A Leader Who Doesn’t Tailor Beliefs to Polls

California is not a milquetoast state. It leads the world in diversity and thrives on the reexamination of old thought. It has little truck with politics as usual or the politics of procedural temporizing. Yet that is the politics of Gray Davis, and it is entirely insufficient to meet the demands of a state that continues to attract people of all languages and cultures who see in this golden place a new life of hope and promise.

Dan Lungren is an authentic leader who warrants the confidence of California as it enters the new millennium. California parents understand why Lungren has made education his first priority. We know that there are excellent public schools and public schoolteachers. We also know that some of both are disgraceful. And the worst schools are frequently in the poorest places. Only a governor not fully beholden to entrenched interests is likely to get anywhere with meaningful measures of teacher accountability, student performance and parental choice. In a new century, we cannot afford a governor who will allow the least advantaged children to remain locked into a single, monopoly school environment that is overviolent, underequipped and ill-prepared.

Some have labeled Lungren a conservative and implied that this means that his ideas are on a “narrow path.” The label is as unenlightening as always, and it masks the fact that it is Davis and not Lungren whose announced policies condemn Latino and African American children to a narrow path of failure by refusing to afford them the equivalent educational choices of their better-off neighbors.

Lungren learned his most important lessons in the education field, not from union leaders who have lost touch with their most dedicated teacher members, but from community service as a tutor and through involvement as a parent. He knows that school choice does not dilute the overall educational environment, it strengthens it. Davis only knows that he has received millions of dollars in campaign funds from those willing to perpetuate the unsatisfactory status quo.

Lungren’s direction always has been toward inclusion, watching out for the voice unheard or the individual left behind. In Congress, Lungren successfully led the effort toward an immigration reform that welcomed the vitality of new immigrants from Mexico, Asia and the Middle East while honestly addressing the need to avoid the abuse and exploitation of illegal immigration.

As the successful proponent of the three-strikes law and tougher penalties for gun use in the commission of a crime, it is silly to see Lungren’s enforcement of the assault weapons ban as “half-hearted.” The fact is, Lungren’s policies against crime have worked. Davis has offered only complacent and outworn bromides.

Lungren has never hesitated to state his position against abortion on demand clearly and candidly. Pollsters have told him that this would cost him votes, especially among women. Lungren held to his deeply anchored moral principles, believing nonetheless that California women in 1998, making their mark in corporate, charitable, educational and home environments alike, never would permit themselves to be stereotyped, taken for granted or isolated over even strong disagreement on this single issue.

A candidate not shading belief or not waiting for poll results to lead is today rare in American politics. At the national level, the leadership vacuum is just as likely to lead to ill-considered impeachment inquiries as the recurring lies and exploitative behavior that inspire them. Washington’s yield is ramshackle, last-minute budget agreements, dubious missile strikes and an abject failure to address the issues affecting our families most directly. Davis’ bland years of studying which way the wind is blowing in the state bureaucracy will not produce anything different.

Lungren is passionate about California. His ideas on trade, tort reform, training and education are provocative. He knows that litigation is strangling new initiative and new jobs. All Davis knows is that his trial lawyer buddies thrive on abusive lawsuits. The people Lungren will attract to government service on our courts and in the executive are prepared to lead a uniquely blessed state that has a duty to lead the nation. Davis has had close to a quarter century to bring new ideas into California state government. He hasn’t done it. It’s time to let Lungren lead, because he has proved that he can.