How Minority Politicians Win Votes of a Majority

Increasingly, the most successful ethnic minority politicians are learning how to win by appealing to voters of all races. Here are two who have succeeded and one who hopes to win in November:

Mary King

Mary King had been a drama student, a 20-year-old single mother, a secretary and a telephone operator before she entered the world of politics. A black woman, she upset a white man in a 1988 Alameda County supervisors race from a district with a 10% black population.

Her strategy? “I was Oprah, the kind of warm, competent person you’d want to have a cup of coffee with,” said King. “I ran as an ordinary person, not wealthy, not poor, but comfortable. I didn’t run from the race issue. We put my picture on the campaign brochure. I was this competent black woman who was approachable and warm.”

King also brought with her more than 10 years of experience in Oakland politics, as an aide to a former supervisor, a chief of staff to a former mayor of Oakland and chairwoman of the county’s Democratic Party. She said she brought to the race established relationships with the bureaucracy from Oakland to Sacramento. “I think people felt I was ready for the job.”

But King credits a large part of her electoral success to feeling at ease around people of other races. “It was not uncomfortable for me to be who I am with audiences that look different than I do.”

In a close race, said King, she was the target of both “racist and sexist” attacks, but she said the issue of class worked for her. King attributed her 6% victory margin over Don McGue, a San Leandro city councilman, in part to upper-middle-class white voters who valued her as “an urbane black woman running against a polyester white man.”

King, 43, said she does not rule out running for another office one day. “If I stay in politics, the only other offices I would be interested in would be mayor of Oakland or the U.S. Senate.”

Juan Arambula

The son of farm workers who casually refers to himself as a “former fruit tramp,” Juan Arambula is widely regarded as a rising political star in the Central Valley.

Recruited by Harvard University from Delano High School, Arambula, 38, graduated with honors in 1975, received a law degree from UC Berkeley and two years ago became only the second Latino ever elected to the Fresno Unified School District Board of Trustees. Arambula finished first in a field of seven candidates that included two incumbents.

Arambula ran in a district where less than 20% of the voters are Latino. He gained the support of the local chamber of commerce, the town’s daily newspaper and raised more money, about $50,000, than anyone ever had in a school board race.

Instead of focusing his campaign on Latino voters, Arambula said he concentrated on precincts where voter turnout traditionally was high, even though such neighborhoods tended to be white, well-off and frequently Republican. Arambula, like most Latino voters in California, is a Democrat.

“I felt the best way to get Hispanic voters excited about me was to demonstrate that I was a potential winner, that I could appeal to voters across the board,” Arambula said, adding that he thought it was the best way for other Latino candidates to succeed.

“In my case, education helped and so did the fact that I’m light-skinned,” Arambula said. His advantages aside, however, he said he sees a new generation of Latino candidates who will be able to campaign successfully in neighborhoods and districts that are not dominated by Latino voters.

Lon Hatamiya

Lon Hatamiya, whose Japanese-American grandfather acquired the family’s farm in Butte County nearly a century ago, is making a serious bid to become the first Asian member of the California Legislature in 10 years. At 31, Hatamiya is seeking his first elective office.

Running for Northern California’s 3rd Assembly District seat held by Chris Chandler, a Republican, Hatamiya is well known by local people because of his family’s roots in the region. Although the Asian population of the district is about 2%, Hatamiya can count on statewide financial support by Asian-Americans eager for a voice in the Legislature. So far, Hatamiya says, he has raised about $100,000.

But he will need every advantage he can get to win in November. He is a Democrat in a district where nearly 60% of the voters supported George Bush in the 1988 presidential election. Hatamiya’s opponent, a two-term incumbent, has not made a big splash in Sacramento, but he can expect generous support from the state Republican Party. Dollar for dollar, “it will be very hard to match him,” said Gale Kaufman, Hatamiya’s campaign consultant, on the subject of Chandler’s fund-raising potential.

Hatamiya says he does not believe race will be a factor in the campaign. Because of his family’s ties to the region, Hatamiya believes he can make the case that he is closer to the people of the district than is his opponent. With degrees in business and law, Hatamiya says he devotes his non-campaigning time to managing the family’s 1,200-acre farm.