Political Fortune : With Wealth to Enjoy, Assemblyman Firestone May Get Deeper in Politics in ’98

To spend time at home with Assemblyman Brooks Firestone is to become obsessed with a question: What is this man--an heir to the Firestone tire fortune--doing knee-deep in politics?

He could be here, in the spectacular Santa Ynez Valley, tending the award-winning winery that bears his name. He could be cuddling grandchildren, riding his horse and puttering--essentially doing nothing at all.

Instead, at 60, Firestone is serving his second term in the state Assembly, an ego-rich, dysfunctional place that can drive a can-do Republican businessman mad. And now he is wading in still deeper, considering--seriously considering--a campaign for lieutenant governor in 1998.

Is it power he’s after? Statewide fame?

“I know it sounds self-serving, but I just feel I have something to contribute,” Firestone said. “Maybe I’m daft, but this state is my home and I feel a need to help.”

It does sound self-serving, and also a bit corny, but that’s Firestone for you. Though seasoned by a rich life, he is a man gripped by boyish zeal and wonder. He has discovered the possibilities of government and he is throwing himself in, head-first.

Giddily enthusiastic, Firestone speaks in a manner that demands exclamation points, swapping subjects frequently because he has so much to say, so much on his mind. Tire recycling, college savings accounts, stalking, bike lanes, shellfish--all of these topics, and more, are part of his legislative mission this year.

News that Firestone may leap into the lieutenant governor’s race has sparked hums of approval within the GOP. With deep pockets and a surname that would ring a bell with many voters, he is seen as a formidable candidate in an era of tight new fund-raising limits.

Aside from those advantages, “there’s a genuineness about him that people feel, and that makes him a dynamite candidate,” said Republican consultant Ron Smith, an acquaintance of Firestone who ran Education Secretary Marian Bergeson’s campaign for lieutenant governor in 1990.

And former President Gerald Ford, who was close to Firestone’s late father and has known the assemblyman for 30 years, pledged in an interview to serve as honorary chairman of his campaign.

Ken Khachigian, a Republican consultant who has advised governors and presidents, was less bullish about Firestone’s prospects.

“He makes a great merlot, and he’s bright, devoted and determined,” Khachigian said. “But he’s not well known outside of Santa Barbara County. Making the leap to the statewide level is tough.”

Moreover, the race for lieutenant governor is tricky because it gets overshadowed by the campaigns for governor and attorney general. In 1998, a U.S. Senate race will also be underway.

“There will be a lot of noise, which makes it hard to break through,” Khachigian said. “In all candor, it will depend on the checkbook he’s willing to put into play.”

In a primary field of at least three candidates--the two other Republicans likely to run are conservative state Sens. Tim Leslie of Carnelian Bay and Richard Mountjoy of Arcadia--Firestone’s moderate philosophy would stand out.

He is, to be sure, a committed Republican. His father, Leonard, was a confidant of former President Richard Nixon, who named him ambassador to Belgium. The Grand Old Party is in the blood.

But measured against today’s hard-line, conservative GOP troops in the Assembly, Firestone is a maverick. Although a sure party vote on issues such as taxes and deregulation to benefit business, he is protective of the environment and abortion rights in a group dominated by abortion foes.

He split with colleagues over a bill to permit paddling in public schools--calling it a “dumb idea”--and defied a party request to sign a Republican loyalty oath. Last year, Firestone and two other independent Republicans were dubbed “the three blind dates” because nobody was ever quite sure how they would vote.

“He’s not someone who just checks the caucus rap sheet on an issue and presses the appropriate button,” said Assemblywoman Debra Bowen, a Democrat from Marina del Rey. “He’s engaged, he does his homework and he’s someone on the other side of the aisle I can talk to.”

Occasionally, his votes are puzzling. In February, he abstained on a resolution declaring a day of remembrance for Japanese Americans sent to relocation centers during World War II.

Explaining himself later, he complained that a “body of revisionist history in Japan is seeking to blame America for the Second World War.” But his colleagues didn’t get the logic, wondering what those concerns have to do with internees.

Born in Akron, Ohio, Firestone is the grandson of Harvey Firestone, who rose from farm boy roots to become one of America’s foremost industrial titans.

His father, Leonard Firestone, moved the family west in 1944, and Brooks grew up in Beverly Hills, in a “mansion with butlers passing in and out,” his wife, Kate, recalled. He attended all the best schools and was afforded a life of privilege befitting the offspring of a major industrialist.

But it was not always a cheerful life. Firestone’s father, who died last Christmas Eve, was an alcoholic, and Brooks took the role as family “peacemaker--holding things together.”

“Back then, no one understood that alcoholism is a disease,” said Firestone, who conducted an “intervention” to force his father into treatment years before the confrontational technique was common. “My father was a wonderful man . . . but I’m sure growing up as the child of an alcoholic affected me more than I know.”

For a silver-spoon baby, Firestone is surprisingly unpretentious and frugal. True, his vineyard--and his attractive family--evoke images of “Falcon Crest,” the erstwhile television drama that was actually filmed there. But Firestone does not wear his wealth on his sleeve. (He is a millionaire several times over, but won’t reveal his net worth.)

He lives modestly with his wife in a small house amid the grapes. During the Assembly’s spring break, he chooses to work on his land, rising early to tackle the season’s most painstaking chore--pruning suckers off the vines.

Firestone could easily afford luxury cars, but instead owns a Chevrolet and a minivan with a dent. If he truly had his way, he would go everywhere by bike, confessing to a utopian vision of a world where people would use the two-wheeled cycles for most of their daily needs.

After a stint in the Army and graduation from Columbia University, Firestone entered the family tire business, rising after 12 years to become manager of exports, based in Great Britain. Along the way he married Catherine Boulton, a dancer in the British Royal Ballet. The couple have four children.

Rather than remain in the company cocoon, he became a corporate dropout in 1971, deciding to try his hand at winemaking in a coastal valley north of Santa Barbara that was iffy territory for grapes. It took nine years to turn a profit, but today Firestone Vineyard is thriving, with sales topping $7 million last year.

As the winery grew, Firestone dabbled in politics, fitting it in between work, family and polo matches. He ran for office in 1982, taking on Jack O’Connell for an Assembly seat. He believed then--as now--that people with a life’s worth of experience, people who do not necessarily want or need a job in politics, have a “duty to serve,” a sort of noblesse oblige concept.

He lost in 1982, but 12 years later O’Connell ran for the state Senate, and Firestone--after hearty prodding from GOP leaders--donned the candidate’s hat again. He won the Assembly race, becoming the first Republican to represent the coastal district in more than 20 years.

About half the bills he introduced his first term were signed into law. But his most high-profile work has been a classic businessman’s cause--remedying what he calls the “total mismanagement” of the Assembly and its assets under former Speaker Willie Brown.

Shortly after arriving in Sacramento, Firestone proposed an audit to ferret out “waste and inefficiency” in the Assembly. He eventually won overwhelming support for the effort--which found, among other things, $12.8 million unaccounted for. But many lawmakers sniped about the audit privately, with some calling it petty grandstanding and others uncomfortable with what it revealed.

Last year, Firestone won reelection with 66% of the vote, evidence, supporters say, of his popularity in the district. He is certainly visible there, one day meeting with students at UC Santa Barbara, the next rolling up his pants to wade into the surf and inspect a tainted mussel.

To make it easier to meet and greet the populace, he bought an old school bus, pulled the seats out and converted it into a mobile office he called DUMBO. Local pols made fun of the name, but Firestone liked the symbolism--”a friendly elephant with big ears” with which to hear constituents gripe.

This year, Firestone is throwing his heart into a bill that would allow parents to invest in a tax-free account for their children’s college education. The funds would be pooled and invested by the state, earning a better return than an individual investor could.

Firestone’s original bill--which was killed last year--called for the state to match the interest earned, a request for government largess that some might call liberal.

“Liberal? Not at all! It was just good sense,” Firestone said. “Isn’t it in the state’s best interest to have an educated populace? Isn’t it?”

What may also be in the state’s best interest, he says, is a lieutenant governor named Firestone. It’s not that he has always coveted statewide office; indeed, his hesitation to run springs from the certainty that a campaign means “months and months of unmitigated trauma” for him and his clan.

But there’s some force, something down deep that is propelling him toward the job. He has built a winery, his affairs are well in order, his children are grown, so why not?

“I’m inspired. It seems to me our state is at a crucial crossroads. And maybe a guy like me--a guy who has a lifetime of real-world experience, who has some proven instincts and is committed to this state--can make a contribution.”

Profile: Brooks Firestone

* Born: June 18, 1936

* Residence: Los Olivos

* Education: Bachelor’s degree in economics, Columbia University.

* Career highlights: Served as Army medic. Spent 12 years working for Firestone Tire and Rubber Co., founded by his grandfather. Left as manager of exports in 1971 to establish Firestone Vineyard in Santa Barbara County. Won election to the state Assembly in 1994 and was reelected last year with 66% of the vote.

* Interests: American history, farming, bicycling

* Family: Married. Four children, nine grandchildren.

* Quote: “Politics can be so polarized--with no shades of gray--and that’s not productive. If I can make any contribution it is to get people to talk to each other for the good of the state.”