Clinton’s Pro-California Strategy Hits Some Snags

He stopped for only 12 hours in San Francisco Monday on his way to economic meetings in Tokyo, but President Clinton found the time to meet with local officials and offer soothing words about military base closings.

While California officials have not been happy with the Administration over the closures, they could appreciate the reasons he was there--including the political ones. “This was a decisive state for Clinton in 1992,” said Alameda County Supervisor Don Perata, who attended the session. “And it will be again.”

The meeting gave some insight into Clinton’s strategy in California and some of the snags that strategy has encountered.

The Administration has made good on its promise to shower special attention on the state that was the keystone of Clinton’s 1992 electoral victory and, by virtue of its size, is central to any national economic recovery.

Yet as the California economy has continued to sputter and the effects of the defense contraction have become clearer, it is apparent that the Administration’s goals for the state are going to be more difficult to achieve than it had appeared six months ago.

The White House has just offered a five-year plan that would ease the effects of base closings. But even insiders concede that the effort is a partial palliative. And Clinton himself has acknowledged that this latest round of closings disproportionately affects California.

Clinton has spoken about financial help he wants to direct to the state: to cover special immigration costs, to attract new business to the cities, to turn defense industry to civilian uses, to provide summer jobs. But some of the sums that might have been earmarked for those programs have shrunk as plans for overall domestic spending were pared in the final stages of budget planning.

Underlying it all are the continuing difficulties of the California economy.

“Clearly we’ve suffered some difficulties along the way,” said Tom Epstein, a special assistant to Clinton in the White House political office. “It’s going to be a long, hard road back.”

Meanwhile, the continuing economic problems and some of Clinton’s proposals to alleviate them have cost the President political support.

Some important early backers, such as executives in the high-technology industries, have deserted him. A Field Poll conducted in May found that 31% of Californians believe Clinton is doing a good or excellent job--suggesting his approval rating is measurably lower in the economically ailing state than across the nation as a whole, where his rating is now 36%.

In a further complication, Gov. Pete Wilson has engaged Clinton in a contest to assign blame for the state’s difficulties.

Despite the setbacks, the Administration has remained determined to show that it will give special attention to the state. Clinton has made four trips to California this year--twice as many as to his home state of Arkansas. Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown has visited seven times, Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros twice.

“No other state has gotten the same degree of attention,” Epstein said. “This is not going to be a successful presidency if California doesn’t bounce back.”

And the Administration’s political agenda in the state is ambitious.

Clinton aides want to win the governorship back from the Republicans in 1994, make inroads into the strong base of Ross Perot voters and use the state’s 54 electoral votes as a foundation for a second-term victory in 1996. The Clinton team inherited the state in 1992 through George Bush’s political neglect, adviser Paul Begala said. But next time out they will have to earn it.

Administration officials and their allies in Congress said that they already have made special efforts on behalf of California’s economy.

They pointed to an effort led by Brown to expedite government help to the state and localities, and also to Clinton’s promise to give special consideration to California in the $20-billion, five-year defense conversion plan. They also mentioned plans for tax incentives to develop high technology and trade, both of which stand to particularly benefit California.

“These things are all incremental but, as they begin to develop, they will have an impact,” Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento) said.

Administration officials have said that they will try to assist the state with its illegal immigration problem. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and Doris M. Meissner, the nominee to lead the Immigration and Naturalization Service, are planning a review of immigration policy that aides said will consider such controversial proposals as national identity papers.

But critics have contended that some aspects of Clinton’s agenda would do the state harm. They cited the defense cuts, the effects of higher taxes on the state’s higher-than-average personal incomes and the impact of higher gasoline taxes on a state where drivers must travel long distances.

Some high-technology executives argue that the tax policies, including the surcharge on the wealthy, would harm their efforts to accumulate capital. “The high tech people are really souring on him,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political scientist at the Center for Politics and Policy at Claremont Graduate School.

Clinton talked earlier this year about generating thousands of summer jobs for Californians as a step toward easing the problems of inner cities. But the program was cut in half when Congress killed the President’s $16.3-billion economic stimulus bill.

The Administration already has found itself reluctantly locked in a blame game with Gov. Wilson. Suffering his own popularity slump, the governor released a report in May saying that the Clinton economic plan would cost state taxpayers $11.6 billion more than they would receive in benefits.

In letters to the President, Wilson has complained that Clinton’s proposal for an energy tax would hurt state residents, that his government has failed to provide enough money to cover state immigration expenses and that California workers have been harmed by his federal timber management plan.

“If the President wants to see if he can win in 1996 without California, he’s made a good start,” said Dan Schnur, Wilson’s spokesman.