Pringle Could Learn From Nixon: One’s Reputation Is Key

In this, the week commemorating his birthday, TV served up biographies of Richard Nixon. They coincided with “Nixon,” the movie still playing in the theaters. All this talk about Nixon led me, late one night, to think about Curt Pringle. Believe me, this is not something I normally do.

Depending on your point of view, mentioning Pringle and Nixon in the same breath either pays the supreme compliment to the Garden Grove assemblyman or insults him royally. That aside, let’s set our sights on a longer-range and more important question for young Mr. Pringle, all the while keeping Richard Nixon in mind.

I’m not suggesting Pringle has national political potential. Term limits, as a practical matter, may prevent him from establishing himself as a viable candidate for anything beyond the Legislature. I am suggesting, though, that everyone starts somewhere, and it’s not too early for Pringle to start thinking about his reputation.

That didn’t really matter until last week when Pringle became the speaker of the California Assembly. With the rapidity of an unknown Nixon attaining notoriety in 1946, so will Pringle in 1996, as he becomes a key figure in forming both the legislation in California and the nature of the political discourse. In the instant that he became speaker, Pringle was assured of commanding a microphone any time he wants one in 1996.

Simply put, what kind of politician does he want to be?

Pringle is 36, which makes him a veritable baby in a political lifetime. Still, that’s just a year younger than Nixon was when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1950 and picked up the “Tricky Dick” tag from his opponent. That nickname didn’t come out of nowhere, because by then Nixon already had antagonized lots of people for his attacks on an opponent in his first congressional race in 1946.

Pringle’s career, even on its miniaturized scale, has gotten off to a similar bumpy start. His first Assembly race was tainted by charges that he and county Republican Party leaders, suspicious of unregistered Latinos voting, hired uniformed guards to monitor polling sites. More recently, Pringle has looked like a ham-handed political operative as the business of maintaining the Republican majority in the Assembly has unfolded.

Pringle’s allies insist he’s got the right stuff. Marcia Gilchrist is treasurer of the county GOP and a veteran of Pringle’s first Assembly campaign in 1988. “I put in some awful long hours and I have worked for many, many candidates and elected officeholders over the years and I don’t put in the effort unless I believe in them,” she says.

“I think from before Curt even ran [for Assembly], he had the desire, the temperament, the drive, I guess you’d call it the fire in the belly, to really go forward. I think he had some definite principles in mind he wanted to put forth in politics, and I think from Day One he’s been aiming at something higher.”

I asked Gilchrist if she thinks rough-and-tumble statehouse politics has changed Pringle, a former Eagle Scout and still baby-faced. “I don’t think so,” she says. “I don’t see him in Sacramento. When I see him, he’s [in Orange County] with his wife and children, and he hasn’t changed. . . . He’s smarter, probably, to the ways of some politicians and probably better able to cope with whatever others dish out. With that drive, I think he will be successful. You don’t have to run over and stomp on people to be successful.”

By this time next year, we’ll have a pretty good idea if Pringle believes that. We’ll know whether he really deplored former Speaker Willie Brown’s autocratic rule, or merely envied it, as Nixon did of Lyndon Johnson’s style.

These should be exciting times for Pringle, who must have to pinch himself to believe he’s the same guy who lost three city council races before winning an Assembly seat. He’s in a unique position as speaker to forge a political reputation that, even if it ends in Sacramento, can leave a positive mark.

He needs to realize it isn’t about politics, but about style and grace. Nixon covered up his own paranoia and baser instincts by blaming it on the press and assorted enemies. It is worth noting that Republican presidents Ford, Bush and Reagan--whose politics didn’t stray far from Nixon’s--emerged from office widely respected and admired by people of all political persuasions.

Even on the smaller stage in Sacramento, Pringle has the same choice.

It may seem a fanciful enterprise, but if Curt Pringle somehow emerges in the years ahead as a statewide or congressional candidate, he may find he’s living on the reputation he made for himself in 1996.

Dana Parsons’ columns appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.