California: Bob Dole’s Show-Me State

Sen. Bob Dole this week will do two things in California: He’ll begin to seriously battle President Clinton in the state and--even more important--try to convince people that’s what he’s doing. Not just faking, but really fighting.

One way he’ll convey that message is to name a heavyweight fighter as his chief California strategist. Dole is expected to install veteran political consultant Kenneth L. Khachigian in that role after weeks of misgivings about his California campaign team.

To some extent, this is another episode in a soap opera involving Gov. Pete Wilson and Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren. Last fall, Lungren was placed in charge of Dole’s California campaign. Soon, Wilson also jumped aboard and elbowed Lungren aside. The governor recruited a loyal political operative, Marty Wilson (no relation), as Dole’s state campaign manager.

Dole lost confidence in Gov. Wilson’s operation, however, after hearing tales of tension and being booked into some awkward campaign events, particularly a visit to San Quentin’s death row.

Marty Wilson will remain on the campaign team, but Khachigian apparently will call the shots. Gov. Wilson and Lungren will continue to be campaign co-chairmen and be consulted by Khachigian, but the new head guru will be freer than Marty Wilson was to deal directly with the national campaign.

“It’s about time,” says the amiable Marty Wilson. “I’m not a political strategist. I’m a good Republican operative who can make the trains run on time. I’m very comfortable in that role.”

*

Junkies who keep a tally of political points will be inclined to score this one for Lungren. He and Khachigian have old ties. Khachigian managed Lungren’s squeaker race for attorney general in 1990 and his reelection cakewalk in 1994. Khachigian, however, also helped the governor in his ill-fated presidential bid. And Marty Wilson has some ties to Lungren. Therefore, this isn’t so much about intramural gamesmanship.

It’s about bringing in a savvy brawler with national political experience to take over a moribund state campaign that’s 20 points behind in the polls. It’s also about signaling both the dispirited GOP and the cocky Clinton camp that Dole is committed to contesting California.

“One of my missions is to make Clinton commit forces here,” says Khachigian. “Dole knows the strategic value of keeping Clinton pinned down out here. You’re going to make it harder for him to win Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania. . . . Keep Clinton pinned down in California; maybe he doesn’t go to Florida and Texas very often.”

Of course, this is a Catch-22. The only way to “pin down” Clinton in California--a state the president cannot afford to lose--is to cut into his huge lead and scare him. And to do that, Dole must pin himself down here and neglect other crucial states.

Beginning Tuesday afternoon, the GOP candidate will campaign for 1 1/2 days in the Los Angeles area, San Diego and Sacramento. That’s a start, but not a lot of running time for a badly trailing dark horse.

*

“Everybody thinks Clinton has a natural advantage here, and I’m telling you it’s going to evaporate,” Khachigian insists. “By the end of the Republican convention”--in August in San Diego--”things are going to tighten up significantly.”

Khachigian, 51, has been around the track with front-runners and underdogs. He has been a campaign advisor and speech writer for presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, a handler for Dan Quayle, a strategist for George Deukmejian’s first gubernatorial win and the manager of Bruce Herschensohn’s and Mike Huffington’s narrow Senate losses.

But before any of that, Khachigian was a Visalia farm boy, and he still relates to the Central Valley even though he lives in San Clemente. “Once you get outside the coastal zone and get over the mountains, you’ve got a whole different rhetoric--much more common sense, much less PC, more Rush Limbaugh than Tom Hayden,” he says.

That’s where he thinks Dole can gain big ground, there and the Inland Empire, as well as the conservative suburbs.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt “has run amok” with environmental regulations, Khachigian says. “Clinton’s going to find out that Babbitt’s his worst nightmare in this state. . . . Another policy I’m going to stick around his neck is that [1993] gas tax. It’s made farming, trucking, commuting more expensive.”

Khachigian can point the way, but Dole has to run the course. Shaking up a campaign and quitting the Senate are attention-getting signals and symbols. To really convince people he’s serious about California, Dole will have to pin himself down here for a while--and deliver that long-awaited compelling message about why he should be president.