Do Giuliani’s Coattails Reach to California?

Television’s political pundits hyperventilated when Republican Michael Bloomberg, a wealthy businessman and political novice, came from behind to defeat Democrat Mark Green in the New York mayoral runoff last month. How could this happen in a city whose registration is overwhelmingly Democratic? It was the “Giuliani factor,” the pundits said. Late in the race, retiring GOP Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani endorsed and campaigned for Bloomberg. After Sept. 11, with Giuliani’s favorability ratings reaching nearly 80%, Bloomberg’s fortunes soared. Green’s double-digit lead melted away.

Republican Bill Simon, another wealthy businessman and political novice, hopes Giuliani’s New York magic will transfer to California and enable him to win the GOP gubernatorial nomination. He worked under Giuliani in the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, and the mayor has endorsed his former colleague’s long-shot campaign to defeat former Mayor Richard Riordan and Secretary of State Bill Jones. Simon drops Giuliani’s name like bread crumbs along the campaign trail, hardly ever missing an opportunity to note that he was having breakfast with the New York mayor when the World Trade Center was attacked.

But a mayor’s race isn’t a gubernatorial primary. November 2001 isn’t March 2002, and New York City isn’t California. If the 2001 election results are any indication, Giuliani’s coattails don’t extend beyond the borders of his hometown.

In the Houston mayor’s race, Giuliani endorsed and appeared in TV commercials for Orlando Sanchez, a Republican city councilman who sought to become the city’s first Latino mayor. Sanchez won over Houston’s conservative white voters, but, despite outspending Lee Brown, the city’s first black mayor, Sanchez fell victim to the incumbent’s ground operation.

Giuliani also supported the Republican candidates for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. In both states, the Democrat won. No Giuliani endorsement could overcome the reality that Mark L. Earley, in Virginia, and Bret D. Schundler, in New Jersey, were staunch conservatives out of step with their states’ electorates and ran bad campaigns.

Much of Giuliani’s current rock-star aura stems from his post-Sept. 11 performance as mayor. But the California primary will be held nearly seven months after the terrorist attacks, and Giuliani will soon leave his high-visibility office. The heroes of Sept. 11 will fade from voters’ memories. Furthermore, even in the New York race, other factors besides Giuliani’s embrace helped Bloomberg flatten Green. For one, “The more you know about Mark Green, the less you like him,” said one wag. Green also emerged from a divisive Democratic runoff election in which he alienated liberals, blacks and Latinos.

Then there was the money. Bloomberg spent $69 million of his fortune to win the election, shattering the record for the most expensive mayor’s race in U.S. history. In the last five weeks of the campaign, he spent $28 million, double Green’s expenditures for the entire campaign. National Journal’s political “Hotline” calculated that to replicate his New York media buy in California, Bloomberg would have to spend $116 million. Reportedly, Riordan will spend $50 million and Simon $60 million of their own money through the general election. Giuliani’s influence among California Republicans is further limited by his policy stands--he’s pro-choice, for example. But what if state Republicans decide to put all that aside because they want a “Giuliani-esque” leader, someone who can act decisively and take charge as the New York mayor did after Sept. 11? Riordan, the seasoned chief executive who rose successfully to the challenge of the 1994 Northridge earthquake, not the untested Simon, could be the beneficiary.

Giuliani’s popularity among independent-minded voters could boost Simon’s chances. Under new rules, independents can vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary in March. According to a recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California, nearly one of four independents plans to vote in the Republican primary. A new Field Poll also shows that nearly half of non-partisans have no opinion of Riordan, seven of 10 have none of Jones and almost nine of 10 are clueless about Simon.

Ironically, the Giuliani factor, though unhelpful to Simon, could bolster an initiative on the March primary ballot that all three GOP gubernatorial candidates oppose. Proposition 45 would allow incumbent legislators to seek two additional terms in the Assembly or one in the Senate if they garner signatures from 20% of the voters in their district.

The institute’s survey showed voter opinion is about evenly divided on tinkering with the term limits that were established in 1990, with Democrats more likely to support the measure and Republicans more likely to oppose it. Giuliani won’t endorse Proposition 45, but he could become a powerful part of the sponsors’ message. It was Giuliani’s leadership in the waning months of his second term--and his last under New York’s term limits--that renewed the debate over whether term limits still make sense.

In three major races in which Giuliani endorsed, the candidate who survived a divisive party primary went on to lose the election. Accordingly, in California, nobody’s endorsement may work like the GOP’s famous “11th commandment,” laid down after Barry S. Goldwater and Nelson A. Rockefeller slugged it out in the state’s 1964 presidential primary: “Do not speak ill of any other Republican.” That dictum helped propel Ronald Reagan into the governorship and, later, the presidency. Ignoring it has cost the California Republican Party plenty over the years.

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Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a contributing editor to Opinion, is a senior scholar in the School of Policy, Planning and Development at USC. She’s also a political analyst at KCAL.