Too Much Normalcy Just Isn’t Normal

Welcome to the normalcy election of 1998. We have some normal candidates this year, spouting off on normal issues. If you’re bored by that, try some of our normal propositions.

My favorite ballot proposition this year is officially titled “Courts. Superior and Municipal Court Consolidation.” Now there’s an issue to start the fists flying in bars.

I’m not being fair, of course. We have the bilingual initiative on the ballot, which is hardly boring. And some have made the argument that, on another issue, California just might send one of its Big Signals to the rest of the country with this election.

We’ll deal with the Big Signal later.

But, overall, there’s an air to this political season that feels like the ‘50s. The economy is good, just like then. Job prospects good. House prices are rising at a nice, normal pace.

And so we’ve got this normal election. The gubernatorial candidates, all well-scrubbed, spend much of their time agreeing with each other. If you listened to their debate a couple of weeks ago, you repeatedly heard comments like, “Gray, I agree with you,” or “Dan’s right on that.”

All of them want smaller classes in schools. And more cops on the street. All of them believe assault weapons should be banned and bilingual education should be fixed. They reminded me of the student council elections at my high school where all the candidates came down foursquare in favor of “school spirit.”

I mean, at least the ‘50s had the Commies to kick around. These days, we don’t. We have a nearly perfect, unperturbed normalcy that, frankly, gives me the willies.

The other day I was having lunch with one of the city’s political savants, a boomer whose first taste of politics came in the ‘60s. I asked her if she ever pictured her own era arriving in such a Sargasso Sea of political calm.

“Never,” she said.

Then I asked her to name the salient characteristic of this age.

“No heroes,” she said.

That’s right. So you have to work hard to stay interested these days. Like, for example, have you noticed the profusion of conspiracy theories that surround the propositions?

In one ballot argument after another, the other side is described as trying to trick the electorate. It’s spooky. One initiative is portrayed as “a deceptive scheme promoted by state bureaucrats,” while another is “an underhanded attempt by out-of-state interests.”

But the best paranoia is inspired by Prop. 223, the initiative that would limit administration costs of school districts to 5% of the total budget. You might think this is a straightforward attempt to reform bloated bureaucracies.

No, no, according to the opponents, Prop. 223 actually is a snarky ploy by none other than our own school district, L.A. Unified.

“This initiative is a sham, designed to redirect money away from local school districts, and into the coffers of the huge, downtown Los Angeles school district,” the argument says.

I won’t bore you with the elaborate logic used to arrive at this conclusion. Let’s say it resembles Oliver Stone’s logic in the movie “JFK.”

Interestingly enough, the sponsors of Prop. 223 answer the conspiracy theorists with a conspiracy theory of their own, claiming the original conspiracy theory was invented to hide “vested interests” who are interested only in “maintaining the status quo at the expense of our children.”

Why is this conspiracy frenzy happening? I claim it’s because of normalcy. By definition, normalcy deprives us of real enemies, a circumstance most of us find deeply disturbing. We need enemies like we need air to breathe, to blame for our troubles. Without real ones, we invent new ones.

And finally we arrive at the Big Signal California may be sending with this election. As most of you know, we have been sending Big Signals for a while. In the last 20 years we have passed along the tax revolt, in the form of Prop. 13, and term limits to the national political landscape. Now we may be getting ready to do it again.

The possibility is posed by Pat Caddell, the former Democratic pollster who has resided in Los Angeles for the last decade. The idea struck him, he says, when he saw the results of a recent L.A. Times poll.

“The poll showed Al Checchi getting sucked down by his own negative campaigning,” says Caddell. “If that holds true in the election, it will mark a historic change.”

Since 1978, Caddell contends, national and local campaigns have been characterized by increasingly negative campaigns. All kinds of trash talk was put into TV ads, and when asked why, political consultants answered with the mantra, “It works.”

Now, for the first time, Caddell says, the electorate appears to be turning against a candidate specifically because of his negative campaign.

“The voters have risen up against him,” he says.

Some will argue with Caddell’s interpretation. But the Times poll did, indeed, show that voter support of Checchi dropped dramatically--from 22% to 10% among likely voters--as the perception of his negative ads rose.

“Here is a man who spent $30 million on a primary campaign, more than Ross Perot spent to run for president, and he is running last in a field of three,” says Caddell.

“California may finally have done something good for national politics.”

We’ll see on Tuesday. Meanwhile, remember that normalcy never lasts forever. Even as we speak, India and Pakistan are rattling their atom-powered sabers. Financial chaos runs amok in the Far East. And Japan may be sinking toward depression.

So buck up. Interesting times are around the corner.