CAMPAIGN JOURNAL : Bergeson Stands Tough on Abortion

Now comes a candidate who says phooey to the pollsters and polls, the wizards and their wisdom. Abortion--she’s against it, and she won’t change her mind, won’t even budge.

Further, Marian Bergeson, mother, grandmother, state senator and Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, wants to believe--indeed, needs to believe--that voters will give her allowance for a principled stand over a popular one, even on such a feverish issue as this.

“How can we tell kids in schools not to succumb to peer pressure and drugs and then go out and change our own views strictly because it’s politically fashionable?” she asks.

Not that people haven’t tried. As Bergeson campaigns these days, there is no such thing as a 100% loyal audience. At virtually every stop are women and men torn by resurgent quarreling over abortion rights, or the right to life, or reproductive choice, or whatever shibboleth you prefer.

Those who favor abortion are quick with advice: Look at the hard facts, they say. Candidates who oppose abortion are losing California elections, just as they are being challenged for the moral “high ground” in the debate. Californians support abortion rights 54% to 37%, according to the Los Angeles Times Poll. Even Republicans in the state favor abortion 51% to 40%.

“They tell me I have to change my position,” Bergeson says. “But that would challenge everything I am in government for . . . and I won’t do it.”

Bergeson lives in Newport Beach and represents the Gold Coast of Orange County and agricultural Imperial County with a bridge that runs through the madcap-growth area of southern Riverside County. Her Republican opponent is a cross-county rival, state Sen. John Seymour of Anaheim, who recently and dramatically switched his position--and now is pro-choice on abortion. Not only that, he favors government financing of abortions for the poor.

So, there looms a June, 1990, GOP primary election for lieutenant governor offering a clearly drawn, no-waffling, take-it-or-leave-it choice over abortion, likely the one statewide primary election race of its kind.

Because the two candidates are so very similar in other regards--their experience, their natural bases of support, their philosophy--the contrast on abortion becomes unavoidably pronounced, and the progress of their campaign is watched with uncommon curiosity.

The outcome will be felt in Republican Pete Wilson’s November election campaign for governor. Wilson supports abortion rights and, like Seymour, recently dropped his opposition to using taxpayer money for abortions for poor women.

And the Bergeson-Seymour match-up is surely to be seen as a test of strength for the conservative wing of the GOP and its fiery right-to-life movement, both of which are feeling beleaguered.

Bergeson would rather talk about something else. At a Santa Ana gathering of her top Orange County supporters, the stylish and impeccably groomed 64-year-old former teacher speaks--in measured classroom monotones--about making schools better. Of the need for better “infrastructure” to accommodate growth. Of the sorry demise of standards of behavior in politics. And don’t ask for a change on abortion except in cases of rape, incest or danger to life of the mother, she adds.

Outside the meeting room, Bergeson supporters surround the one journalist attending. The air is accusatory. “The press is stirring this abortion caldron,” complains Sharron Gill of San Clemente.

“I wouldn’t dream of voting for a single issue, why is this important?” says Evelyn Mayberry of Huntington Beach.

These women have known Bergeson for years, and are upset because a delegation of newcomers has crowded into the meeting and is getting more than its share of attention: Women from the Orange County Pro Life PAC and the Right to Life League and others. And they are assuredly here because of abortion.

“There’s only a certain number of people who vote based on abortion. And of these, pro-lifers definitely are stronger one-issue voters than pro-abortion types,” insists Mary Curtis of the Pro Life PAC.

Two-term Democratic Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy, an abortion rights supporter, isn’t waiting for the general election campaign to apply heat.

“Will women in California have the right to reproductive freedom in the 1990s? Incredibly, that could depend on who the lieutenant governor is. I’m urging you not to underestimate this threat,” McCarthy says in a letter to potential campaign contributors.

He explains that the lieutenant governor has power to cast a tie-breaking vote on abortion legislation in the state Senate, and who knows, “there may be many times when the anti-choice forces will be at least able to force a tie.”

The Bergeson campaign believes there is a larger political context to be considered.

Chief strategist Ronald Smith argues that Wilson, the U.S. Senator and GOP moderate who is the party’s gubernatorial nominee-apparent, will suffer unless he can energize the traditional Republican base, its once-mighty Right Wing.

Smith should know. Four years ago, he managed a candidate who turned his back to conservatives and lost. That was Ed Zschau, the moderate who was defeated for the U.S. Senate by Democrat Alan Cranston.

“What happened to Ed could happen to Pete,” Smith says. “Pete is going to find himself in the same spot unless he’s got someone like Marian to hold the base for him.”

“Well, yes, you could make that argument,” agrees one adviser to Wilson. “The other side, though, is that Pete Wilson does not need to be dragged into the abortion fight.”

For the record, Wilson is not picking sides in the lieutenant governor’s primary. Republicans will have to make that choice.