Gore Courts Prodigal Democrats in Sweep of San Joaquin Valley

Al Gore barnstormed the San Joaquin Valley on Sunday to woo the sort of voters that he and Bill Clinton need to capture the White House: Democrats who have been voting Republican in presidential elections since 1980.

Although current opinion polls show Democrat Clinton overwhelmingly ahead of President Bush in California, the race is expected to tighten as Election Day approaches--and the Central Valley could be one of the most influential regions.

Gore’s visit to the state’s agricultural heartland is a sign of the Democratic campaign’s confidence in California--and in itself. In contrast to Bush--whose recent visit to the state included only traditional Republican areas as he tried to shore up his faltering base of support--the Democratic nominee for vice president was trying to mine new votes in sometimes hostile areas.

“There are times when leadership is passed on to a new generation,” Gore told about 3,000 supporters who gathered in Stockton on Sunday morning. “We have a new approach, as a contrast to the other side. The other side has run out of ideas, they’ve run out of things to do, and if you help, they’ll be run out of Washington in November.”

In three stops over the 250-mile stretch from Stockton to Fresno to Bakersfield, Gore hammered away at the Republican Administration for its lack of ideas and suggested that the Democratic ticket is a path to better days. Everywhere he went, he encountered large, enthusiastic crowds.

“(Bush) has to shore up his base, whereas Bill Clinton and Al Gore are reaching out to all of those Democrats the party lost in the 1970s and ‘80s,” said John Emerson, state director of the Clinton campaign, during a Gore speech in Fresno. “Typically, Republicans have run up 250,000-vote margins in the San Joaquin Valley. We’ve gone right to these places, right off the bat, because of the tremendous power of this message.”

Gore was delighted Sunday to find fodder for his attacks from a California Republican stronghold. An editorial in the Orange County Register called for Bush to step down from the campaign. (Two Connecticut newspapers also called on Bush to pull out--the Sunday Republican of Waterbury and the Herald of New Britain.)

“Bush and (Vice President Dan) Quayle are huddled in a political panic,” Gore said. “They read the editorial in the Orange County newspaper this morning. Is Orange County a Republican area? Did they vote overwhelmingly for Bush and Quayle last time?”

Gore was introduced to the crowd Sunday morning by state Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, a co-chairman of the Clinton/Gore campaign in California, who complained that unemployment in the Stockton area is approaching 16%.

Gore charged that the White House responded to the problem by initiating political damage control rather than by seeking a solution.

“You would think with almost 16% unemployment here, they would be concentrating . . . on trying to fix the problem instead of just throwing mud,” he said. “That’s why people are fed up with politics.”

Politics in the Central Valley has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. It still has a strong agricultural community sensitive to farming issues. But now, with a recent influx of urban refugees seeking a better quality of life, many concerns of voters are similar to those in the city: education, taxes and the environment.

So the election results in the valley have often split between the parties--Republicans winning the top of the ticket, while Democrats are elected to state and federal offices.

The vote has also split between different parts of the valley. The city of Fresno supported Walter F. Mondale for President in 1984 and Michael S. Dukakis in 1988 only to be offset by votes for Ronald Reagan and Bush in rural portions of the county.