Can the GOP Sail to Victory on Prop. 209?

There’s a lot of flailing around in very choppy seas by Republicans these days. Their flagship appears to be sinking and they’re frantically scrambling for a stable lifeboat.

Bob Dole is the sinking ship--down 20 points in California in a new Times poll--and the little vessel that’s looking like a GOP lifeboat is Proposition 209.

Some Republicans even see 209 as their new flagship for California waters, but there’s disagreement on this and that’s part of the flailing. “Is ‘quotas’ a flagship issue? Probably not,” says GOP campaign consultant Ray McNally. “But it’s in the armada.”

Truth is, Lifeboat 209 is of questionable stability itself.

A recent California Field poll showed it ahead by 47% to 32%, but those figures represent a continued, gradual decline in 209’s support. And any time polls show support for a ballot measure dipping into the low 50s--let alone high 40s--its sponsors worry because the inclination of many voters is to “just say no” to all initiatives.

McNally--who has nothing to do with the 209 campaign--doesn’t believe this rule applies, however, to such emotional issues as illegal immigration and affirmative action. In these cases, he thinks the real support is higher than recorded by pollsters because some voters mislead interviewers. “They’re reluctant to state a position publicly for fear of being viewed as politically incorrect,” he says.

Regardless, there has been considerable nervousness aboard 209 that if Admiral Dole plops on with all his baggage, it could swamp the small craft. Dole could drag down 209, this theory goes, by causing voters to focus on party partisanship rather than racial and gender preferences in government affirmative action programs.

Linking 209 with the presidential campaign through a TV ad--as the state GOP has contemplated--is “sophomoric, stupid, silly and shrill,” one veteran GOP politico told me anonymously. “Democrats will walk away from 209.”

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Much of the queasiness aboard 209 was promptly dispensed with Wednesday, however, when the chief advocate of this “keep-clear-of-partisan-politics” view was dumped over the side.

Arnold Steinberg, the original strategist for 209, was fired by campaign chairman Ward Connerly for what was characterized as insubordination. Connerly said he told Steinberg to stop complaining about Republican party plans to blitz television with an ad certain to be contentious. The spot was to feature film clips of Martin Luther King Jr. and also point out that President Clinton opposes 209. What the GOP did was its own business, Connerly admonished Steinberg. But the strategist indicated he would continue to be a boat rocker.

So now the 209 campaign has an unwanted internal, but very public, controversy less than two weeks before the election.

And as it turns out, Connerly agrees with Steinberg’s basic view: That neither Clinton’s opposition to 209 nor King’s dream of a colorblind society should be included in the ad. Both could generate backlash opposition votes against 209, he said.

State GOP chairman John Herrington also disclosed Wednesday that he is leaning strongly toward taking Clinton and King out of the ad, which still has not widely aired. “I don’t want this to degenerate into an issue about King,” he explained.

Including Clinton in the ad, he continued, runs the risk of an expensive lawsuit over alleged misuse of campaign funds. But he disputed the thesis that emphasizing Clinton’s opposition might inadvertently persuade Democrats to oppose 209.

The Field poll pointed up the danger, however. A third of 209’s support is made up of Clinton backers. And of Clinton’s supporters, a quarter still are undecided on 209. Could they be swayed by Clinton’s opposition?

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Until now, there seems to have been a tacit nonaggression pact--subtly negotiated by Steinberg--between the 209 and Clinton camps. Clinton’s support of affirmative action--”quotas,” the GOP calls it--would not be emphasized as long as the president did not raise big bucks for an anti-209 war chest.

That has worked well for 209, if not so well for Dole. Thus the flailing around, trying to rescue the admiral without endangering the lifeboat.

Herrington indicated he now has about concluded that 209 might help Dole while actually saving other GOP candidates by running TV ads that merely pump up the conservative voter turnout.

As of Wednesday, however, party leaders still had not decided how much to invest. Herrington said he has $1 million available from the state GOP kitty but is trying to pry another $1 million from a skeptical national party with competing priorities.

Political shipwrecks can be ugly.