Readin’ and Writin’ and Revolution

Election Night television brought shots from a Nob Hill ballroom. School voucher opponents were gathered for a victory party. A union official crowed into the microphone about California’s decisive 70%-30% rejection of Proposition 174. Then the camera panned along a lavish buffet and picked out celebrities. The correspondent concluded with a breezy note that the bill for this celebration was $80,000.

It seemed so breathtakingly premature. Know your enemy, the general said. There were no shots from the losing camp, but it was easy to imagine what voucher advocates were doing that night: They were plotting the next campaign. They don’t give up easy, these people.

Forget about the Proposition 174 brain trust, the consultants and campaign bankrollers. We are talking here about the foot soldiers, the people who turn out for rallies, troll supermarkets with clipboards, mail campaign flyers, call talk shows. Their issue now is vouchers, but before it was property taxes and government spending caps and term limits and, to a degree, Perot in the California Primary. By and large, we are talking about the same stubborn people--and post-election suggestions that they will disappear now on vouchers probably should be filed away with Custer’s famous last battle cry: “Now we have got them, boys!”

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What to call them? Labels like conservative or libertarian don’t quite hit the mark. Often, in the early going, they are dismissed as gadflies, as crackpots, busybodies, yahoos, know-nothings. If they were to choose a handle, it might be something like New American Revolutionaries. Their pep talks are often filled with flattering self-comparisons to “the Founding Fathers,” and to Washington’s winter soldiers at Valley Forge.

They tend to rally around ideas more than individuals. They are not the creation of the Perots and Limbaughs; quite the opposite is true. They don’t move in lock-step, but come to politics with pet interests that can intersect. They are not a majority, but a base. As for policies, they gravitate toward blunt instruments, like term limits. One common belief transcends all others: If government is doing it, it must be wrong. To these people, the voucher debate is not quite about education policy. It is, more precisely, about taxes and bureaucrats. About how the money is spent.

Glamour is pervasive in California politics--movie star activists, super-consultants, big-name candidates. These people are the antidote. They come from places like Chico and Madera. In Los Angeles, they are found in the San Fernando Valley, not on the coast. In Orange County, their holy land, it’s Anaheim more than Newport. “A lot of them don’t have credit cards,” explained a tax fighter who knows them well. “Their houses are paid for. They live within their means, and they expect government to do the same.”

Many are retired, with time on their hands and memories of a long-ago California fixed in their minds. Campaign operatives seeking to target them with commercials will buy air time on “Wheel of Fortune” and radio spots in Tulare.

My best exposure to this often-underestimated force in California politics came several years ago. Paul Gann, the Proposition 13 tax crusader, had contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion and, seeking to promote research, hit the political trail. I rode along--to radio stations in Chico and coffee shops in Pinedale and political clubs in Folsom. In between stops, Gann would talk about the collective power to be tapped on this back roads circuit. He knew how.

“When your outgo exceeds your income,” he said at every stop, “it will be your downfall.”

They ate it up every time.

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Last Monday, Election Eve, I found myself in a chartered yellow school bus with a collection of Proposition 174 supporters. They had been picked up at a Target store for delivery at a Capitol rally. The men wore short sleeves, the women red, white and blue bows. They chattered merrily about fighting bureaucrats and blocking bond measures.

They knew they were going down hard this time and consoled themselves by recalling how Howard Jarvis had waged the property tax crusade across 15 years and three defeats before Proposition 13 finally passed. They seemed prepared for a war of attrition, and were delighted by the fortune their Proposition 174 opponents had spent.

“It won’t be as easy for them to come up with $14 million next time,” said a woman seated behind me.

“I don’t care if we have to do this seven times,” her seatmate added defiantly. “We’ll break them.”

They sounded very much like they meant it. Which is something people who believe vouchers are a bad idea should remember. Know your enemy--and save your resources. That $80,000 spent on Nob Hill the other night could buy a lot of radio time in Tulare.