Democrats Cruise as State GOP Sputters

By PAUL FELDMAN

Oct. 21, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Two years ago, the state Democratic Party stood in disarray, having lost its third consecutive gubernatorial race to the sleek, well-oiled state Republican Party juggernaut.

These days, however, a transformation has taken place.

California Democrats registered nearly three times as many voters from May to September. The state GOP is locked in a wrenching, intraparty feud between moderate Gov. Pete Wilson and the Christian right. And for once it is Republican Party leaders who, less than two weeks before a general election, are eyeing with envy the united front posed by their traditional ideological foe.

“It’s fair to say the Democrats appear to be better organized than they’ve been in a long, long time and the Republicans appear to be less well organized than they’ve been for a long, long time,” said Republican strategist Steven Merksamer, who served as a chief of staff for former Gov. George Deukmejian. “I think that it clearly will have an impact on the ballot. It always has.”

Democrats are hoping their concerted effort will swing several key congressional and Assembly races in their favor. In 44 of California’s 52 congressional districts, GOP registration has dropped by at least a percentage point since February. And in 69 of the state’s 80 Assembly districts, Democrats outpaced Republicans in registration from May to September.

The registration boom could also provide icing on the cake for the U.S. Senate candidacies of Democratic front-runners Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, party leaders predict.

“Two years ago, Dianne Feinstein lost the governor’s race by 266,000 votes, and in 1986, Sen. Alan Cranston was reelected by 105,000 votes,” said state Democratic Party Political Director Bob Mulholland. “The point is, numerous elections have been decided by 100,000 votes out of nearly 8 million cast.

“So it is important that before the polls have been opened, we’ve increased the Democratic margin by some 400,000 registered voters in a Democratic year.”

The state party’s fortunes have been bolstered by a combination of strategic decisions, personnel moves and presidential trends.

Without question, experts say, California has proved fertile territory for Democratic organizing efforts because of widespread disenchantment with George Bush in a state that is suffering from spiraling unemployment and dire budgetary woes. The registration surge appears to mirror a national trend in which people are signing up in record numbers to vote in the presidential election.

In recent years, however, the state Democratic Party might not have had the institutional will or capability to take advantage, observers say.

When Feinstein narrowly lost her race for governor to Wilson two years ago, for example, the state party, chaired at the time by former Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., was embarrassingly outspent and out-organized in its get-out-the-vote effort.

“His specialty is ideas, not organization, and it showed,” said Assemblyman Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento), who chairs the Democratic Assembly’s voter registration committee.

Brown, who eventually departed for loftier goals, was replaced by Phil Angelides, a young, ambitious Sacramento developer. Although some party members have been turned off by his self-promotional tendencies, Angelides, 39, has received credit for working tirelessly to instill manners in the long-dysfunctional party while paying strict attention to the nuts-and-bolts mechanics needed to win votes in the computer age.

“It’s very simple,” Mulholland said. “The Democrats finally said to themselves--and Phil deserves much of the credit for this--let’s stop fighting with each other and fight the Republicans.”

Last spring, the Democrats avoided infighting at their state convention in Los Angeles by not endorsing candidates in the two closely contested U.S. Senate primary races.

And in the last year, the party has poured as much as $1.5 million into voter registration programs--including a $1-per-head bounty to party workers for each new voter.

The effort could reap huge rewards in several hot races.

In the 69th Assembly District, where incumbent Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove) faces a well-financed challenge, Democrats outpaced Republicans in new registrations by a margin of 11,061 to 1,618 between March and October. In the Napa County-area 7th Assembly District, where Democrat Valerie Kent Brown is facing Republican Janet G. Nicholas, Democratic registration outpaced Republican registration by 18,523 to 2,980 between May and October.

In the 41st Assembly District in Los Angeles County, where incumbent Terry B. Friedman faces Republican Christine Reed, Democrats have registered 10,000 more voters than Republicans since the June primary. At the beginning of the year, the Democrats held a 49%-40% lead in registration in the newly formed district covering portions of the Westside and San Fernando Valley. Now the Democratic lead as widened to 50.3% to 36.5%.

Similar margins have been recorded in other contested districts from Stockton to the Coachella Valley.

“The reality is we have probably taken two Assembly seats off the table and made several others competitive,” Isenberg said.

In the past, the state Republican Party has led in technological innovations and get-out-the-vote efforts.

Such strategies have eked out hard-fought victories for the state Republican Party in the last decade. In 1982, a seminal computerized vote-by-mail program was credited with winning the governorship for Deukmejian over Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. Although Bradley beat Deukmejian by 20,000 votes at the ballot box, the conservative Republican carried almost 60% of the absentee vote, resulting in a final victory total of about 100,000 votes among 7.7 million cast.

Again in 1990, the Republican Party’s grass-roots organizing efforts--with an estimated cost of $7 million--were credited with pushing Wilson and state attorney general candidate Dan Lungren over the top. Like Deukmejian, Lungren trailed at the polls but inched ahead by 29,000 votes in the final absentee ballot count.

A lingering tribute to the Republican Party’s grass-roots efforts during the last decade is the fact that between 1932 and 1988, state Democratic registration never dipped below the 50% mark. Shortly afterward, it fell below that number.

But since February, the Democrats have been moving steadily back up. The latest official registration figures show the Democrats, with 48.65% of the state electorate, had increased their tally by 591,000 voters through early September. The Republicans, with 37.92% of the electorate, had registered 284,614 voters in the same period.

Moreover, the state Republican Party has shown signs of unraveling.

Just as the state Democratic Party was once ripped asunder by internecine fighting between its ideological left wing and more moderate forces, the Republican Party is engaged in a furious tussle between Wilson’s moderates and the forces of the religious right.

Indeed, the sitting governor was so concerned about dissension in the party that he and his followers boycotted the state Republican convention this year in an attempt to divert media attention from the disarray.

Observers say the fissure has led to competition within the party instead of toward focusing on finding new voters. And they say it threatens to undo Wilson’s tenacious efforts through reapportionment and the recent 63-day state budget stalemate to position his party to take control of the state Assembly.

“The Republican side seems dispirited, disoriented and lacking any sense of focus,” said longtime state observer Joe Scott, publisher of the California Eye political newsletter.

This fall, the governor is diverting valuable campaign funds in the fight for Proposition 165, which if enacted would dramatically increase his powers. Meanwhile, the state Republican Party has hired hard-line conservative and former Assembly candidate Barbara Alby to conduct its voter outreach program--which includes a registration video attacking homosexuals that is being distributed to churches statewide.

“Unfortunately, there is no question that we have not presented the image of a united party to the people of California and that’s something we’re going to have to get past,” said Wilson’s communications director, Dan Schnur. “In terms of absentee and get-out-the-vote, that’s where a significant difference can be made.”

Democratic Party leaders, on the other hand, “obviously have learned from their mistakes and in terms of voter registration, they’ve done very, very well,” Schnur said.

Republican Merksamer, a friend of Angelides, agrees that the Democratic chairman “is a very able non-ideological guy who I think deserves a great deal of credit.”

The Republican Party, on the other hand, must learn quickly from its mistakes, Merksamer said.

“It seems there are too many people within our party who are too unwilling to give one another the benefit of the doubt,” said Merksamer, who has tried to avoid taking sides in the battle. “Some of it is ideological and some of it, quite frankly, is personal.”

“We can act like mature men and women and sit and try to work together,” he said. “But if it doesn’t happen, we’ll be on a slippery slope.”