Capitol Journal: Larry Thomas was a political practitioner who knew how to work in the heat and keep cool

Politics today is uncivil. But it’s too simple to say it used to be less vicious, rosy nostalgia aside. It has always been bloody. Think back to 1994.

President Clinton was clobbered across America by Republicans who recaptured both houses of Congress.

California, as now, held nonpresidential state elections. But unlike this year, those races for governor and the U.S. Senate were hard-fought and nasty.

One of the most divisive ballot initiatives in history split California: Proposition 187 to deny public services, including education, to immigrants here illegally. The mood was bitter.

But back then there were more political practitioners who knew how to work in the heat and keep cool. They understood the importance of building trusting relationships, especially with the news media. They valued direct communication, face-to-face or phone-to-phone. No impersonal tech contacts.

No one was better at this than Larry Thomas, a onetime news reporter, the son of a San Diego Union newspaper editor and for many years a close advisor to Govs. George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson. Thomas, 70, died last month after a 10-year fight with throat cancer.

Thomas was pleasant, dedicated, witty and smart. I enjoyed sharing a Capitol press office with him in the late 1960s.

After he covered Wilson’s 1971 San Diego mayoral race, the impressed winning candidate hired him as his press secretary. Eventually Thomas became the communications strategist for Gov. Deukmejian, but his portfolio extended far beyond PR flackery.

In 1994, Thomas took a leave from the Irvine Co. to run Wilson’s tough reelection bid against Democratic state Treasurer Kathleen Brown, Gov. Jerry Brown’s sister. It was a tumultuous, image-damaging time for the socially moderate Wilson because he was the most outspoken advocate of Proposition 187, which passed overwhelmingly but was overturned by courts.

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That summer, the unruffled Thomas orchestrated a campaign respite that none of us who participated will ever forget.

Major league ballplayers were on strike. San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds showed up at a Wilson fundraiser in the Bay Area and offered to help him run for reelection. Eyes rolled. Give us a call when you’re ready.

One day the call came unexpectedly. What to do with him?

The celebrity athlete was immediately slotted into a Sacramento fundraiser with Wilson. And Thomas could use him for a day.

“We were all sitting around talking about what public events we could do to have maximum political value,” recalls Dan Schnur, then the campaign press secretary and now a USC political communications professor. “We could do a rally. A press conference. A physical education program.

“After we’d all offered our grand ideas, Larry very quietly and typically said, ‘How about just an off-the-record lunch with some of the reporters who cover the governor and are baseball fans? We don’t have to make it political at all.’”

Thomas chose the most relaxing, accommodating luncheon spot: venerable Frank Fat’s, a legendary family-owned Chinese restaurant two blocks from the Capitol. We went after the luncheon crowd left.

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“Larry understood that any news story about Pete Wilson and Barry Bonds would not be as influential to the campaign as strengthening relationships with reporters,” Schnur says. “It was a way of developing trust and mutual respect. No quid pro quo. Reporters aren’t going to write a better story about your boss. But when one did call you, they would have a more productive conversation.”

Thomas, of course, already had that solid relationship with reporters, partly for the reasons Schnur stated. He’d tell reporters when he thought their stories stunk, but calmly. Thomas was listened to because he was trusted and the governor confided in him.

H.D. Palmer, then a campaign aide and for many years since the state’s chief budget spokesman, was assigned the role of riding with Bonds to Fat’s. The home run king’s vehicle was a stretch white limo — looking silly against the modest Sacramento landscape.

“The thing I remember was his tomato red blazer,” Palmer says. “And as soon as we got into Fat’s, there was this little guy hovering around Bonds saying he absolutely would not sign any baseball memorabilia.”

Yes, the squirrely-looking chap said there was no time for autographs. But don’t worry. Just give him a card, write down who you want it autographed to and we’ll mail it back. I wrote down my young grandson’s name. No one ever heard anything.

I also remember two other things about the lunch:

Bonds started it by ripping a former star teammate who had left for another club the previous off-season, repeatedly calling him a racist. I won’t mention his name.

And he concluded the lunch by lecturing reporters about our duty to write responsibly. I wanted to tell him we wouldn’t advise him how to hit a curve ball if he didn’t tell us how to do our jobs. But I held my tongue. It had been a fun lunch.

That night, Bonds accompanied Wilson to the fundraiser. The former governor laughed recently when he told me how the host’s 10-year-old son, “all dressed up in his Sunday best, totally ignored me and kept pumping Barry’s hand. His mother was horrified. ‘Come back, you’ve got to meet the governor.’”

Wilson won reelection. It had nothing to do with that summer day.

But as Sean Walsh, a Thomas protégé and longtime Wilson communications advisor who was at the lunch, says: “Maybe instead of screaming about Supreme Court justices and NATO heads, we should talk about baseball.”

george.skelton@latimes.com

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