Arizona Governor : Mecham: An Outsider on the Inside

As special assistant Sam Steiger sees it, most of the criticism aimed at his boss, freshman Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham, concerns matters of style, “things like his toupee, his inappropriate grammar . . . the idea that he’s overly simplistic . . . his unwillingness to compromise.”

But there is no denying, there have been a lot of complaints.

Since taking office in January, Mecham (pronounced Mee-kum) has become the most notorious new governor in America, antagonizing not only outsiders (whom he sometimes calls “foreigners”), but also homosexuals, blacks, educators and his own Republican Party.

Canceled King Holiday

First, Mecham, 62, lived up to a campaign promise and canceled the state holiday on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, which so far has prompted eight groups scheduled to hold conventions here to cancel their events in protest.

Then, he announced he would like to see a list of all homosexuals in state government. He appointed as education adviser a man who believes teachers have no right to contradict parents who tell their children that the Earth is flat.

And Mecham’s complaints about biased media coverage prompted the publisher of Arizona’s two most powerful newspapers to call the governor’s administration a “brutish ideological juggernaut,” wracked by “paranoia . . . and . . . small-minded vindictiveness.”

Already, a movement has formed to recall Mecham, but most political experts here doubt its chances of success.

Rise of New-Right Populism

For all its problems, critics concede that Mecham’s governorship reflects something new in this state: the repudiation of the once all-powerful Republican Establishment and the rise of a new-right populism that may well extend beyond the cholla cactus and saguaro blossoms of Arizona.

“Mecham understands that there is a huge reservoir of people who feel anger toward the system, who think government does things to them, not for them,” said Arizona House Minority Leader Art Hamilton, a Democrat.

Mecham, in his singular way, put it differently: “I’m doing things that hasn’t been done before.”

A college dropout who made his fortune selling Pontiacs, Mecham ran for governor four times before winning election last November.

In all five campaigns he preached the same message: This country, as he wrote in a 1982 campaign autobiography, “Come Back America,” has been “led to the edge of . . . moral and economic . . . bankruptcy” by 50 years of socialism manipulated by unidentified “Master Planners.”

Consider, Mecham wrote, the suspicious success of the environmental movement in the 1970s. “It appeared that the Master Planners decided the other sure way to bring America to her knees was to make us dependent on foreign sources of energy. To help this along, nuclear energy, originally developed in the U.S., made much more progress abroad because of government, ecologists and soft-headed judges.”

Similar problems, according to Mecham, beset American auto makers. He wrote: “Some feel that there was great conspiracy to kill off the U.S. car industry in order to kill the U.S. economy. Out of the resulting economic chaos the Socialists would finish destroying the Republic and emerge with a Socialist Dictatorship in complete control . . . . Whether it was the case, events have fit the scenario.”

Sees ‘Manifest Destiny’

Another notion Mecham considers essential is America’s religious and moral superiority. America, he wrote, has “a manifest destiny to lead mankind out of the darkness of ignorance, tyranny, slavery and starvation into the glorious light of freedom, abundance, continual progress . . . . Almost everything about our history bears out the guiding hand of a loving God.”

Mecham, a Mormon, said in an interview that he believes he talks directly to God, “just like it’s direct for you in what you’re doing . . . . Mine is different (in that) He will give me assistance relative to my responsibility, as He gives everyone assistance relative to their responsibility.”

Mecham describes himself as a disciple of W. Cleon Skousen, a supporter of the John Birch Society and founder of the National Center for Constitutional Studies in Utah.

Skousen’s institute teaches that powerful, unnamed special interests have directed the U.S. Supreme Court to alter the meaning of the Constitution. His institute also emphasizes that the Founding Fathers were Christians who meant Christianity to be part of the American system.

Urges End to Social Security

A former Salt Lake City police chief who had teen-agers arrested for smoking on the street, Skousen also advocates abolishing the Federal Reserve Board, returning to the gold standard and phasing out Social Security.

Mecham and Skousen call themselves “constitutionalists,” and they say their cause has been “purposely distorted by the media and Socialist politicians and scholars,” because “they had the power and wanted to hold it and secure complete and permanent control.”

One of Mecham’s many political brouhahas since taking office involved his endorsement of a book produced by Skousen, “The Making of America,” for inclusion in the state’s constitutional bicentennial program.

The book suggests that black slaves in the United States were themselves responsible for the mistreatment they suffered at the hands of white masters. One chapter, written by historian Fred Albert Shannon, refers to black children as “pickaninnies” and asserts that slave owners were the “worst victims” of slavery.

California Rejects Book

When the same book appeared on the California Bicentennial Commission reading list, Gov. George Deukmejian called the commission “grossly negligent” and ordered the book stricken.

In Arizona, however, Mecham defended “The Making of America.” When he was growing up, Mecham said: “Blacks themselves referred to their children as pickaninnies.”

When Arizona’s black leaders expressed outrage at the governor’s remarks, his press secretary, Ron Bellus, responded in disgust: “It was a history book. It has nothing to do with today.”

When Mecham, who is best known here for his low-key television pitches on behalf of Mecham Pontiac, entered the Republican primary race last summer, political experts here gave him no chance of winning.

His opponent was Arizona’s Senate Majority Leader Burton Barr, the Republican Party’s handpicked candidate, and, in the words of Phoenix Gazette political columnist John Kolbe, “the dominant political figure in the Legislature for the last 20 years.”

Barr Had 15-Point Lead

Barr outspent Mecham, 4 to 1, had the endorsement of every major Republican in the state--including the party--and led in the polls on Election Day by 15 points. Mecham’s campaign consisted principally of crude, direct mail newspapers, which depicted Barr as the ultimate political insider who got rich in office.

“Absolutely nobody expected him to win,” Kolbe said. “It just couldn’t happen. We all knew it couldn’t happen.”

When it did, Republican insiders blamed Barr for running a bad campaign.

Then, when Mecham won the general election with 40% of the vote, insiders blamed the entrance into the race of third party candidate Bill Schulz. Schulz and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Carolyn Warner considered each other the main competitors and largely ignored Mecham as a fringe ideologue with limited appeal.

Substantial evidence exists, however, to suggest that Mecham’s victory was not simply a fluke caused by a split ticket. Even Warner’s pollster found in a post-election survey that even without Schulz, the race would have been a “dead heat.”

In 1978, in fact, Mecham nearly beat Bruce Babbitt, the smooth, Harvard-educated incumbent governor, who is now running for President.

As one prominent Arizona Republican said privately: “There are a lot more bowling alleys in Arizona than sushi bars.”

Represent New Ideology

Those bowling alley voters also represent a new kind of conservatism than is traditional in Arizona. Indeed, Mecham aides say, his election is a repudiation of the Republican elite that has run this state for the past half century.

That group centers on a once-exclusive gathering of downtown business interests dubbed “The Phoenix 40.” For many years, this collection of leaders even went so far as to select who would run for elective office, and invariably the 40’s candidate won.

Near the heart of that old boy network sat the late Gene Pulliam, publisher of the powerful Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette newspapers. Until he died in 1975, politicians and journalists now concede, Pulliam commonly used his papers to manipulate Arizona politics.

“Not a sparrow fell in this state until Gene said it was all right,” said Mecham’s assistant Steiger.

Anti-Establishment Figure

In Mecham, voters had the personification of anti-Establishment sentiment. When he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1962, for instance, Mecham alleges that the “downtown Establishment” tried to bribe him into dropping out of the race, promising him financial backing and the endorsement for the governorship two years later. When he turned the offer down, Mecham charges, the Establishment forces turned his certain victory into defeat by secretly working for the Democrats.

In 1964, Mecham ran against the Establishment again by opposing its candidate, Richard G. Kleindienst, for governor. The power brokers, Mecham believes, still blame him for Kleindienst’s eventual loss in the general election. In 1974, Mecham alleges, he lost in his second bid for governor because the press did not give him fair coverage.

And, in 1978, Babbitt’s successful manipulation of the media once again, “robbed me of the financial support I needed to get my story before the voters.” The story was similar, Mecham believes, in 1982.

Now that he is in power, Mecham feels a fair amount of dismantling of the system is needed. “We have to completely reorganize the government,” Mecham said, “because it has been essentially not operated for the last decade.”

Such comments do not always sit well with the state’s political leadership, particularly since Mecham’s predecessor, Babbitt, was unusually popular.

Aversion to Compromise

Another source of contention is Mecham’s aversion to compromise, which aides such as Steiger admire. Perhaps the most notable example was his first budget. Compared to the detailed 300-plus page document of the year before, Mecham submitted a budget only 67 pages long, which stripped lawmakers of much of their coveted power to dictate how state funds are spent. Instead of detailing how each agency would allocate funds, it gave discretion to the department heads, many of them controlled by the governor.

“Government is a matter of continual movement and consensus,” said Arizona House Speaker Joe Lane, a Republican who is working to smooth relations between the governor and the Legislature. “It is taking some time for the governor to recognize that.”

Mecham’s relations are probably worst, however, with the state’s newspapers, particularly the Republic and Gazette. “All the daily newspapers in the state opposed me,” Mecham said. “And consequently their natural tendency is to prove they were right in the first place and the people were wrong.”

Mecham’s complaints against the press date to his earliest days in politics. After his first two major political campaigns in the 1960s, Mecham even tried establishing a rival newspaper, a losing venture he writes about bitterly.

Assails Press

“Newspaper publishers seem to feel that they have a right to their monopoly,” Mecham wrote, “and anyone who threatens competition is a sworn enemy who must be crushed, even brutalized.”

Mecham’s relations with the press appeared to hit bottom last month, when he declared columnist Kolbe, perhaps the state’s senior political writer, “a non-person.”

Initially, Mecham vowed to bar Kolbe from his press conferences. Later, he amended that. Kolbe could come, but the governor would not answer any of his questions.

That was the last straw for Republic and Gazette Publisher Pat Murphy. “Nobody was standing up and trying to put this administration in ideological perspective,” Murphy said in an interview later. “So somebody had to say something . . . and since the press has become an issue, I felt I had an obligation.”

A few hours after Murphy lashed out at the governor, Mecham held a press conference at which Kolbe asked the first question. When the governor ignored it, a reporter from the Associated Press asked the same question. The governor ignored that. After another reporter repeated it a third time, the governor walked out.

Critical of Nominees

Perhaps the most common criticism of the governor concerns his appointments. “I’d like to see him surround himself with better people,” Speaker Lane said.

One that drew criticism was the nomination to the state Board of Education of a housewife who said she felt it was wrong for women to work. “If they were really good mothers and didn’t want extra money--they didn’t want a cabin or whatever--(they) might be able to stay home with their children,” Ada Thomas testified at her confirmation hearing.

Mecham’s nominee to investigate corruption and waste in government also came under fire when it was discovered he had failed to properly disclose that he was twice court-martialed in the Marines.

And the governor told the press he was considering nominating a man to head his state liquor board without knowing that the attorney general was investigating the man in connection with a 1954 murder.

Many believe such appointments reflect not only inept planning, but also what they see as Mecham’s generally low standards.

Joke Making Rounds

Legislators openly joke about it: “Did you hear about the fire in the library on the ninth floor,” begins one making its way around the Capitol, where the governor’s office is located on the ninth floor. “It wasn’t that bad. They saved most of the books that hadn’t already been colored in.”

Some, however, think these jokes are unfair. “He’s not dumb,” said Minority Leader Hamilton. “He’s not Lester Maddox toting a pick handle around the parking lot . . . . He’s an ideologue committed to a vision of the world he holds dear.”

“Quite the contrary,” Mecham responds. “I’m a constitutionalist is what I am . . . . I’m really a centrist because the constitution is neither right nor left. It is where the government should go.”

Steiger puts it a little differently. “What we have here is a classic example of the inadequacy of substance when not accompanied by traditional style. Evan is really devoid of what political pros like to refer to as form.”