Big Bucks Make Big Impact on State Races

The great California video game is on.

First it was Rep. Jane Harman who streaked to the top of the Democratic field in surveys on the race for governor. Then pow, pow, pow. About $5 million worth of damaging television commercials--courtesy of rival Al Checchi--dropped her into last place like a mallard into a lake.

Last week it was Gray Davis’ turn. The lieutenant governor sneaked by the others in later polls, and Checchi turned and fired again. Pow, pow, pow.

Unlike Harman--who ran ads responding to Checchi’s claims about her but not really attacking him--Davis retaliated, and the smoke from that video skirmish has not yet cleared.

But there are barely three weeks left until the June 2 primary election and--as the recent blows showed once again--the single most important factor shaping the race continues to be Checchi’s money.

Last fall, it helped scare other candidates out of the contest. Now it is making misery for those who stayed in.

Voters will decide whether Checchi might make a good governor. But it is already clear that his campaign will provide strategists with valuable political lessons about the power of money to persuade voters and the role of the state’s new blanket primary system.

Because Californians--for the first time in a primary--will be able to vote for candidates of any party (the biggest vote-getter from each party will face off in the fall), Checchi campaign manager Darry Sragow has raised the possibility that the Democratic nominee might not be the candidate with the most Democratic votes.

More than any other candidate, Checchi has made a major effort to lure support from independent and Republican voters.

“This is unique,” Sragow said. “Our campaign plan from Day 1 has us winning the Democratic nomination with the most Democratic votes. . . . But our campaign was [also] designed from the ground up to reflect an open primary.”

That prospect raises an interesting dilemma for the Democratic Party. What happens if Davis or Harman wins the most Democratic votes but Checchi wins the party’s nomination?

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Both the state Republican and Democratic parties joined forces last year to try to block just such a scenario with a legal challenge of the blanket primary law. The political parties lost in federal district court, and the case is now on appeal.

“The Democratic Party has to abide by what the law is today, which is an open primary,” said Art Torres, the party’s state chairman. “Whichever of our candidates wins the nomination we will get behind.”

Elsewhere, as any regular television watcher can now tell, Campaign 1998 has turned toward the sprint to the finish.

Television commercials were launched last week in the campaigns for lieutenant governor, attorney general and Proposition 226--the ballot measure to change the rules for unions’ political contributions.

The crush of political commercials combined with an already high demand for television advertising in a strong economy has swamped broadcasters.

“It’s staggering,” said David Bienstock, a Republican media consultant in Los Angeles. “The volume of dollars coming in is of epic proportions--never seen before.”

The load from political campaigns is unusually high because there are so many wealthy, self-financed candidates.

Checchi alone, tapping the fortune he made most recently as co-chairman of Northwest Airlines, is approaching $25 million in spending, most of it for television. Harman, Republican businessman and U.S. Senate hopeful Darrell Issa and local businesswoman Noel Irwin Hentschel, a GOP entry in the lieutenant governor’s race, are also paying much or all of their campaign costs themselves.

Hentschel aired her first television ad last week, prompting the campaign of rival Tim Leslie, a Republican state senator from Carnelian Bay, to offer the same line that Davis uses against his own rich opponents: “Experience that money can’t buy.”

In the governor’s race, Harman was broadcasting a commercial last week that attempts to repair damage from Checchi’s attacks on her votes in Congress.

Checchi, meanwhile, started two new commercials against the lieutenant governor. One raised suspicions about contributions to Davis’ campaign from Wall Street firms, and another mentioned a critical audit once done on Davis’ performance when he was state controller.

Davis’ response was a commercial seeking to discredit Checchi’s role at Northwest Airlines.

“There’s no way around the fact that this week has been dominated by the Davis-Checchi firefight,” said David Puglia, campaign manager for the only major Republican in the governor’s race, state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren. “From our viewpoint, this is not a bad day.”

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While the Democratic feuding brought a smile to Lungren, it also brought a warning from state Democratic Chairman Torres.

“I think there has been too much negativity in the commercials,” he said. “The problem to remember here is that the opposition is Dan Lungren, not each other.”

It is Checchi’s advantage in the television arena that has some of the candidates looking forward to the first--and perhaps only--debate of the governor’s race. It is scheduled for Wednesday at Times Mirror Square in downtown Los Angeles.

The winner of such face-to-face jousting will need a different set of skills and resources from what the competing television commercials require.

Also, many political insiders believe that the debate might be the first event to get attention from an electorate that still seems largely disinterested.

“I think campaigns have defining moments,” said Kam Kuwata, strategist for Harman. “In many ways, this campaign begins when the [debate] microphones are turned on.”