Curb--Play It Again? : Ex-Lt. Governor ‘Leaning Very Strongly’ Toward a Return to Politics

Mike Curb, the pop country music executive who served one tempestuous term as California’s lieutenant governor, said he has matured and grown during his three years out of office. His ambitions have not changed, however, and he yearns to win back his old job and perhaps some of his dignity.

In his bungalow office on the front lot of Universal Studios, Curb, 40, said he wants to start over where he began in elective politics seven years ago to prove himself worthy of still greater trust. He said his performance as lieutenant governor was imperfect.

“I don’t think in the history of this state there’s ever been anyone who has run for lieutenant governor thinking that’s all they would ever do politically. However, one should not move to a higher office until that individual has proven that he can handle that particular office,” Curb said.

”. . . If and only if I can do this job properly would I ever consider moving to another office.”

There seems to be a diminishing need for Curb to apply the word “if” to his quest to run in 1986. For weeks he has been in contact with GOP donors and volunteers who supported him before, and two brand-name political consultants have agreed to assist with this “exploratory” campaign. In Curb’s words, “I am leaning very strongly toward running.” He added that he may wait until December before making an official announcement.

Tangled in Controversy

For all this, however, the seasoned new Curb, for whom contentiousness was a frequent companion during his 1979-to-1982 term of office, has not been able to undertake his return to elective politics without tangling himself in controversy, much as he did in the past

Yes, Curb conceded in a long interview, he spoke with a Sacramento Bee newspaper reporter just six months ago and ridiculed the office of lieutenant governor as an institutional frill that ought to be reduced in scope or abolished. “I thought I was in a really important position at the time,” he told the reporter. “But as I reflect back on it, I have serious doubts about whether I should have drawn a salary.”

Curb insisted that his belittling of the job was directed only at those instances when Californians elect a governor of one party and a lieutenant governor of another, the circumstance in which he found himself in 1976. A Republican, he was elected along with Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., a Democrat, the first mixed ticket in this state in 100 years.

“What I was saying is that I think the governor and the lieutenant governor should be of the same party so the job can be defined and be a significant job. I wasn’t saying the job was worthless,” Curb offered by way of explanation.

Curb would bring to the lieutenant governor’s campaign some heavy artillery.

For one thing, his name remains familiar in politics. For another, he is the kind of prodigious money raiser that leaves would-be opponents feeling faint. In addition to having been a favorite of important GOP kingmakers and contributors, Curb was finance director of the national Republican Party for the last three years, overseeing the raising of $100 million for President Reagan and the GOP, according to a party spokeswoman in Washington.

There are also, however, abundant problems in Curb’s planned rebound.

Not the least of these is his unsettled relationship with Republican Gov. George Deukmejian. The two opposed each other in the 1982 Republican primary for governor, which Curb lost after being the favorite for most of the race.

Key associates of the governor have maintained for years that a reluctant Deukmejian was drawn into the governor’s race from the start because of reservations about Curb’s character and leadership capabilities. A recent series of interviews with these individuals confirmed that this is still the view of the governor’s close circle. None of those interviewed, however, would allow his or her name to be used.

Curb argued that he has gone a long way toward overcoming any such doubts and that he has proved himself to be loyal by campaigning cheerfully for Deukmejian after losing the primary and by laying low and working for the Republican Party in the years since then.

“Is there someone in this state who would be more compatible (with Deukmejian)? Certainly, somewhere that person exists,” Curb said. “. . . (But) I have proved under difficult circumstances my loyalty to George Deukmejian. I proved it when it was tough to prove, when I had just lost an election I was supposed to win.”

Publicly, Deukmejian has not signaled how he feels now about Curb. His staff insists that the governor will not be drawn into any contested Republican primary, although some associates guess that there may be a gubernatorial hint dropped here and there about his preferences for a 1986 running mate.

Potential Complication

The office is now held by Democratic Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy. This poses a potential complication in the event Deukmejian wins reelection and is considered for higher office in the years ahead. Deukmejian has displayed little interest in speculation about his future, but those around him portray him as a possible vice presidential nominee in 1988 or a potential Reagan appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court. Either move would be clouded if Deukmejian’s successor as governor was a Democrat.

It stands to reason, then, that Deukmejian and other Republicans would be unusually interested in the GOP’s capturing the office next year.

The field of Republican candidates is not, however, bursting with Deukmejian’s friends. Instead, it includes not only Curb, with his history of friction with Deukmejian, but also one and maybe two other colorful contenders who have crossed the governor in the past.

One of them is Assemblyman Don Sebastiani (R-Sonoma), 32-year-old member of the wine making family of the same name. He announced his candidacy last month. A maverick conservative with few ties to the established order in politics and government, Sebastiani almost single-handedly forced Deukmejian into an unsuccessful and costly 1984 ballot initiative campaign to strip the Democratic-controlled Legislature of the power to draw legislative and congressional districts to its advantage.

The ballot initiative election was Deukmejian’s most embarrassing political defeat as governor. A close relationship between Sebastiani and the governor has not developed.

Sen. H. L. Richardson (R-Glendora), a solitary and outspoken figure in conservative politics, also has threatened to jump into the race as a grudge candidate against Curb. This could pose a headache not only for Curb but for Deukmejian, whose relations with the unpredictable senator have ranged from frosty to just civil.

Richardson once championed Curb’s career, but the two had a falling out over a supposed campaign debt owed to the senator by Curb. According to an aide, Richardson “feels he has an obligation, a responsibility, to follow through on this” because he once supported Curb so strongly. It is uncertain how much support Richardson could raise for such a campaign if it remained one merely of spite. Curb said he believes that his debt had been settled.

The other GOP candidate in the race is Orange County Supervisor Bruce Nestande, who maintains good relations with Deukmejian and the governor’s staff. Nestande’s strategists, some of whom helped run Deukmejian’s 1982 gubernatorial campaign, are hoping to work around their candidate’s lack of statewide visibility by emphasizing his ties to the governor.

Still, in political circles, Curb and his exploratory effort attract the most curiosity.

His movie-lot office is decorated with gold records and memorabilia from the lineup of pop country performers who record for Curb. These include Marie Osmond (with her No. 1 Billboard country hit “Meet Me In Montana”), the Bellamy Brothers, the Judds and Hank Williams Jr. And there are photographs and a trophy from his other passion, automobile racing. Curb Records sponsors as a promotional effort the Indy-type race car of Tom Sneva and the stock car of Richard Petty, two masters of the asphalt.

‘Low-Key Leadership’

Yet for all his celebrity connections, Curb said that, as he has aged and reflected, he believes that California voters may enjoy glamour and excitement in their entertainers and sports figures but not in their public servants.

“Californians want practical, low-key leadership, and I think it would be good for me to do that,” he said.

This would be a much different Curb than the one Californians previously watched as lieutenant governor.

Yes, as Curb reflected on his four years in office, he saw achievements, such as the signing of legislation requiring that household burglars serve time and not be given suspended sentences.

In the interview, however, Curb volunteered six times, with almost confessional intensity, his regret that his tenure in office was marred by “overzealousness,” his self-esteem damaged by the knowledge that “many people feel I could have handled things better, including me.”

Curb was referring to the long, awkward and sometimes darkly comic battles between himself and Brown over the responsibilities of governing the state during the times Brown was out of California campaigning for the presidential nomination. Whether it was coping with the gasoline shortage, the appointment of appellate judges or any number of other duties, California found itself going this way, then that way, depending on whether Brown or Curb was at the controls.

‘Keystone Kops’

Twice within two months in 1979, stories in the Los Angeles Times described events involving Curb and Brown as befitting the “Keystone Kops.” Most memorable was the night Curb was driven at 90 m.p.h. from San Francisco to Sacramento in a wild attempt to sign into law an executive order that would have stretched gasoline supplies by lifting smog standards before Brown, homeward bound on a DC-10 from Washington, entered California air space and squelched the move. Brown won by two minutes.

One supporter suggested that these confrontations will work to Curb’s benefit in the forthcoming campaign as memories dim and the former lieutenant governor is “remembered as the guy who stood up to Jerry Brown.”

There have, however, been other, more personal and perhaps more lasting, controversies that sprouted around Curb. In 1978, he said he expected the criminal indictment of the Democratic incumbent he was trying to unseat in the lieutenant governor’s race, Mervyn M. Dymally. Dymally, now a Los Angeles congressman, was not indicted. Curb, in turn, found his own business dealings under investigation. Was he part of a scheme to sell records illegally? Curb was cleared.

Then Curb, who often mentions his volunteer efforts on Reagan’s behalf, was embarrassed at the disclosure that he had not registered to vote until he was 29, missing two chances to cast ballots for Reagan for governor of California. He was too busy with music, Curb said.

And then, in the final days of his last campaign, there were questions raised about Curb’s draft status during the Vietnam War. He said he was 1-A, eligible to be drafted. A reporter found draft records showing Curb as 1-Y, a classification, as reported during the campaign, “for persons medically, mentally or morally unfit” except in national emergencies.

Incomplete Memories

At the time, Curb offered sketchy, incomplete memories of his wartime draft status, creating an impression that the would-be governor may have been hiding something about his past.

In gearing up for his new campaign, Curb released to The Times documents that he insisted will clarify the record. The documents, including a letter written by former California Selective Service Director Carlos C. Ogden Jr., showed that he registered for the draft at 18 and was first classified 1-A seven months later. Thirteen months after that, at 20, Curb was reclassified 1-Y after a physical was canceled.

Neither Curb nor Ogden could provide evidence of what caused the reclassification or why the physical was canceled. Curb said he believed that it was his allergies that took him off the 1-A list and that when “there were a lot of people here willing to enlist,” draft officials “took all the people who were scheduled for second physicals and moved them into 1-Y.”

In his letter, Ogden wrote that under draft regulations, “the registrant in question was classified on the basis of minor physical disabilities.” He added that Curb would have been classified 4-F, or not draftable, if he had failed to meet minimum “physical, mental and moral standards.”

Curb said he knows that a new campaign will subject him to still greater scrutiny. He also said he hopes that people will be open to making a fresh judgment.

‘Accused of Everything’

“At one time or another in my two campaigns, I have been actually accused of everything ,” he said with a shrug. “And I don’t think very much of it was correct. . . . Of course you’re not a good judge of yourself. But let me say something about my persona: It changes and grows. When you’re young and elected lieutenant governor and you’ve never been in political life, and you didn’t expect to win and suddenly you’re there, you can tend to be a little overzealous. I was.

“I’m 40 years old now and I’ve got kids and I’ve got better values. I’d like to think that causes you to grow and mature.”