Powell Deals Californians Two Losses

For the average California voter, Colin Powell’s conclusion that he lacks the “commitment and passion” to run for President is a double whammy. First, it’s now likely that the most interesting part of the March 26 primary ballot will be a string of eye-glazing propositions. Second, Republicans lost a rare opportunity to recast their party and broaden its appeal.

Of course, the political Establishment gave a sigh of relief. Combatants on both sides--especially the far right--regularly mouth the mantra of change. But they fear any meaningful change in the body politic that would redirect their party away from the noisy activist fringe and toward the passive common center.

Powell’s decision to remain a spectator rather than “run this test of fire” was great news for the Establishment and its nervous candidates. Polls showed the retired general potentially could have beaten anybody.

For California, it means that the race for the Republican presidential nomination probably will be a yawner by the time candidates limp into this state. There won’t be any historic battle for the “heart and soul” of the party--and its biggest bloc of delegates--between centrist Powell and Senate leader Bob Dole, who has catered to the right to remain the GOP front-runner.

There’ll be no cataclysmic upheaval that reshapes the state party for a generation as there was 32 years ago. Then, conservative Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater outfought moderate New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to capture California’s decisive delegate votes. There won’t be the irony of native New Yorker Powell, the self-described “Rockefeller Republican,” pulling the state GOP back toward the electoral mainstream.

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And why should there be, a conservative activist might ask. Why tinker with success? That landmark 1964 Goldwater victory--although leading to a Democratic landslide the next November--gave birth to the “Reagan Revolution.”

Such an argument would ignore the main inspiration of the “Reagan Revolution.” It was not ideology, but the man. Not smaller government or even lower taxes, and certainly not anti-abortion. Ronald Reagan’s core appeal was character, conviction and leadership. In Sacramento, he expanded state government, raised taxes and liberalized abortions. Conservative activists still loved him. The electoral mainstream then and later often disagreed with some of Reagan’s ideas, but admired and trusted the man.

That, of course, also is Powell’s allure. He would have been assailed from the far right--”the intolerant right,” in the words of new GOP Assembly Speaker Brian Setencich of Fresno. But he could have appealed to the tolerant, broad center.

And California, after all, is a centrist state. Gov. Pete Wilson initially was elected as a centrist, then moved to the right and was reelected in spite of himself because of inept opposition. While Californians were choosing a Republican governor this decade, they also were sending two Democrats to the U.S. Senate--not to mention awarding their presidential electoral votes to Democrat Bill Clinton.

So the GOP combatants should not be all that cocky about “revolutions” and “contracts.” Political pendulums tied to philosophy--and gimmicks--now seem to swing in two-year election cycles, rather than decades or generations. Mainstream voters are like TV channel surfers, switching from one party to another, not sure what they’re looking for, just something better.

What remains constant is their attraction to personal qualities, especially the capacity to lead. We’ll never know--1996 might have given birth to a “Powell Revolution.”

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Mike Huffington, last year’s unsuccessful Senate candidate, was one California Republican who had rooted for Powell to run. “It’s a loss,” he says. “Powell was the most qualified person to be President. He’s a man of tremendous character--and a man who could have brought into the party minority groups and helped heal the nation. He would have attracted a lot of people who just don’t vote any more.”

Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, Dole’s California campaign chairman, is more typical of the GOP Establishment. Lungren is “very pleased” that Powell declared himself to be a Republican, noting “he might be able to crack open the party’s door to African Americans.”

Politically, Lungren adds, Powell’s decision will spare Dole much “wear and tear. He won’t come through the California primary battered and bruised.”

Neither will the party be broadened, however. And Californians probably will have little “passion” to vote--unless they can get excited about ballot measures dealing with seismic retrofitting and tort reform.