Jones Struggles to Stir Up Support

It is summertime in the Central Valley. For Bill Jones, farmer, secretary of state and pride of Fresno, the cotton should be high.

He has a well-regarded record as California’s elections chief. He is the only valley Republican ever to win statewide office. He is now the highest ranking--indeed the only--Republican elected to statewide office.

That should make him the front-runner for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. But after a series of devastating Republican defeats, many party leaders are flirting with the maverick Richard Riordan, hoping to soften the party’s image by embracing a candidate with a more centrist appeal.

And so Jones is struggling--for money, for public notice, for respect.

At a recent breakfast stop in Visalia, his home turf, the crowd at the Lamp Liter Inn responds much the way Republicans have throughout the state. A hundred or so people attending the Eggs and Issues forum listen politely as the candidate offers a workmanlike discussion of water policy, crime and the state’s electricity debacle.

There is little enthusiasm. During his half-hour appearance, the audience applauds twice, when Jones is introduced and when he finishes.

It’s not that people dislike him, or disagree with his reliably conservative stance on such issues as taxes, guns and abortion.

“He knows this part of California, could represent it very well,” local businessman James Ely, 62, says later at a Rotary Club luncheon across town.

But even those sympathetic to Jones question whether he can beat a pair of millionaire rivals for the GOP nomination--Riordan and investment banker Bill Simon Jr.--then topple a sitting governor.

As Ely says, “It’s hard for people to get excited” about Jones.

That is the knot the candidate must unravel: His meager bank account and scanty list of endorsements reinforce a lackluster image that further frightens off would-be donors and costs him potential endorsements.

Davis Was Also Seen as Longshot Candidate

The circumstances recall those of another longshot candidate who struggled four years ago against two wealthy rivals amid perceptions that he was too blah and too broke to prevail: Democrat Gray Davis.

It is a comparison Jones embraces without irony, despite his palpable contempt for the incumbent.

“If money was the sole requirement, it would be President Perot, Sen. Huffington and Gov. Checchi right now,” Jones says, reeling off the names of those vanquished millionaires as a small plane carries him from Visalia to a series of stops in the Bay Area.

“Let’s let Simon or Riordan go prove that they are any better,” he adds later. “I’m the one that’s already proved I can do it, no matter how many dollars people say you have or don’t have. I’ve proved I can win statewide twice.”

He won just barely, though, and both times--in 1994 and 1998--against weak Democratic opponents. In fact, if Jones’ 20 years in public life prove anything, it is that solid achievement and political savvy don’t necessarily go hand in hand.

As a member of the Assembly from 1982 to 1994, he co-wrote the three-strikes legislation that eventually won 72% voter approval as a statewide ballot initiative. As California’s top elections official, he has won nationwide recognition for cracking down on voter fraud, modernizing operations and making campaign finance information more readily available via the Internet.

But Jones has never shown much of a political touch. He is a reserved man of 51, a bit soft in the middle, long more adept at roping calves than corralling contributions. (Jones owns a working farm and cattle feedlot outside Firebaugh in the San Joaquin Valley.) He admits that campaigning is the least appealing part of his job, and the perfunctory way he works a room shows it.

Jones owes much of his political success to former Gov. Pete Wilson, who helped install the Fresno Democrat as the GOP’s Assembly leader in the early 1990s, to rid himself of a more pesky conservative, Orange County’s Ross Johnson.

Jones served 18 months as the chamber’s lead Republican strategist, stepping down after the GOP drubbing in the 1992 election. (The setback resulted in good part from then-President George Bush’s abandonment of California after Labor Day.)

In 1994, Wilson again turned to Jones, handpicking him to run for secretary of state.

But the job may be one of California’s worst springboards to higher office.

“Your official responsibility is to be holier than thou,” said one Republican strategist, who noted that few political donors have much cause to curry favor with the secretary of state. “There aren’t a whole lot of special interests in California spending lots of money to make sure elections are run well.”

Rather than capitalize on his position, Jones has tried to operate as a kind of “nonpartisan referee,” to use his words. He delayed serious fund-raising for the governor’s race until spring, after he formally declared his candidacy. Typically, statewide officeholders spend years building their bank accounts in anticipation of the next race.

At times, Jones seems to have gone out of his way to buck his own party. Against prevailing Republican sentiments, he supported campaign finance reform legislation and went to court to uphold the so-called blanket primary, an effort to boost turnout by allowing voters to side with any candidate, regardless of party.

He took on Wilson, his political patron, by backing federal “motor voter” legislation aimed at increasing registration.

But Jones’ most notable political blunder was switching his endorsement last year from George W. Bush to U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). The move came at a critical point in the bitter presidential primaries; Jones said he was disgusted with Bush’s efforts to dissuade Democrats and independents from crossing over and voting in the Republican race.

The public repudiation of the future president was a move so uncharacteristically bold--and foolhardy--that people still puzzle over it. More importantly, the White House and many in the GOP establishment still harbor a grudge. Jones remains unrepentant, believing that he took a principled stand.

He concedes that his against-the-grain approach has done little to impress Republican activists. But the snub from party leaders and Bush operatives’ calculated backing of Riordan clearly rankle.

“What the White House fails to realize [is] Californians have a way of wanting to select their own candidates,” he said.

Tough Time Trying to Raise Money

Plagued by his paltry fund-raising and listless poll numbers, Jones has of late displayed an unusual aggressiveness. He has hounded Davis over alleged ethical lapses and repeatedly taken on Riordan for lavishing more than $1 million on Democratic candidates and causes--including the incumbent governor.

Had Jones started earlier, say those grown accustomed to his milder manner, he might be in better shape today. But Jones insists there is plenty of time between now and the March primary.

“I’ll win . . . based on my record in the party, based on my policy positions, but also based on the fact we’re taking the fight to the governor,” Jones said. “And I don’t see anybody else doing it. You certainly don’t do it by contributing to the fella you’re going to run against, like Riordan has done.”