State GOP Views the Ruins

If Republicans have a problem nationally, they are in a heap more trouble in California. California Republicans suffered their worst state election results since 1958, losing the offices of governor, treasurer and attorney general and failing to get a Democratic U.S. Senate seat that might have been theirs.

Democrats padded their majorities in both houses of the Legislature. The two surviving Republican state officeholders, Secretary of State Bill Jones and Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush, won by far fewer votes than expected. The GOP has no statewide political star around whom to rally and no assumed challenger to Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the next election.

And now, unless they can stage a surprising rally in 2000, the GOP faces the prospect of Democrats dominating the redistricting of legislative and congressional seats on the basis of the 2000 census--a process that could further boost Democrats’ fortunes for the next decade.

This situation exists only a few years after Republicans believed they were emerging as the majority party in California because of the shift of political power from the Democrat-heavy cities to suburban areas and the Central Valley.

But in 1998, the California GOP had no message that clicked with voters, especially when it came to the matter of education reform. The controlling conservatives remain at odds with the majority of voters on the issues of abortion and gun control. Surviving blue-collar Reagan Democrats were angered by the anti-union Proposition 226 on the June ballot.

The Republican base of conservative white males is shrinking while Democrats managed this year to expand their base among moderates, Latinos, blacks and Asians. Thirteen percent of the electorate was Latino. That number is expected to grow as the Latino population continues to increase from the present 30%.

Republicans have talked about reaching out to minorities for years, but the state GOP organization remains overwhelmingly white. Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, the GOP candidate for governor, made a concerted appeal to Latinos this year but got only 23% of that vote.

A good sign of postelection outreach was the choice of Assemblyman Rod Pacheco of Riverside as the Republicans’ Assembly leader. But Latinos were so antagonized by Gov. Pete Wilson’s ethnic-based “wedge issue” campaigns that it may take years for the Republicans to make any significant inroad into the Latino vote.

Republicans are going through the expected postelection soul-searching and recrimination, but there is no consensus for improving GOP fortunes. And the party faces a potentially wrenching presidential primary in 2000, particularly if the battle is waged in a state convention or party caucuses.

The fact is that Republicans will have to earn back voters one at a time by promoting issues that are important to the broad middle of the voting population. And maybe a few years from now, in the normal back and forth of politics, we’ll be giving this same sermon to the Democrats.