A Divided GOP Struggles to Find Middle Ground

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly and California Republicans almost always have a battle going on for the heart and soul of their party.

But during the state GOP convention this weekend, there has been a new air of collegiality.

Indeed, there’s a dawning recognition that after embarrassing losses at the polls, the party must marshal all its resources--moderate and conservative--if Republicans are to have any hope of recapturing the state that launched Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

“When you lose by 20 points, everybody gets the wake-up call,” said veteran GOP consultant George Gorton, referring to former state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren’s 1998 shellacking by Gov. Gray Davis.

No one here wants to repeat that embarrassment, especially in the race to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The beneficiary could be moderate Rep. Tom Campbell of San Jose. He is running for the party’s Senate nomination against conservatives Bill Horn, a San Diego County supervisor, and state Sen. Ray Haynes of Riverside.

“I’d rather vote with my heart,” said Bette Myers, a 40-year party activist who prefers Haynes or Horn over Campbell. “But I have to think about who can beat Dianne Feinstein, who can take her on and really deal with her.”

Many of Myers’ fellow Republicans concede that person is probably Campbell, who--despite moderate stands on social issues-- received a better reception here than many had anticipated.

“I’m finding people’s loyalties are changing,” said Sherri Annis, a media consultant and former press secretary to conservative Ron Unz, who pulled out of the Senate race late last year. “You could see it with [presidential hopeful John] McCain; you could see it with Tom Campbell.”

The conservative flank still insists that the party must return to the right or become a poor carbon copy of President Clinton’s Democrats. But the discord still apparent at this year’s convention pales against the civil wars of years past.

And keynote speaker McCain, the Arizona senator who drew a jubilant crowd after winning the New Hampshire primary, implored the divided convention delegates to come together and “give us a Republican senator from the great state of California--please!”

One sign that the party has its eyes on the prize: Gorton, who helped Pete Wilson go from mayor of San Diego to the U.S. Senate and then the California governor’s office, has signed on as a campaign advisor to the congressman.

The California Republican Party vehemently rejected Wilson’s middle-of-the-road positions until faced with the choice of him or Democrat Kathleen Brown for the governor’s job. “Then they started standing on chairs for him,” said one longtime party operative.

Campbell, aware that even if he gets the nomination he cannot win in November without the party’s most conservative members, said Saturday that he’s seeking to emphasize the areas in which he and the right wing agree: cutting taxes, slicing government spending, easing the federal government’s grip on people’s lives.

Still, no one is saying the fight for power within the state party is over.

Throughout the convention, conservatives have shown strong allegiance to Horn and Haynes, who land far to the right of Campbell on issues such as abortion (they oppose it, he advocates abortion rights) and guns (he supports an assault weapons ban, they don’t).

And not everyone is sure the party can unify enough to unseat Feinstein.

“Honest to gosh, it’s tough being a moderate in the Republican Party, especially at state party events,” said San Diego Republican Darlee Crockett, a Campbell supporter and co-chair of Republicans for Choice. “Because we aren’t in the majority and there is a lot of hostility and animosity.”

The fear is that the conservative wing of the party won’t come out and vote at all in November, as has sometimes been the case. But mitigating those concerns is the presidential election, with a battle on the Republican side that has energized the party faithful.

“With the presidential election in play and Bill Clinton’s vice president at the top of the [opposing] ticket, we’ll turn out the conservative vote,” said Dan Schnur, McCain’s communications director and a former Wilson spokesman.