Returning to Grass Roots for a Change

An amazing thing happened in the living room of a fancy home in the San Joaquin Valley one night last week. A politician stood before three dozen affluent supporters and didn’t grovel for money.

Everyone was relaxed. The politician didn’t feel afterward like he needed a shower. The supporters didn’t feel like they had walked into a bordello.

Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren was peddling political participation, recruiting local volunteers to cultivate the grass roots in his gubernatorial campaign. Register voters. Hang fliers on door knobs. Phone people. Recruit more volunteers. Old fashioned field work.

“Politics has gotten away from us,” Lungren told the locals eyeballing him in the home of Madera Mayor M.J. Nabors. “There’s been too much reliance on consultants in L.A. and San Francisco, too much reliance on TV commercials. I’d like to run the race my way. One of the things I enjoy most is grass-roots campaigning. . . .

“If we can’t do it this time, it won’t be tried again. The consultants will say ‘Lungren tried it and you can’t do it any more. That’s the old-time politics.’ ”

He talked about getting around to California’s nooks and crannies. He has vowed to visit all 58 counties and, by next Friday, he will have been to 24. “When you’ve been to Modoc County, you understand that it’s a lot different than Los Angeles County,” the AG observed.

And this being a political spiel, there was a dash of hyperbole. “Most people don’t realize this is the No. 1 agriculture state,” Lungren told the farm belt denizens “In fact, I’d dare say that most people in California still think milk comes out of a bottle or a carton. They don’t have an idea it has any connection with that thing called a cow. And if they do, they’re not sure which end it comes out of.”

A couple of people chuckled.

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Credit Lungren with bringing politics to the people, up close and personal, and not merely for a money squeeze. Like many pols, he cringes at begging for bucks. Being freed from money grubbing--if only temporarily--is “like a burden lifted from my shoulders,” he says.

But mostly credit Proposition 208 for making Lungren’s grass-roots campaign possible, practical and, he believes, an imperative. The political parties hate 208 and are suing to overturn it, even if voters did pass the measure overwhelmingly.

Proposition 208 restricts the flow of political money. It imposes tight spending limits: $6 million for a gubernatorial primary and $8 million for the general election. That’s about half what a competitive candidate would spend without 208. Therefore, it means far fewer TV spots and makes a grass-roots campaign more practical, even if time-consuming and cumbersome.

Also under 208, there’s a timeout on fund-raising until June, one year before the 1998 primary. This makes it possible for Lungren to beat the bushes for volunteers. A gubernatorial candidate couldn’t afford the time if he were forced to wage an arms race for money.

Lungren began the year with $2.6 million, somewhat less than the $3.9 million stashed by the only announced Democratic candidate, Lt. Gov. Gray Davis. But, unlike Lungren, Davis faces a probable primary battle. So while Democrats are fighting each other, the prospective GOP nominee plans to be recruiting 100,000 volunteers for “the greatest grass-roots organization ever assembled.”

“No way is any Democrat going to be able to catch up with my preparation,” Lungren says. “We’re getting an excellent response. People are hungry to be involved.

“I really believe we can change the way campaigns are run in California. I’ve thought long and hard about running for governor. If you’re lucky enough, you might get to do it once in your lifetime. And I don’t want to have regrets. I want to raise issues and run a positive campaign that’s grass-roots oriented.”

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Noble, but naive, strategists say. Ultimately, he’ll be tied down dialing for dollars. Polls will project a tight race; he’ll have to concentrate on TV and ignore the volunteers, stump the suburbs and snub the sticks. Perhaps.

But right now, there’s a candidate focusing on real people, not just people in focus groups. He’s answering their delicate questions--like about abortion, an issue sure to hurt him because most voters are on the opposite side.

“I’m very strongly pro-life,” Lungren, a Catholic, told the Maderans. “But I think I have the burden of persuading others to my position, as opposed to imposing my position.” Also: “I don’t think there ought to be a litmus test on a single issue. . . . I try to look for common ground.”

Proposition 208 is a pain for the pols. But when it causes candidates to engage people without charging for the coffee--and discuss subjects they’d really rather avoid--then the people profit.