Four Years Later, Huffington’s Legacy Casts a Shadow

Call the 1998 election season “Huffington’s revenge.”

It has been almost four years since Mike Huffington, then a one-term, GOP congressman from Santa Barbara, parlayed about $30 million of his own fortune into a near-upset of incumbent Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Although Huffington himself will not be attempting a political comeback this year, his legacy infuses the roster of candidates running, or not running, for governor and the U.S. Senate in 1998.

Because Huffington was able to come so close to toppling one of California’s most popular politicians, money has become perhaps the overriding qualification for running for office. There appears to be no scarcity of millionaires who have looked in the mirror and decided they are ready to govern. This year’s lineup includes three little-known, but independently wealthy starters: businessman Al Checchi and three-term South Bay congresswoman Jane Harman running for the Democratic nomination for governor, and car-alarm magnate Darrell Issa vying in the GOP Senate race.

Electoral politics became particularly inviting to self-funding candidates after campaign-finance reform, Proposition 208, passed in 1996. The law muzzled the fund-raising prowess of Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, the early front-runner for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Hamstrung by a lack of money and organizational problems, San Diego Mayor Susan Golding’s bid for the GOP nomination for the Senate stalled. She dropped out just after a federal judge overturned 208, but Davis, buoyed by nearly $4 million in early contributions, stayed afloat. Meanwhile, Checchi (he’s already spent $7 million) and Issa simply wrote checks to jump-start their campaigns. The entry of Harman, who has the wherewithal and the imperative to broadcast her image, can only up the ante for both Cheechi and Davis.

Huffington came out of nowhere to garner 45% of the general-election vote (to Feinstein’s 47%) in an invective-filled, mud-splattering race. Memories of that nightmare, and the potential of a replay against another “deep-pockets” candidate, certainly figured in Feinstein’s decision to forego the governor’s race. But it was the “Huffington factor”--the ability to pony up enough money to be instantly competitive--that allowed Harman to jump in after Feinstein’s late withdrawal.

Huffington’s achievement challenged the tenets of traditional politics. A lot of money, unsupported by a natural base or a policy record, almost defeated a strong incumbent. This year, Davis is the only “traditional” Democrat running for governor. He has come up through the party ranks. His base is labor, liberals and teacher unions. He will rely on them for endorsements and money. But will such institutional support ever again be enough? Will the well-heeled newcomers, unhampered by ideological labels, fare better in the open primary? Will 1998 mark the end of traditional politics altogether?

State Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren carries the “traditional” Republican banner. He’s a long-serving, pro-life conservative. His support includes GOP stalwarts like agriculture, business and insurance interests. With 208’s contribution limits voided, no major competition for the GOP gubernatorial nomination and Feinstein out of the race, conventional wisdom says Lungren should be breathing easy. Not necessarily. Republican Lungren, like Democrats Davis and Checchi, has cause to be nervous about a Harman candidacy.

The congresswoman’s campaign tests an emerging political dynamic--the “feminization” of the state Democratic Party. Harman’s wealth helps to give her instant credibility, but so does her gender. Women account for about 58% of the state Democratic electorate. Since 1990, a woman has won the Democratic nomination in every gubernatorial and U.S. Senate primary. Democratic women went on to win the Senate seat in all three general elections (Barbara Boxer and Feinstein in 1992; Feinstein again in 1994), but they lost both gubernatorial contests (Feinstein in 1990, and former state Treasurer Kathleen Brown in 1994).

Harman has a record of building coalitions, especially among women, across party lines. As the only woman among major party candidates in the new open primary, she could draw the support of GOP and independent, pro-choice women. Moreover, there is a tendency for voters to stick with their primary choices in the general election, so it could prove difficult for Lungren to woo deserting moderates back.

Neither Lungren nor Boxer, unchallenged for the Democratic Senate nomination, can afford to look weak in June against a multiparty field of potential opponents. A primary vote total that dips below 40% could signal a vulnerability that might carry over into the fall.

To show early strength, candidates may wage primary campaigns that look and cost more like general-election races. That will mean everybody, even candidates who might have had a helpful free ride in June, will need to begin spending big money and fending off negative attacks sooner than they would like.

Accordingly, it will no longer be enough for a primary candidate simply to mobilize his or her partisan base (as Issa’s early TV ads appeared to do). All voters will have to be reached. This strategy is evident in Checchi’s pre-primary media, which conceals his party affiliation, and in his “boutique” policy agenda, which spells out something for almost every voter group.

There’s another lesson from the Huffington-Feinstein rumble: Points are scored not so much by building yourself up as by tearing your opponent down, quickly and often. Don’t be surprised, then, if Democratic primary candidates lunge at Lungren as well as each other and Republicans run against Boxer as hard as they do against their primary opponents.

This is a strange and destabilized time in California politics. The public and media are focused on the surreal events unfolding in and around Washington and on El Nino. Virtually unnoticed, candidates are gingerly testing a new electoral alchemy. As long as we cannot predict how the open primary will work, let alone whether voters will pay much attention to it, no candidates can be written off.

There is one sure thing: Candidates in this year’s elections face a tough and tricky campaign season. It isn’t for the faint of heart or the short of cash.