on the Republican side.

For one thing, the presence of a single major Democratic candidate on the replacement portion of the ballot will make it easier to unify partisan support.

Also, Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state by roughly 1.4 million registered voters, so there is considerably more room for dissent within party ranks.

The weekend clash between dueling Republican factions recalls the circumstances early last year when party faithful gathered just a few weeks before the GOP gubernatorial primary.

At that time, it was businessman Bill Simon Jr. and former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan who embodied the party’s split, with Simon stressing conservative purity and Riordan urging pragmatism.

“It’s deja vu all over again,” said Mark Chapin Johnson, an Orange County Republican moderate and finance chairman of the failed Riordan campaign. “To have these two guys” -- McClintock and Schwarzenegger -- “running against each other for the heart and soul of the Republican Party is tragic. It’s really tragic.”

In February 2002, Simon won a straw poll at the state convention that helped launch his runaway victory over Riordan, who fared poorly in a debate before delegates. Simon went on to lose the November election to Davis, and recently dropped out as a recall candidate.

There will be no straw poll this time -- party leaders saw to that -- and the schedule has been fixed so that McClintock and Schwarzenegger will never appear in the same place at the same time.

“We think it’s better in terms of unity to not have everyone on stage at once,” said party chairman Sundheim.