Open Vote Gives GOP Centrists an Edge

California’s open primary this week unlatched the door in Orange County for moderate Republicans who previously had been shut out by party leaders and conservative voters in districts dominated by the GOP.

In two state Assembly races, voters Tuesday picked moderate Republicans, ditching more conservative candidates backed by party leaders.

Brea Councilwoman Lynn Daucher defeated Bruce Matthias in the scramble for the Assembly District 72 seat in North County despite a long list of endorsements collected by Matthias. And in Assembly District 67, Huntington Beach Councilman Tom Harman, who campaigned on a pro-environment and pro-teacher platform, buried conservative Jim Righeimer, who unsuccessfully tried to ride a wave of anti-tax sentiment.

The two Assembly contests, which were open because of term limits, were the only two in which well-financed moderates and conservative Republicans clashed.

Despite a shift to the center in these local races, Orange County voters embraced the Republican party favorite, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, for president, snubbing Arizona Sen. John McCain and his appeal to crossover voters. In Orange County, Bush won 38% of the votes cast--10 percentage points more than his statewide total.

Orange County voters also held fast to established conservative principles, voting tough on juvenile crime and trouncing a measure to make it easier to raise property taxes for schools. And they recoiled at the prospect of gay marriages to a greater degree than voters statewide.

Noteworthy, though, was the relatively small difference between Orange County and statewide support for those three signature conservative issues. For example, more than 69% of Orange County voters favored the gay marriage ban, while statewide the measure drew 61% support. That’s a far cry from previous elections, in which the difference between county and state support sometimes topped 20% or more.

“We are not supplying the huge margins of the past, and that is true for candidates too,” said Dan Wooldridge, a political consultant. “While Orange County is still a conservative county, the voters are becoming more moderate and less on the conservative cutting edge.”

But the signature event for centrist voters was the change in the primary system, passed by an initiative in 1996. On Wednesday, Orange County Republicans and consultants attributed Daucher and Harman’s victories to the open primary, which welcomed crossover Democrats and independents.

“The open primary is politically popular because some voters feel empowered,” said state Sen. John Lewis (R-Orange), who supported Matthias in the District 72 race. “But when you sit back and look at what happens, [the open primary] is just an invitation for political mischief” by non-Republicans.

Tuesday’s election was a “major coup,” said political consultant Eileen Padberg, a well-known Republican centrist.

“For a long, long time, elections in Orange County have been closed to moderates, minorities and women,” Padberg said. “If you weren’t pre-selected by a little group of conservative Republicans, you didn’t have a chance. And this election proves those days are over.”

Harman, who identifies himself as both a moderate and a conservative in the race to succeed Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach), said he purposely targeted crossovers in the Republican-dominated district.

“Things are changing here,” Harman said. “I think voters want to swing to the more moderate candidates. I appealed to the moderate mainstream Republicans who are tired of the same old right-wing conservative Republican machine managed by [Rep. Dana] Rohrabacher and Baugh, saying here is your candidate, now go to the polls and elect him.”

Also at play in the coastal 67th District race, which encompasses Bolsa Chica and several other beach communities, was Harman’s visibility as a councilman, his outspoken support for environmental issues, and his backing of choice in abortion and support for gun control.

Daucher said her pro-choice position might have cost her some votes.

“But voters are concerned about a lot of issues,” Daucher said. “That is a very personal issue and I respect everyone’s views. But there are other things that we all care about too. There is so much that we can all agree on.”

Righeimer and Matthias agreed that the open primary has changed elections, creating an opportunity that can be exploited by moderates, particularly if those candidates have plenty of campaign cash to woo crossover voters.

Harman, who ran against Righeimer, received nearly $300,000 from unions around the state, including those representing prison guards, teachers, firefighters and health care workers. The money went to a series of mailers that landed in the last week of the campaign.

Righeimer--Baugh’s long-time political pal and campaign chairman for Rohrabacher--had been one of the authors of the unsuccessful 1998 Proposition 226, which sought to control the spending of workers’ dues on politics.

“The unions wouldn’t have me in Sacramento and [Harman] could have been Mary Poppins,” Righeimer said. “It didn’t matter who he was as long as [the winner] wasn’t Righeimer.”

Matthias, a former Santa Anita race track executive who lives in Anaheim Hills, said the open primary contributed greatly to his defeat. Republican candidates collected nearly 81%, or four out of five votes cast in Tuesday’s District 72 primary. However, registered Republicans make up 52.3% of the district.

“There was obviously a great deal of Democrat participation in our Republican primary,” Matthias said.

But Daucher said old-fashioned shoe leather made a bigger difference. The Brea councilwoman refused to have a campaign headquarters, instead setting up a traveling office in spare rooms in businesses in cities in the district. And she began knocking on voters’ doors in October, collecting signatures to get on the ballot and discussing voters’ concerns with them.

“I walked and knocked on more doors than any other candidate,” Daucher said. “People appreciate that firsthand attention, and they remember that you took the time and effort to come and see them.”

In a pitched battle for control of the county’s Republican Party apparatus, the insurgents made limited inroads. The battle sucked a total of $500,000 from both sides that was spent on mailers and other campaigning, cash that could have been spent on party building, critics said.

The contest for membership on the GOP Central Committee dates to 1998, when moderates declared that the local party needed to broaden its base. They pointed to the huge loss by GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren, who opposed abortion and gun control, and backed school vouchers. GOP leaders insisted the party could attract minorities, women and mainstream voters by sticking to the issues of tax cuts, crime fighting and education reform.

Depending on how you do the counting, Republicans for New Directions, which has been looking to make inroads on the Central Committee and won 11 seats two years ago, either added or lost three seats on the GOP Central Committee.

The dispute concerns two members who declined to run and five central committee members claimed by both camps. In any case, even 14 seats would be far below the number needed for control of the panel, which has 42 elected members and a dozen ex officio.

Several consultants, including Sam Roth, a vice president of the California Medical Assn., say Tuesday’s election marks a turning point in county politics. He predicted that campaign managers and candidates would create a new calculus to factor in the crossover vote in primaries.

“These shifts are going to be impossible to dislodge, along with continued demographic changes that tend to moderate the voting in Orange County,” said Roth, a Republican. “The space is opening for more moderate Republicans and Democrats in Orange County.

“With control of the Legislature and reapportionment, the Democrats will be able to set that up,” he said.