A Primary Example of Bad Timing

This is not right. The leaves aren’t out. Mud is everywhere. Mornings still are chilly and the nights long. Rather than rain gear, we should be in short sleeves, working on tans--thinking about Memorial Day, not the tax deadline. It should be almost the first Tuesday in June, not the last Tuesday in March.

The March 26 California primary? Say what?

“I say ‘March 26’ and hear things like, ‘Really, when’d they change it?’ or, ‘Well, that’s the presidential primary.’ People just assume we’re still having our regular primary in June,” says veteran political consultant Joe Cerrell, who is managing 13 judicial campaigns in the Los Angeles area.

“People just aren’t tuned into the election. Period,” says consultant Ray McNally, who handles legislative races. “Our biological clocks don’t say, ‘This is the time for an election.’ We’re all programmed to think about it in June. Now, all of a sudden, they’re trying to make us think about it in March.”

“My main goal,” says Secretary of State Bill Jones, “is just to let people know there’s going to be an election. The presidential candidates haven’t even focused on our election yet.”

Nor will they ever, really. Steve Forbes reportedly is quitting the race today, joining a half-dozen other beaten men on the sidelines. Pat Buchanan still is running, but mainly for attention, the GOP nomination far beyond his reach. Sen. Bob Dole has all but clinched the prize and intends to spend just three days campaigning in California. For him, this primary is a pain, not a priority.

There’s none of that coveted “clout,” despite California’s having moved up its presidential primary--along with all its congressional, legislative and ballot measure contests--to the earliest election date ever. It’s both too late for the presidential race and too soon for a sane state primary.

The result surely will be a very low turnout--perhaps the lowest ever.

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The lowest-ever turnout of registered voters for a California presidential primary was 47.5% in 1992, and that year there were two U.S. Senate contests in each party. The lowest turnout in a nonpresidential primary was a pathetic 35% in 1994, when there were hard-fought gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races.

Secretary of State Jones has sent public service announcements to radio stations, appealing to voter pride. “We have always led the way for the rest of the nation,” he pleads in the recording. “Let’s lead the nation and get out the vote.”

Final voter registration figures released by Jones on Wednesday showed about a 1% increase from January to February, to 75.2% of eligible citizens. The GOP share rose 1.2% and now is 37% of the electorate. Ross Perot’s new Reform Party lost 6,724 members, meaning this conceivably is the number--not a lot--that Buchanan forces managed to talk into re-registering as Republicans. The Reform Party represents less than 1% of the electorate. The Democrats’ share is 47.2%, down a quarter point.

With waning interest in the Republican presidential race and President Clinton uncontested for renomination, campaign strategists are expecting a voter turnout of only around 40%. “There seems to be no passion out there at all,” McNally says.

GOP consultant Sal Russo theorizes that Republican voters “are dispirited” because they feel the 2-year-old “revolution” led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich “isn’t going very well. And that’s having a negative impact on turnout everywhere.”

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“It’s a consultant’s nightmare,” says Bobbie Metzger, who is managing the campaign for Proposition 203, a $3-billion school construction bond issue. There’s little interest, she laments, and “people are giving more attention to mountain lions than they are 6 million students.”

But neither is the measure to manage mountain lions--Proposition 197--likely to attract many voters.

Historically, a low turnout benefits conservative causes because habitual voters tend to be older, affluent and, well, more conservative. They also tend to be GOP activists. So the smaller the turnout, the more precarious is the school bond measure. That’s one theory. Another is that with right-wingers losing enthusiasm for Buchanan, their turnout will be smaller than expected.

At any rate, Metzger expects “a very close” vote on school bonds.

The same with Proposition 192, a $2-billion bond issue to make bridges earthquake-proof. Consultants question whether a conservative electorate will approve bond issues for both highways and schools.

But the experts really don’t know what to think. And clearly many voters don’t either.

This election is the first of its kind--and hopefully the last.