Dole’s Success Opens the Door for Primary Conservatives

As Bob Dole solidified his front-runner status as his party’s presidential nominee, Gov. Pete Wilson worked Republican battlegrounds on behalf of the Senate majority leader. Why? Because “it’s important to me,” said Wilson, “who is at the top of the ticket from the standpoint of the bearing it will have on state races. It’s important to our reelection efforts for . . . Congress and the state Legislature that Bob Dole be at the top of the ticket.”

It’s a good bet that’s not the only reason the governor has been toiling selflessly in the Dole vineyards, but Wilson has a valid point. In fact, he ought to be concerned about more than the impact of the top of the ticket in November. What effect might Dole’s unofficially clinched nomination have on down-ballot contests in California’s Tuesday primary? Here’s a clue: The name of the game is turnout, which is one reason why Dole hyped the California primary even after his Rust Belt sweep last Tuesday.

The most recent Los Angeles Times poll shows Dole clobbering ultraconservative challenger Patrick J. Buchanan, 52% to 18%, in Tuesday’s GOP primary. And, because the Republican presidential race has turned into “Superfluous Tuesday,” as some wags have dubbed it, turnout looks to be low. That usually means a more conservative electorate. The question is, how conservative?

Which Republicans go to the polls may determine what GOP congressional and legislative nominees look like. And that could present problems for the state party in the fall.

Exit polls from this year’s presidential primaries suggest a “typical” GOP primary electorate: about one-fourth “very conservative”; one-fourth “moderate,” and about 45% “mainstream” or “somewhat” conservative. Dole’s base is among mainstream conservatives, Buchanan’s the hard right. Dole has strength among moderates, too. But their strongest support went to former Tenn. Gov. Lamar Alexander and publisher Steve Forbes, now both out of the race. What is left to motivate California moderates to vote?

If hard-core conservatives dominate Tuesday’s primary voting, the state GOP could find itself saddled with a gaggle of “Baby Buchanans” running for Congress and the Legislature come fall, and they are not exactly appealing to California’s broader electorate.

Exit polling also found that the majority of this year’s Republican primary voters are male. According to public-opinion analyst Karlyn Keene, “women stayed away from primary elections at a greater rate than men.” California’s GOP is also skewed toward males. If moderate Republican women stay home Tuesday, and if Dole is unacceptable to them in November, Bill Clinton and Democratic candidates in California could benefit greatly.

That’s what happened in 1992--and what the Times poll indicated could happen again. The survey showed women supporting Dole against the “too extreme” Buchanan in the primary. But in a general-election matchup between Dole and Clinton, women went overwhelmingly for Clinton.

Alternately, if moderate women tacitly cede control of the political agenda to “angry, white males” by staying home from the polls, they could endanger causes--such as abortion rights and gun control--important to them. That happened in the Republican tidal wave of 1994.

Turnout could be a wild card in local nonpartisan races as well. Take the contest for county district attorney, where incumbent Gil Garcetti faces five opponents. The primary electorate will probably skew Republican, not only because the GOP presidential ballot offers the only semblance of a choice, but because there are a significant number of heated Republican primary races for Congress and the Legislature.

Although Garcetti, a Democrat, has a significant edge in fund-raising and name recognition over his challengers, he carries some baggage into the primary. He has been attacked for his office’s poor track record in winning high-profile cases. The propriety of his office’s handling of cases involving Garcetti contributors has also become an issue.

Garcetti needs a majority to avoid a runoff, but what happens if Democratic turnout is low and he is left unprotected by his political base? If conservatives swamp the polls and cast protest votes against him?

Ballot-proposition campaigns could have something to worry about, too. Three tort-reform initiatives--Propositions 200, 201 and 202--represent the most powerful salvo launched against the state’s trial lawyers, traditional Democratic allies, since the 1988 auto-insurance initiative wars.

The barrage of TV ads, with initiative proponents portraying attorneys as rich and greedy shysters and opponents attacking corporations as preying on small investors, has been unrelenting; it constitutes just about the only statewide campaign California voters have seen. Recent polls indicate that the opponents’ negative ads are having an impact. Nonetheless, the opposition may be “soft,” and a conservative electorate is more likely to support the initiatives’ business backers.

Proponents of Proposition 203, a $3-billion school-bond measure, face a dilemma. Polls indicate majority support for the proposition among likely voters, but history shows an electorate skewed toward conservatives and Republicans is likely to be less supportive of bond measures. Here, too, a gender gap in the turnout could make a difference: The Times’ poll showed women more strongly in favor of the bonds.

An added concern is the bond proposal’s number--203. The YES on 203 campaign worries that voter response to the “no” ads for the anti-lawyer propositions, whose tag line is “NO on the Terrible 200s,” will extend to the school-bond measure.

Polls have also indicated strong public support for Proposition 198, which would establish an open primary system. But the leadership of both major parties oppose it, and voters in a low-turnout election tend to be strong partisans, far more likely to respect their party leaders.

What supreme irony! The future of the entire system of primary elections could depend on the vagaries of the electorate the current system will motivate to turn out. And so could the fate of most everything else on the March ballot.

That’s worrisome, because the painful truth is, many Californians either don’t know or don’t care that the state primary is Tuesday. And many of those who do know think the only contest on the ballot is between Corporate Wolves and Fat-Cat Lawyers.