Open Primary Confuses Race for President

What if millions of people voted in an election and it didn’t count?

That possibility stunned pundits and politicians Tuesday as they struggled to understand the potential impact of California’s newly court-approved open primary system on the next presidential race.

Because both the national Democratic and Republican parties prohibit selection of their presidential nominees through such a primary, candidates are faced with dizzying possibilities for campaigning in the nation’s largest and perhaps most complex state.

“Arrggghh!” said Morgan Young, congressional fellow at the Washington-based California Institute, when asked for a response to Monday’s court decision upholding the open primary system that the state’s voters approved last year.

“Mind-boggling,” said Bill Carrick, who managed President Clinton’s reelection effort in California and in 1988 ran the presidential campaign of current House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.)--the expected main rival to Vice President Al Gore in 2000.

“There are a lot of ramifications,” sighed a Gore political advisor. “I think in the final analysis [the ruling will] end up being changed in ways we haven’t even thought of yet.”

Barring a successful legal appeal or an unexpected exemption by the national parties, California would have a popular election, with its attendant media hoopla, but the results on the presidential candidates would essentially be set aside. Meanwhile, the state’s hundreds of delegates for each party’s convention would be chosen by a handful of party loyalists at a state convention or caucus.

Or, in perhaps the most confusing option, there would be a second, closed primary--maybe on the same day of the broader one--in which voters would pick the top of the ticket only.

“It makes a wide open race in both parties even more wide open,” said Bill Kristol, a Republican strategist and editor of the Washington-based Weekly Standard. “The chaos will embolden more candidates to think they have a shot.”

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The notion of a California caucus is a political earthquake.

California is a mass-market media state where, the joke goes, a political rally consists of three people gathered around a TV set. Not much like Iowa, the premier caucus state, where it is said that no one votes for a presidential candidate they haven’t had breakfast with three times.

“The idea of doing a caucus in 52 congressional districts is enough to put me in a coma,” Carrick said, echoing several other political professionals.

While some analysts envisioned huddles of activists caucusing on the beach in Santa Monica or somewhere in Disneyland, most agreed that a caucus in a state renowned for its short political attention span would undoubtedly be a flop. Candidates typically spend years canvassing church suppers and Rotary clubs in Iowa; in the giant Golden State, such grass-roots organizing could take a decade.

“In a mega-state, bigger than most countries on earth, you really can’t go door to door,” said Mark Siegel, professor of political management at George Washington University and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

If the court ruling stands, California can petition the national parties for special permission to approve candidates selected in an open primary. If they lose that battle, and the results of the open primary and the party-approved selection process clash, two sets of delegates might show up at a national convention and stake a claim to the state’s credentials.

Imagine the reaction if the people who win primaries with 6 million voters were to be tossed aside for nominees chosen by 100,000 people, the maximum experts would expect to participate in a California caucus.

“What’s the message to the people in California? We’re going to disregard the popular will because we have rules? I think lawyers would understand that, but I don’t think the public would,” Siegel said. “When you’re trying to enforce [rules] on the 50 states and the District of Columbia and four territories and you let one state break the [rule], you’re basically saying to the others, ‘There are no [rules], do what you want.’ ”

Larry Sabato, a professor of government at the University of Virginia, said he expects the California initiative to be a harbinger of national change--or the parties will suffer the consequences.

“You might take a chance on offending New Hampshire, but you’re not going to take a chance on offending California. California gets what California wants,” he said. “There are just too many dangers involved for a party that ignores California.

“California’s a trendsetter,” Sabato added. “If California has gone to the blanket primary, can other states be far behind?” The parties “may have to change the rules, whether they want to or not.”

California is the fourth state to adopt a blanket primary, in which voters select from a ballot with candidates from all parties, and the top vote-getter from each party lands in the general election. The other three states--Louisiana, Alaska and Washington--have caucuses alongside their primaries to select presidential nominees.

At least 21 other states have some form of open primary, typically allowing voters to pick which party’s ballot they want on election day. The national parties allow that.

But Rick Boylan, the Democratic National Committee’s director of party affairs and delegate selection, said there will be no exceptions for a blanket primary, no matter how big or powerful the state.

“We have shed a lot of blood over this particular rule,” he said. “It’s kind of a fundamental principle. We only want people who consider themselves to be Democrats helping us choose our standard bearer.”

Historically, the GOP has been a tad more flexible. Republican National Committee spokesman Tim Fitzpatrick declined to comment Tuesday, but California party Chairman Michael Schroeder said Monday that he is leaning toward a convention to select delegates.

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Analysts disagreed on the impact of the caucus-convention system. Conventional wisdom says grass-roots groups control caucuses, meaning that labor unions and environmentalists would probably push Democrats to the left, while gun owners and the Christian Coalition pushed the GOP to the right. But such insider games can also favor establishment candidates--a quasi-incumbent such as Gore or a favorite son such as Gov. Pete Wilson, both party moderates.

There is consensus on one thing: The new system will raise the primary campaign price tag. “It’s going to be the most costly campaign in history,” said Young of the California Institute.

“The key thing is it’s going to put a lot of pressure on spending a lot of money in California,” said a Gore advisor who spoke on the condition of anonymity, “which means there’s less left for anywhere else.”

Party leaders have promised to appeal Monday’s ruling, and the courts have a mixed record on this issue. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Wisconsin’s 69-year-old open primary for presidential races in 1981, but upheld Alaska’s open primary this spring. (Because Alaska has a presidential caucus, the ruling does not affect the national race.)

The folks who run campaigns are trying to take a wait-and-see attitude.

“We don’t even know if it’s going to be law,” noted one White House political strategist. “It would be ridiculous to start tinkering with strategy because of it.”

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Times political writer Mark Z. Barabak in San Francisco contributed to this report.