Politics Not Always Good Government : Two tense local elections in California throw light on statewide struggle for soul of GOP

It’s one thing to indulge in political ideology and quite another to make government work. The recent budget battle between the obstinate “cavemen” Republicans of the Legislature and the pragmatic Gov. Pete Wilson illustrated this tension stirring in the soul of the state GOP.

Now two special legislative elections held on Tuesday--one in which an arch-conservative candidate rode an anti-tax theme to victory in Orange County and one in which a Wilson-backed man of moderation prevailed in Northern California--suggest that the summer’s budget battle was the political equivalent of the firing on Ft. Sumter.

A longer conflict looms, one likely to have significance in the state and nation.

This Republican fratricide ought to have been predictable. For one thing, Ronald Reagan, long a national unifying presence, is offstage. The “11th Commandment” he championed--the idea that Republicans should not speak ill of each other--has become a harder tenet to live by in an era of swollen deficits, diverse conservative causes and mounting political pressures.

And that’s where we come to the difference between politics and government. Today, when new taxes are heresy, it seems that all in the Republican camp want to project themselves as conservatives. But the perennial dilemma for conservatives--when they are in power--is especially acute now at the state level in California: How do you make armchair philosophy apply to the problems of the real world?

Ironically, Reagan, long a rallying point for Republicans, actually had managed as governor of California to bridge some of the gap between the anti-government, anti-tax wing of his party and the need to get business done in Sacramento.

But the post-Proposition-13 era brought to the state a new breed of inflexible anti-tax politicians. As anti-tax fever festered in the electorate, pressure on government to do more things increased, and then the recession spread to the West. Something had to give. That is what we see happening now in the state GOP.

But, ideology aside, the obvious need to keep state government up and running, and to pay the bills, is paramount. Wilson is a Republican but he is also the governor. An anti-tax stand may clinch an ultra-conservative seat in Orange County. The price, however, may be further isolation from reality.