The Blue Collar Road Map to a Second Term

A cold, cavernous warehouse seemed an unlikely place for a Republican governor to formally launch his reelection campaign.

Republican candidates prefer outdoor rallies with bands and flags, followed by a civic luncheon with corporate executives and a country club reception during the cocktail hour.

Only Democrats go to warehouses with muddy entrances at the start of the morning shift.

But there was Gov. Pete Wilson last Tuesday, in a dark suit and white shirt, speaking to 200 or so steelworkers wearing boots and hard hats and sipping coffee from foam cups. Wilson said he chose the resurrected mill owned by California Steel Industries for his campaign launch pad because it is a metaphor for the entire, struggling state.

Indeed, there is a stark reminder of tough times as one drives past acres of rusted buildings and discarded machinery, remnants of Kaiser Steel’s once-gigantic operation before it folded in 1983. CSI, a Japanese-Brazilian partnership, bought some of Kaiser’s facilities and began manufacturing steel products in late 1984. It flirted with fleeing the state, but stayed and modernized. Now, it employs 1,000 people and plans to expand.

On Tuesday, the governor was given credit by management and workers alike for cutting red tape to expedite CSI’s expansion. And that was another unusual thing about this political event: Workers and management sharing the same space, talking the same goals, muting the demagoguery. This is a non-union plant.

So Wilson’s job rating at the mill presumably is much better than in the rest of the state. But that was not the reason he set up his podium here for the one campaign event he knew the news media would be obliged to cover. Nor was it really the metaphor for perseverance and success, although this fits nicely with his “California comeback” message.

The governor came here primarily because San Bernardino County--the whole Inland Empire--is a political battleground vital to his reelection.

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These are swing voters. They lean Republican, but switch and cannot be taken for granted. The parties are about evenly divided in registration.

San Bernardino County went big for George Bush in 1988, then swung by a narrow margin to Bill Clinton in 1992. It voted heavily for Wilson over Dianne Feinstein in 1990, when Wilson narrowly won statewide.

So the play for a Republican candidate is to generate enough votes out of San Bernardino and similar counties to overcome losses in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. Conversely, a Democrat must hold down the GOP vote here.

“The Inland Empire’s like the Central Valley in that it’s a part of eastern California,” observes George Gorton, who went to Redlands High School and is Wilson’s campaign manager.

Like many political consultants, Gorton views the state in terms of east and west more than north and south. Voters on the west--living along the coastal strip--tend to be better off financially and worry more about the environment. They’re also more liberal on social issues. To the east, you find more “box lunch Republicans”--as Gorton calls them--and Christian fundamentalists.

San Bernardino County also offers what Democratic activist George Burden calls “the Bubba vote.” In 1992, it deserted Bush and backed Clinton or Ross Perot. Burden, then the party’s local field coordinator, predicts a huge plurality for Wilson if Democrats nominate Treasurer Kathleen Brown. “People are not going to support a woman out here,” he asserts.

Assemblyman Joe Baca (D-San Bernardino) isn’t conceding that, but says “she’s going to have to come out here, be visible and pay attention.”

Brown--like all candidates--will need to pay attention to jobs and crime. Both the unemployment and homicide rates here are higher than the state average.

“People here are primarily middle class and work hard for a living. Many commute for hours. Basically, they want to be left alone by government,” says Assembly GOP Leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga, who introduced Wilson at the warehouse.

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“I like what he did about passing that ‘three strikes,’ ” said one worker, Jim Love, 63, while noting that “a lot of people around here have bad feelings for him.”

But a younger worker told me his main concern is schools. “I got kids,” said Craig Stevens, 43. “Schools were getting better, now they’re going down again. You tell me, who ‘n hell’s going to pay for that ‘three strikes?’ ”

Wilson knows that if most Californians think like Stevens, Brown wins. However, he’s betting that Love is more typical. And it’s his kind that he came here to rev up.