Simon’s Run for Governor Is Uphill

Bill Simon Jr. stands beneath a tent in the muggy twilight, two hands wrapped preacher-style around a microphone. His sleeves are rolled up, his necktie long gone. He’s trying hard to fit in.

Simon is running for governor, and the question in the air as he woos GOP voters here is the same as it was at a Santa Rosa luncheon a day earlier and at the Palo Alto Elks Club the night before:

Is he anything more than a multimillionaire squash player who wants to dabble in politics?

Even here, on solid Republican soil, people wonder. Gnawing on barbecued ribs as Simon launches his stump speech, rife with conservative appeals, rice grower Harry Hunt whispers to his table mate. “Who is this guy?”

The answer provokes not the slightest murmur of recognition, and Hunt returns to his grub as the candidate rumbles on.

An investment banker and philanthropist from Pacific Palisades, Simon, 50, wants to apply private sector solutions to the problems he sees plaguing the state. Though he’s an untested political rookie who settled in California 11 years ago, Simon believes he has what it takes to topple Democrat Gov. Gray Davis next fall.

Before he can duel with Davis, of course, he must best two rivals for the GOP nomination--the seasoned, if rather bland, Secretary of State Bill Jones, and Simon’s good friend Richard Riordan, who is not an official candidate but may soon become one. Ironically, the ex-mayor of Los Angeles urged Simon to run before developing gubernatorial ambitions of his own.

Of Riordan, Simon says: “I hope Dick runs. We’d have a great campaign--like Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali.”

And Jones? “He’s a good man, but he’s an insider, and this is a time when we need an outsider like me.”

Simon certainly is no insider. Except for a turn as class president at Williams College, his only overt political acts have been campaign contributions--including some to Democrats such as Treasurer Phil Angelides.

His father, the late William E. Simon, was a prominent public servant, as Treasury secretary under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. The younger Simon briefly worked as a federal prosecutor in New York under Rudolph Giuliani, who later became mayor and who has endorsed Simon. Aside from that stint, he has stayed in the private sector, mostly as a partner in the family’s investment company, William E. Simon & Sons.

Profits from that bicoastal company--which controls firms with $3 billion in annual revenues--plus Simon’s inherited wealth have armed him with considerable financial might, enough to mount a credible campaign. He has hired a veteran consultant, put up a Web site and hatched a slogan: “Renewing the California Dream.”

But some analysts see little reason to believe Simon will fare any better than previous political infants with bulging wallets. Democrat Al Checchi is the most recent such aspirant. In 1998, the investor dropped $40 million trying to become governor but didn’t get past the primary.

“Sometimes, a person can make the jump straight from the business world into politics, but it’s rare,” said John Pitney Jr., a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.

Simon has yet to gain the sort of attention that would magnify a gaffe into a death knell for his campaign. But he is facing the kinds of hard questions and scrutiny that are foreign to a man accustomed to the seclusion of corporate life.

Appearing before the Sacramento Press Club, for instance, he was forced to acknowledge that he failed to vote in two elections: the 1996 and 2000 presidential primaries. “There’s no excuse,” Simon said, “especially since the polling place was just two houses away.”

Also haunting him is the federal government’s seizure of a savings and loan owned by a Simon family-led investment group, a debacle that cost them more than $40 million. Simon says he had no role in the initial investment decision or management of the thrift. But he did serve on its board.

Bespectacled and with a tanned, angular face, Simon took his first formal step toward the governorship in February. He was nudged, he said, by his friend, former GOP state Chairman John Herrington, and others who “believe I can make a difference.” Since then, he has hopscotched the state by plane and rented SUV, shaking hands, sharing meals and pitching himself as a “common-sense conservative” who can use his corporate savvy to help California. The transition from businessman to candidate, though exhilarating, has thrown Simon’s life off kilter. He has less time to surf and play squash, fewer hours for his wife, four children and Lucky, the family poodle.

His work in charity--a devotion rooted in his strong Catholic faith--has slowed as well, though he still oversees a family foundation that gives thousands to causes aiding the underprivileged.

During a recent campaign swing through Northern California, the New Jersey native looked eager but still in search of his footing.

Though he’s engaging and pleasant one on one, his folksy stump speech--delivered with a smudge of a Jersey accent--is short on details and a bit shy of captivating. Faulted as wooden early on, he has discarded his notes, sought speaking tips from his priest and tried to “let it fly a bit.”

In Yuba City, the rice farmer, Hunt, said Simon “came across like a schoolteacher. He doesn’t have that pizazz you look for.” Still, Hunt thought Simon “made a lot of sense,” and he was among those applauding when the candidate warned that California’s water woes could someday make the electricity crisis look mild.

Joe Clayton, a minister, and his son, Terry, who sells insurance, also liked Simon’s conservative message: that good government means small government, abortion is wrong but the law is the law, and when it comes to guns, Californians face enough restrictions already.

“He’s not dynamic,” said Terry Clayton, watching Simon as he wrapped up his speech and slipped off with his entourage, “but he’s solid. Remember, George W. Bush was a C student in college.”

A few days later in Grass Valley, Simon got a warmer reception at a Nevada County Republican barbecue held beneath towering ponderosa pines. His speech was interrupted six times by applause, with the heartiest ovation following his comment on the plight of farmers whose irrigation water is being diverted to help endangered fish.

“I think the fish are winning,” Simon said, “and they shouldn’t be.”

Wade Freedle, a retired accountant, endorsed that line and others in the speech. Simon “needs polish,” Freedle said, but “I care more about logic and facts and less about whether he’s a great orator.”

Simon says logic, facts and business acumen are what he’s all about, a portfolio he believes is an ideal fit for a state that may be on the cusp of recession.

“Some people have said, ‘Jeez, you haven’t paid your dues. How dare you [run for governor]?’ ” Simon said. “Well, I take issue with that. I’ve been working hard for 30 years. We all bring different skills to the table, and I think mine work well in this environment.”

Still, it is Simon’s wealth, more than anything, that gives him a ticket to play in this match. And although he has pledged to be a major contributor to his campaign, he says he will not write a personal check to cover the bulk of it--a sum he expects could reach $50 million.

By the last reporting deadline in June, he had raised $3.3 million, including $600,000 of his money. Though it’s more than Jones has collected, that fund-raising lags well behind the dollars Davis is pulling down. Because Riordan started raising money in the summer, he will make his first financial report at the end of this month.

Simon believes the dollars will come. But if they don’t, he told 100 lunching members of the Sonoma County Republican Business and Professionals Council recently, he’ll bow out.

“If I can’t get all of you to go out of this room today and say, ‘Hey, I like that guy, and not only do I like him, I’m gonna give him a little money,’ then that tells me I can’t do it, and I don’t deserve it.”

And if that’s the conclusion?

“Well then,” Simon says with a shrug, “I just go back to my old life.”