What’s Up, California?

Vice President Al Gore may well carry California in November. He should, based on the issues and his local help, if not his persona. He must, because it’s difficult to see how he can win the presidency otherwise. But if he does carry the state, it certainly will not be because Californians are inspired--flattered, thrilled--by the Democrats’ holding their convention in Los Angeles.

California voters are not impressed by political parties. We pretty much ignore them--it’s in our DNA. Gov. Gray Davis aptly sums up the California attitude this way: “Go have your convention. We’re going surfin’.” Or bicycling, backpacking, barbecuing--or making a buck.

To put this in historical perspective, the Democratic and Republican parties each held three national conventions in California during the 20th century. Only once (1956) did the convention nominee (Eisenhower) then carry the state on Election Day. Among the losers was John F. Kennedy, nominated in L.A. 40 years ago and narrowly beaten by home-grown Richard M. Nixon.

Another thing delegates should bear in mind: Just because they’re in L.A. does not mean they’ve been to California. There are at least five Californias, each with its own personality, physique and politics. L.A. is merely the noisiest.

The state’s unique diversity--along with its huge population (35 million) and vastness (825 miles long)--tends to befuddle and intimidate politicians from “back East,” as we natives refer to everything beyond the Mississippi River. “Bill Clinton was the first modern Democrat to understand the state and know how to work it,” notes Garry South, Gov. Davis’ political strategist. “The rest of these people have been drop-ins for photo ops.”

One more point about California: It’s earthquake country, politically as well as geologically, and right now there are two large temblors rocking the political landscape.

One is the rapidly growing Latino population, primarily Mexican immigrants. In 1980, Latinos were 19% of the California population; today, they’re roughly 30%--and headed for nearly 50% by 2040. The epicenter of this quake is Los Angeles, and it has Republicans everywhere shaking because when Latinos vote, they’ve been voting staunchly Democrat--so far.

The other epicenter is the Silicon Valley, where dot-com techies are prospering in a new California Gold Rush. They’re buying political influence with money--millions for ballot initiatives and campaign contributions. And the billionaire CEOs are playing both sides of the political fence.

The sophisticated techies--like California as a whole--tend to be fiscally conservative and culturally liberal.

But let’s back up.

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TO GRASP CALIFORNIA’S PECULIAR POLITICS, ONE MUST HARK back 90 years. That’s when a San Francisco graft prosecutor named Hiram Johnson was elected governor and gave us “reform.” He and do-gooder Progressives created the system of weak political parties, direct democracy and relatively clean government that still prevails.

They enacted the initiative, referendum and recall that encourage voters--and, increasingly, special interests--to bypass Sacramento and exercise power directly at the ballot box.

Through ballot initiatives, voters have altered--or tried to, before being overruled by courts--practically every conceivable public policy, from property taxation to prison sentencing to services for illegal immigrants. Monied interests have bankrolled initiatives to enact legislation Sacramento never would have, due to timidity or good sense.

The early reformers weakened parties by making local elections nonpartisan. They also created a “cross-filing” system that allowed state candidates to seek any or all parties’ nominations. Many candidates--including postwar Republican Gov. Earl Warren--were nominated by voters of both major parties. This lasted 46 years.

The original goal of the reformers was to crush a corrupt railroad machine. But nearly a century after the rail barons were routed, Californians continue to keep the parties and politicians at heel. Ten years ago, they imposed term limits that weakened the Legislature by denying the lawmakers enough time to build strong power bases.

In 1996, they voted overwhelmingly for an open primary system that included a “blanket” ballot. This allowed them to hop from one race to another, voting for any candidate, regardless of party. The state parties cried and the U.S. Supreme Court listened, recently overruling the voters and siding with the would-be political bosses. California’s open primary violated the 1st Amendment “by forcing political parties to associate with those who do not share their beliefs,” the court opined.

“The court is 100% wrong,” asserts Gov. Davis. “It’s old-time thinking and wrongheaded. It ignores the voters’ interest. But it shows you the difference between California and the rest of America. We believe in the power of individuals. Others think the party’s right of association is paramount to an individual’s right.”

People are the parties, of course, but in increasingly declining numbers. Since 1990, the Democratic Party’s share of California voter registration has dropped from about 50% to less than 46%. Republican registration has fallen from 39% to 35%. The gain has been among “declined to state” independents, up from 9% to about 14%.

Californians always have tended to be free agents. They may feel strongly about issues--taxes, illegal immigration, the environment--even if they don’t care about politics or parties.

“I grew up in New York,” Davis says, “and in the East, politics was almost a blood sport. Cabdrivers, bartenders, normal citizens relished their politics. In California, politics is like a disease. Nobody wants to catch it.”

Blame--or credit--Hiram Johnson. But there’s also an ingrained pioneer free spirit that started with the Gold Rush and has continued through the Dust Bowl Okies, Mexican migrants, Southeast Asian refugees and now the fortune-seeking computer nerds. Washington is far away, physically and psychologically.

Says Davis strategist South, a migrant from Midwest politics: “People come here to redefine themselves, often from places with very partisan political machines. They didn’t like that particularly and don’t want it replicated here. They don’t want precinct captains knocking on their doors, like in Chicago or Boston.”

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CALIFORNIA’S POLITICS IS A LOT LIKE ITS CLIMATE. IF YOU’RE uncomfortable in one spot, just drive a few miles, usually east or west.

Indeed, climate seems to affect political philosophy. Living along the placid coast, your thoughts are apt to be mellow. It’s hard to get worked up about some woman having an abortion or a guy’s sexual proclivity. And almost everyone’s an environmentalist.

Tool over the coastal range into the San Joaquin Valley--into fertile farm country, where men drive pickups with gun racks while listening to Rush Limbaugh or George Strait, enduring oppressive heat in summer and depressing tule fog in winter--and there’s more anxiety about different lifestyles. Irrigation also outranks protecting the environment.

One example of the coastal-inland philosophical split: In 1996, there was a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana smoking for medicinal purposes. It passed 56% to 44%. Voters in all seven San Joaquin Valley counties opposed it, mostly by lopsided margins. But it carried in all 14 coastal counties except two small ones. It even won in traditionally conservative Orange and San Diego counties.

Consultants study the California “fish hook.” It’s a straight line down the center of the state to the Mexican border, beginning near Shasta Lake and continuing south through the 400-mile-long Central Valley and the burgeoning Inland Empire. At the border, it hooks west to San Diego and then north through Orange. The trick for Republican candidates is to win enough votes in the fish hook to counter Democratic strength in Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area. In the ‘90s, the only top-of-the-ticket Republican to pull that off was Gov. Pete Wilson.

A more practical way to map California politically is to divide it into five distinctive mini-states, starting with L.A. County, which produced 24% of the vote in the 1998 gubernatorial election. States 2 through 5 include the rest of Southern California (30%), the Central Valley (17%), the Bay Area (14%) and the rest of the north (15%).

“Most people outside of California think of it in stereotypes,” says Democratic consultant Bill Carrick, who grew up in South Carolina and moved to L.A. 12 years ago. “San Francisco is a ‘hotbed of left-wing gay politics.’ Orange County is a ‘bastion of hard right-wing conservatives.’ L.A.’s a ‘huge polyglot of people coming up with a trendy idea a week.’ ”

Carrick pauses and adds: “There’s truth to all those things . . . Every kind of conceivable voter known to the United States exists here. It’s like putting a magnifying glass on the country.”

San Francisco--the city, not the whole Bay Area--is California’s great exception. It’s strongly labor, ultra-liberal, politically active and machine-oriented.

State Librarian Kevin Starr, a fourth-generation Californian and noted historian, explains why: During the Gold Rush, men abandoned San Francisco for the mines, creating a labor shortage and giving root to powerful unions. By the 1870s, the city had developed into a “maritime colony” of the East.

“Maritime colonies tend to reproduce the host culture,” Starr says. “People get off the boat directly from Boston or New York and start acting like they’re still there.”

The upshot of all of this is that candidates must run separate campaigns in each mini-state. Campaigning in the Central Valley, Gov. Davis emphasized his support of the death penalty while wearing a VFW cap. Along the coast, he railed against assault weapons and talked up abortion rights.

It gets phenomenally expensive--$2.3 million for one statewide TV advertising buy this fall. For that price, you can run a 30-second commercial 10 times in each of the 12 TV markets.

In 1998, Davis donors coughed up $35 million to get him elected. latinos are the future wild card. Will they continue to vote solidly Democratic? (Latinos were 71% for Davis.) Or will they vote like, say, third-generation Italians--as swing voters?

First, they have to vote.

They may be 30% of the California population, but Latinos accounted for only 7% of the electorate in the March primary, according to The Times’ exit poll. That probably was an anomaly. Regardless, the Latinos’ slice of the electorate always has been significantly smaller than their population numbers.

It was 13% in the 1998 general election, up from 8% in 1994--their awakening year. That’s when Gov. Wilson’s boisterous support of an anti-illegal immigration initiative--Proposition 187--jarred many Latinos into citizenship and Democratic voter registration. Latinos now account for 16% of the state’s registered voters and nearly half have signed up since 1994, according to the Field Institute.

In L.A. County, two-thirds of registered Latinos are Democrats, reports the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute. And between 1994 and 1998, there was a 49% increase in L.A. Latino voting.

Democrats skillfully demonized Wilson in Latino communities. “In Democratic headquarters, I’m sure they’re looking everywhere for a picture of George Bush holding hands with Pete Wilson,” says Claremont professor Harry Pachon, president of the Rivera Institute. “All they’ve got to do is show that picture out here.”

But as memories of Wilson fade, GOP pols theorize that the Democrats’ hold on Latinos will wane.

Working against this, however, is the surge of Latinos who are joining labor unions and becoming Democratic activists. “We’ve got this huge wage gap. Latinos feel they’re not getting their fair share,” says Miguel Contreras, head of the L.A. County Federation of Labor.

One note about Proposition 187: It passed by 59% to 41% and would pass again today, Gov. Davis and most pols believe. Voters saw it as a matter of fairness, not nativism. They didn’t think it right that 100,000 immigrants were sneaking in illegally every year--2.3 million are now here--and costing state taxpayers $3.6 billion annually for services, including $2 billion for schooling.

“It’s wrong to allow people to come freely across the border and take advantage of public services,” says Davis, although he opposed the proposition. “Just as people have a right to protect their homes, nations have a right to pass immigration laws and enforce them.”

That was the message most voters were trying to send Washington. Wilson’s TV ads--”They keep coming”--just got too ugly.

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DEMOCRATS NOW DOMINATE IN California as they do in only one other state: Hawaii. They control the governor’s office, both legislative houses, both U.S. Senate seats and the congressional delegation. Before Clinton, we customarily were ticket-splitters who divided the offices between parties.

Clinton’s centrism fit California, and our libertarian bent accommodated his personal flaws. He worked the state hard, the first Democratic presidential candidate--or president--to pay real attention to us. And, except for the 1994 GOP rout, this tended to boost all Democratic candidates.

Clinton was the first Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson--and only the second since Harry S. Truman--to carry California. Crucial to that victory was a vigorous new party chairman, housing developer Phil Angelides, who defied conventional wisdom for this media-dependent state and built an enormous ground organization of enthusiastic workers. In 1998, he was elected state treasurer.

Now Angelides worries about party apathy. “When you’re an out-of-power insurgency, you’re on your toes,” he says. “When you become the governing party, the risk is you let things slide. It’s more difficult to retain passion.”

Especially--let’s face it--for Al Gore.

Gore’s California tutors are Davis and his expert political team. The candidate’s support for abortion rights, gun control and environmental protection--in contrast to Bush--are California winners.

But politics here is cyclical. And to paraphrase Davis about Californians’ “going surfin’ ” during the convention, they’re also inclined to party surf, as if operating a TV remote. They’ll stick with one party for a while, then switch to another--and maybe (Gore’s fear) even click to a third. Ralph Nader’s.