The Per-Capita Factors in Rapist’s Parole

When he said it, the words and the tone struck me like a loud dissonant chord.

“I want this guy sitting out in the wilderness someplace where he will have absolutely the least possible opportunity to hurt another young woman,” the governor intonated, his voice reaching a crescendo for TV cameras.

Pete Wilson meant it as sweet music for the ears of voters, but there were some he did not relate to and was ignoring.

And this is understandable--if not particularly admirable--because in politics, as in business, it’s bottom-line numbers that count. And the bottom line is that California elections are won in the suburbs, not the cow counties. Victorious politicians--as with most successful people--focus on what counts.

Alameda County has suburbs, including Hayward, the original parole site for serial rapist Melvin Carter. Modoc, where the Wilson Administration finally stashed him after Hayward protested, is a cow county.

Alameda generated 3.1% of Wilson’s vote total when he beat Democrat Dianne Feinstein in the 1990 gubernatorial election--not a big block, but he only won by a statewide margin of 3.5%. Toss in the votes of neighboring Contra Costa County and the combined contribution to Wilson’s victory was 6.3%. From the entire seven-county San Francisco Bay Area, it was 16.5%

By contrast, the portion of Wilson’s vote that came from Modoc up in the state’s northeast corner was less than six-hundreths of 1%. In fact, if you add in the votes of the two border counties, Siskiyou and Lassen, their donation to Wilson’s win still was just one-third of 1%.

“What? Six thousand (registered) voters?” responded one unconcerned Republican insider when asked to assess the political impact of angry Modoc being forced to host the “College Terrace Rapist.”

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Wilson insists it was not he who decided to house Carter at a prison work camp--in a bungalow normally used for conjugal visits--seven miles from Alturas and its high school. That was the decision of his Corrections Department, the governor notes.

But Wilson did dictate the criteria for locating the parolee, who had confessed to raping more than 100 young women around Bay Area campuses and was being released from prison--as the law required--after cutting his 25-year sentence in half with penitentiary work and good behavior.

Wilson ordered that Carter be fitted with an electronic surveillance bracelet, his travel be restricted to 25 miles and he be closely watched. The watching so far is requiring a 10-man crew, each salaried at between $50,000 and $60,000 a year.

“There can be no absolute guarantee that this man . . . will not hurt someone else,” the governor acknowledged at his March 14 press conference. “Given Carter’s history, I refuse to let this animal anywhere near a college or university. I won’t allow him to be returned to Hayward or any other densely populated urban center where it would be easy to find new victims. I have directed the Department of Corrections to find the most remote location possible for his parole. I want this guy sitting out in the wilderness. . . .”

Wait a minute, I thought. What’s Wilson got against the wilderness? And I instantly knew the answer. In his mind, rural California and wilderness are one and the same, and he has little knowledge of or deep appreciation for either. Life in a small town is beyond his comprehension. He has become the governor of the vote-rich TV markets, especially L.A.’s.

Listening to his relocation rules for the notorious rapist, one could get the impression Wilson believes that college students deserve more protection than waitresses or high-schoolers; that if it’s only 200 potential victims, it’s not as important as 200,000 or 2 million.

Whatever happened to the GOP as the party of the individual?

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“Pete just tripped up on the macho talk,” says a Republican strategist. “It’s part of the tough talk that’s worked well for him in recent months. He forgot that when he was talking tough, he was being insensitive to a certain kind of community, the rural areas.”

Since then, there has been a steady stream of tough talk from Modoc and other mountain counties, raking Wilson.

And on Wednesday, Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Garamendi--who grew up on a Sierra ranch--added his tough talk. “Carter was treated like a rail car full of nuclear waste and shipped off to what Pete Wilson seems to think is the Ward Valley for rapists,” the insurance commissioner said in a speech. He suggested that Carter be released to the governor’s mansion.

A more practical place would be a trailer outside San Quentin.