Governor’s Race Fails to Attract Minorities’ Interest : Politics: Many say Feinstein, Wilson are not addressing their concerns and are targeting Anglos.

From the minority communities that will soon make up a majority of this state, this year’s contest for governor has ushered forth a rumbling of resentment.

As they cross California, Dianne Feinstein and Pete Wilson are talking about issues they consider important to minority voters, from crime to education to leadership. Each has rounded up enthusiastic supporters.

However, according to a wide range of community leaders, from Asians to Latinos to blacks, the candidates’ message is being greeted by rank-and-file voters with dispirited shrugs and a litany of complaints. Chief among these is that the candidates are trying to appeal to a narrow group of voters, the middle- to upper-class Anglos who are most likely to vote.

Neither of the candidates, they say, is talking specifically enough to promote voter enthusiasm. Republicans are giving up a chance of seizing their vote; Democrats are taking it for granted.

“It’s business as usual,” said Antonia Hernandez, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Complaints from the state’s minority communities may mirror concerns of many Anglo voters that the candidates are not making a personal connection with voters, in large part because they are running their campaigns almost solely through television ads.

Frustration is exacerbated in some ethnic communities by the gap they see between political potency and California’s booming numbers of minorities.

According to the state Department of Finance, 42% of the state’s population is black, Latino, Asian or one of a handful of other ethnicities. By 1998, when the next governor could be closing out a second term, the state will be more than 47% minority. By 2020, 30 years from now, the minority groups will be in the majority, totaling 60% of Californians.

The criticisms aimed at Wilson and Feinstein--and at politicians in general--are strongly disputed by the campaigns. Aides to the candidates say they have engaged in earnest efforts to involve minorities at all levels and have directed specific proposals to solve problems commonplace in minority communities.

Regardless of who is right, the complaints revive a basic, political question: Because minority groups frequently have a low turnout on Election Day, how can they blame politicians for the generic, Anglo-oriented messages that they find offensive?

Minority representatives say voter turnout is low because candidates do not speak to them, and not vice versa.

“Politicians call us apathetic and a sleeping giant,” said Richard Martinez of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, which has registered 1 million Latino voters in recent years. “I characterize it as an astute observation when a body of voters understand that if they vote, nothing is going to change.”

Across a wide range of communities, the election for governor has been greeted without much enthusiasm. In South-Central Los Angeles, where he leads the Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, Rev. Edward V. Hill is an ardent backer of Republican Wilson. But he reports that there is “no excitement” this year.

“There’s no Jesse Jackson mood in our community,” he said, referring to the widespread sense of political activism that surrounded Jackson’s presidential bids.

“There has been no handshaking up and down the street. . . . We haven’t had a lot of street rallies and baby kissing because I think that both of them have depended on television.”

MALDEF’s Hernandez, who works to increase voter participation, calls the state of affairs “frustrating.”

“We’re going out there and telling the community to vote, and they say, ‘What for? They’re not talking to me,’ ” she said.

Linda Wong, president of the 3,000-member nonpartisan advocacy group California Tomorrow, which lobbies for recognition of California’s cultural diversity, said noninterest among ethnic voters is rampant.

“I am shocked and surprised by the number in the streets who don’t even know who’s running for governor, let alone have an idea of their positions on the issues,” she said. “I don’t think they have provided us with any sense of moral imperative to free us from this lethargy.”

It is not for lack of trying, according to the candidates.

Both Feinstein and Wilson have signed up advisory committees made up of ethnic minorities. Feinstein has compiled a four-page, single-spaced list of minority supporters--elected officials and politically active citizens. She was particularly successful in gaining the endorsements of black elected leaders even before she won the June primary, and she regularly visits black churches and delivers what invariably are her best speeches.

Wilson, too, has made efforts, releasing a document titled “Sen. Pete Wilson--Making a Difference for Hispanic Americans.” His pitch has been largely to business leaders, who Republicans say make up their strength among the ethnic communities.

Each of the candidates has spent some campaign time in ethnic neighborhoods, with Feinstein seeming to concentrate more effort among blacks than Wilson, and Wilson more among Latinos than Feinstein. That generalization is reflected in polls showing her more popular among blacks and Wilson doing better than expected among Latinos.

Forays into ethnic and Anglo neighborhoods alike are severely limited in today’s political campaigns, where the need for fund-raising events is incessant and where television is a virtual necessity to reach any portion of California’s 30 million people. Without the time to shake hands and kiss babies, candidates rely even more on surrogates within the community.

If California’s burgeoning minority groups were to awaken suddenly, their political impact could be staggering.

For example, nearly 1.3 million Latinos were registered to vote in 1988, and about 715,000 went to the polls, according to a study by the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project. That means more than 500,000 stayed home--nearly 10 times the margin of victory in the last tight race for governor, the 1982 contest between Republican George Deukmejian and Democrat Tom Bradley. That does not count another 1.2 million eligible but unregistered Latinos.

A recent Los Angeles Times Poll showed that a far greater percentage of blacks and Latinos are registered Democrats. But those who have studied ethnic voting say that ballot box decisions tend to be made on issues rather than party affiliation.

Bella Meese, director of voter outreach for the state Republican Party’s electoral effort and Wilson’s campaign liaison to ethnic communities, said she believes the minority vote could be crucial, especially given the tightness of the race.

“The undecided vote can very well be in the ethnic communities,” she said.

Complaints about the candidates this year tend to fall into two traditional areas: The method and the message.

When they have ventured into ethnic neighborhoods, the candidates have tended to rely on the same symbolic gestures used by generations before them--Pete Wilson recently put on an apron and got his picture taken helping out at the largely Latino Grand Central Market.

That grates, according to many.

“I think it’s called pandering,” said Martinez, in comments echoed by a range of nonpartisan representatives. “It’s looked at as not taking us seriously. It’s almost a cliche--walk with the mariachis behind you. Wilson was almost a cliche at the market.”

In black neighborhoods, said Los Angeles attorney Bob Johnson, such visits are viewed at most as “courtesy stops.”

“Both the candidates and the community take it for granted,” said Johnson, who also founded a group for black entrepreneurs. “The candidates know what to say and the community expects them to say it.”

For both candidates, there seems to be a wide gap between the message they believe they are putting out and the message that some in the community are getting.

Wilson’s campaign, and Republicans in general, are moving to appeal to voters on a range of fronts. This year, they have a symbol of ethnic acceptance--candidate for state controller, Matt Fong.

“It shows that the Republican Party is the party of change and realizes the demographics of change,” said the GOP’s Meese. “Matt will open a lot of eyes.”

While Wilson has made inroads in the business community, broader progress has been hampered by his opposition to the civil rights bill recently before Congress. Wilson voted against the bill before President Bush vetoed it and then voted to sustain the President’s action. Both contended that it set up quotas for employee hiring--a position that has cast long shadows over Republican efforts to draw in ethnic voters.

“The civil rights bill is a no-win situation for someone in Pete Wilson’s shoes,” said a Republican campaign operative, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Wilson’s potential among voters who consider the civil rights bill a crucial issue was probably not high in any case. At a recent breakfast with Latino leaders, Wilson came under fire for his position, and his explanation did little to allay concerns.

“He gave me the political code word jargon. He used the issue to divide,” said Antonia Hernandez, who attended the breakfast. “I was so disappointed.”

Wilson has made some gains with specific proposals that play particularly well in Asian and Latino communities. The senator’s vow that he will make prenatal care available to all California women was seen by many as a step forward--and a step away from more conservative Republican policy. Likewise, his emphasis on improving education has won him some allies, although grumbling continues over how he would accomplish it.

One of the most promising elements of Wilson’s early campaign was a pledge to integrate social services into the school system, so that students showing evidence of deep-seated problems could be helped before a crisis developed.

But the Republican has rarely mentioned that proposal in recent months, and he has not featured it in his campaign advertisements. Several leaders who cited education as a high priority in ethnic areas had never heard of it.

“You’re the first person telling me about it,” said the voting project’s Martinez. “That sounds interesting to me. It sounds innovative.”

Wong of California Tomorrow also described the proposal as innovative, but noted with some chagrin that it has disappeared from Wilson’s speeches. “If he talks about minorities at all, it’s in the context of crime and a high dropout rate,” she said.

Meese, the GOP’s voter outreach director, defended Wilson as having been specific about important issues. She said much of the blame lies in the distillation of candidates’ messages in news reports.

“So much of it does boil down to the 30-second sound bite on the evening news,” Meese said. “It’s all what sounds more exciting to the press than what the candidate wants to talk about. It’s not necessarily the candidate’s fault.”

But, as many ethnic leaders pointed out, neither candidate has used campaign commercials to drive home messages aimed at their communities. While the candidates have position papers, access to them is limited to those voters who seek the campaigns out. Newspaper articles can offer more in-depth reporting than television, but most people depend on television for their information.

Feinstein would seem to have an edge among minority voters, both because of the Democratic Party’s long-term alliance with civil rights groups, and because she represents a visual change from what she calls the “gray suit” males who dominate politics.

She is basing much of her pitch on her gender and on her record of hiring minorities in San Francisco, where she garnered substantial support in minority neighborhoods.

“She’s opened a tremendous amount of doors and a lot of bright people have been able to get access,” said Feinstein’s political director, Percy Pinkney.

Feinstein has earned praise for discussing issues such as child care, housing and early childhood education. The former San Francisco mayor also came under fire, ironically, for what may be this campaign’s only attempt to discuss the changing demographics of California.

Particularly during the primary, Feinstein spoke regularly and movingly about the growing ethnic gap between mostly Anglo voters and the more diverse electorate they represent.

She warned that California was on the brink of establishing a virtual “apartheid” society, where middle- and upper-class Anglos governed and the bulk of the state had little role. To stem that tide, she pledged to appoint women and minorities to her Administration in direct proportion to their makeup in society--for example, 50% women and 25% Latinos.

The gesture backfired politically, scorned by Wilson as a hard-and-fast quota system. Feinstein insisted that she was not proposing a quota system, and slightly modified the description of her plan.

In the end, she won praise in some quarters for raising the issue, and derision in others for her handling of Wilson’s counterattack. By raising the issue in a way that invited Wilson’s attack, some said, she reinforced a sense of threat among Anglos.

“When the heat came on and she had to back off, it turned off Latino leaders,” Martinez added.

What ethnic Californians said they want to hear from the candidates is varied. In interviews, several mentioned educational specifics that have yet to be discussed--bilingual education, student textbooks and a wholesale re-ordering of the education system.

“Early childhood education is important and social integration in the schools is important,” said Lewis H. Butler, chairman of California Tomorrow and a former assistant secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the Nixon Administration.

“They haven’t said anything that’s bad. The thing is, that’s 2% of the issue.”

Others said they wanted to hear more about solutions to social problems--ranging from gang warfare to racial violence to hard-core unemployment--and how the state will accommodate a working population that will be increasingly immigrant and female.

Also high on the agenda is the coming reapportionment and its impact on the number of minority legislators. While the candidates have talked about the political fallout of reapportionment, they have yet to dive into the sticky racial implications.

This month’s debate between the candidates did little to assuage concern among minority residents.

“I don’t think there was any mention of how each views the demographics of California, how each plans to deal with the changes in California, a multicultural, multiethnic society,” said MALDEF’s Hernandez. “Nothing. It’s just like it doesn’t exist.”

Concerted efforts to encourage ethnic voters have borne fruit. In 1986, Martinez said, Sen. Alan Cranston’s campaign targeted Democratic Latino communities and drew 120,000 more voters to the polls. Cranston defeated challenger Ed Zschau by less than 105,000 votes.

Without specific appeals, many suggest, low turnout is inevitable on Election Day. That, in turn, will perpetuate the image of ethnic voters.

Turnout is generally “not very high, which is a problem,” said Stewart Kwoh of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles. “But where the candidates don’t offer some of the deeply held concerns or symbols, there’s even less chance.”