California Democracy Reduced to Clicks, Yawns

Here’s a new political truth: All races in California are now “down-ballot.” That’s the term used by politicians and journalists to describe campaigns for statewide offices below the level of governor and U.S. senator.

In the past, these down-ballot races have generated only limited amounts of public attention and media coverage. Debates among the candidates have been lightly covered, if at all. But today, that’s true even for races for the highest offices in the nation’s largest state.

Consider: It took what is widely regarded as the most powerful newspaper in the West, the one in which you are reading this commentary, to compel the four leading candidates for governor of California to take part in a primary forum. And yet there was still virtually no television coverage anywhere near evening news and prime time.

There’s no available excuse here about an unbeatable incumbent sailing to victory. All we are left with is a display of naked greed and irresponsibility on the part of the state’s TV industry, which is far more interested in profiting from manipulative advertising and promoting the pooled ignorance of its newscasts than in helping Californians make informed decisions.

Welcome to the era of down-ballot democracy. It’s way past time to stop pretending that we have a well-functioning political process in California.

What we have might best be described as remote-control politics. The conventional politicians and their handlers scramble for money to put 30-second bitelets on the air. The super-rich candidates, businessman Al Checchi and U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, do the same, except they raise their funds by instructing their accountants to execute wire transfers to their campaign accounts. This is their form of remote control, manipulation by big money marketing. Much of this is not new, but never has it been so blatant.

And what of public participation? That’s been reduced to just another form of consumption--as distinguished from citizenship--in which activism is expressed by the action of a finger on the couch potato clicker. Here, the consumers of California politics exercise their form of remote control by changing the channel.

In down-ballot democracy, who can wonder at the possibility of the closest Democratic race for governor since 1974 causing a collective yawn? Californians aren’t angry about the emptiness of our politics; they’re resigned and disconnected.

In this environment, it is no surprise that all three major Democratic candidates, with the relative exception of Lt. Gov. Gray Davis, have low loyalty factors. That’s because people don’t care about them. Which is one of the unreported stories of this sorry excuse for a campaign.

As for the literal down-ballot statewide races--lieutenant governor, attorney general, superintendent of public instruction, insurance commissioner, treasurer, controller and secretary of state--there is virtually no press or public interest whatsoever. Indeed, the Field Poll earlier this month only bothered to poll on three of the seven races. Amazingly, in one of those races, that for state superintendent of public instruction, Democratic incumbent Delaine Eastin registers only 15% against her three “major” opponents. Eastin has received tremendous amounts of publicity for her arm-waving about education (she is the principal champion of the popular class-size reduction panacea) and has no effective opposition to speak of, and yet she draws only the most tepid public support.

There is no little irony in the farce that California politics has become. Perhaps the largest irony is the resurgence of Davis as the Democratic front-runner, despite being massively outspent by the virtual campaigns of super-rich rivals. Davis, long derided as the “hologram” of state politics, is succeeding because he is more genuine, substantial and prepared than his more glamorous, ballyhooed rivals. Indeed, should the famously bland lieutenant governor win the nomination, he will be something of a giant-killing folk hero.

Not that he’s exactly “Bulworth,” Warren Beatty’s lacerating new cinematic antidote to the smarmy rationalizations of “Primary Colors,” but a little reality is at least a start at pushing the proverbial boulder of democracy back up the hill.

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William Bradley, an advisor in several Democratic presidential and gubernatorial campaigns, writes on politics and other topics. E-mail: bill@brad.com