Though Wounded, California’s GOP Is Not Slain

Where is everybody?

Pete Wilson? George Deukmejian?

Ronald Reagan? Richard Nixon? Bill Knowland? Earl Warren?

The California Republican leaders. National leaders.

Any leader.

“This is the most inconsequential California delegation since the Willkie convention,” says longtime Republican analyst Tony Quinn.

That goes back 60 years to another Philadelphia convention. As now, there was no Republican governor to lead the California contingent. At least there was a U.S. senator, Hiram Johnson. Wendell Willkie was nominated on the sixth ballot as Californians cast most of their votes for the loser, Sen. Bob Taft.

Since then--until now--California delegates have been somebodies. Had clout, focus, a presence.

Gov. Warren was picked for vice president in 1948 (in Philadelphia); Sen. Nixon in 1952, then nominated for president in 1960.

In 1964, California delegates arrived triumphantly at San Francisco’s Cow Palace having just clinched Barry Goldwater’s nomination in the primary. They whooped it up from their front row seats, proudly wearing gold vests.

Two Californians--Gov. Reagan and Nixon--competed for the 1968 nomination. “We smuggled a truckload of people onto the tarmac so when Reagan arrived [in Miami] he’d have a demonstration,” recalls political consultant Sal Russo, then a Reagan aide. “It was about paying off the mob in those days.”

Reagan’s effort was half-hearted. But he ran all-out in 1976, losing on the convention floor by only 117 delegate votes to President Gerald Ford. It was the last dramatic, meaningful convention of either party.

The next morning, the beaten candidate thanked his fellow Californians in a vintage pep talk. Hinting at a 1980 rerun, Reagan recited an English warrior’s ballad: “Lay me down and bleed a while. Though I am wounded, I am not slain. I shall rise and fight again.”

There weren’t many dry eyes. Says lobbyist Robert Naylor, a delegate then and now who became a GOP leader of the state Assembly: “I still get goose bumps.”

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Where’s the panache? The swagger?

In 1980 and ‘84, California delegates were proud Reagan revolutionaries. In 1988, Gov. Deukmejian might well have had the runner-up spot if he’d wanted. Gov. Wilson battled for abortion rights in 1996, annoying national party leaders but asserting California’s presence.

“There was a sense of, ‘We’re important,’ ” Naylor remembers of all these conventions. “We had first dibs on hotels.”

This week, Californians are scattered in three B-grade lodgings. “This is a function of not having a Republican governor to weigh in for you,” notes state Senate Minority Leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga. He and Secretary of State Bill Jones are the top-ranked California delegates.

How did it come to this? Simple: Bad candidates. Scary issues--antiabortion, pro-guns.

President George Bush abandoned California in 1992 and Republicans took a drubbing. Not only did Bill Clinton win--the first Democrat to carry California in seven elections--Democrats elected two U.S. senators. Bob Dole tried, but was buried in 1996 and Republicans lost the Assembly. The most abysmal candidate of all was Dan Lungren, 1998 landslide loser to Gov. Gray Davis.

“Lungren sucked the life out of the party,” says GOP consultant Ray McNally.

The only top-of-the-ticket winner for California Republicans in the ‘90s was Wilson--”pro-choice,” acceptable on the environment, ultimately a school reformer. But he’s treated like a pariah by George W. Bush because many Latinos were offended by his aggressive backing of Prop. 187, the anti-illegal immigration initiative that 59% of voters also supported.

The former governor wasn’t invited to be a delegate. “Hell, I’ve had my turn,” he says. “I can’t begrudge anyone else.”

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How do Republicans come back? Simple: Get realistic about abortion rights, gun control, the environment. Don’t cede education reform to Davis and Democrats. Invest public money in rebuilding California’s infrastructure.

In truth, Republican legislators are headed that way.

“There’s no place to go but up,” Brulte says. “We’re on the way back. Perception trails reality. People understand how bad it is.”

Get good candidates. Good luck.

Bush is a key. If the Republican is elected--and runs well in California, even if he doesn’t carry the state--that will revive clout and swagger. And open checkbooks with presidential fund-raising help.

They’ll be back. California politics is cyclical.

Leaders emerge to fill vacuums. And there’s clearly a vacuum.