Bush to Campaign for Simon in State

When President Bush was scouting for a Republican candidate to challenge Gov. Gray Davis, conservative Bill Simon Jr. was not the kind he had in mind.

Bush preferred a moderate, and his first choice was Richard Riordan.

But eight weeks after Simon clobbered Riordan in the GOP primary, Bush is due to arrive in California on Monday to make amends.

As the star attraction of Simon fund-raisers Monday night in Los Angeles and Tuesday in the Silicon Valley, Bush is expected to raise more than $3 million for the Republican nominee.

“It’s a big financial shot in the arm,” said Simon strategist Sal Russo. “It demonstrates to anyone who’s foolishly a doubter that the president is totally committed to this race.”

However firm the president’s commitment ends up being, it will have as much to do with Bush’s prospects for reelection as it does with the governor’s race.

A Simon victory in November would be a huge boost to a Bush reelection effort. California’s governor--a magnet for TV cameras and campaign donations--can put the machinery of incumbency to work for a president.

Even if Simon were to lose by a narrow margin, Democrats could be shaken enough that in 2004, they would dump money into California that otherwise would flow to Florida, Michigan or other presidential battleground states.

In 2000, Al Gore was able to spend nothing in California, yet defeat Bush by 1.3 million votes. Despite his wartime popularity, analysts said, Bush still faces an uphill struggle to win California in 2004.

“They’d love to have California in play and win California, but I’m kind of skeptical about their ability to do so,” said Stuart Rothenberg, who publishes a nonpartisan political newsletter in Washington.

Bush’s approval rating in California--as in the rest of the country--has soared since Sept. 11. A Times poll in January found 75% of California voters approved of his job performance.

“If the election were held today, he’d win in a landslide,” said state Senate Republican Leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga.

But Democrats outnumber Republicans in California, 45% to 35%. All but one of California’s statewide elected officials are Democrats. Democrats control both houses of the Legislature and dominate the state’s congressional delegation.

So to win in California, Bush, like Simon, must draw support from Democrats and independents. And to do so, he must overcome some of the same obstacles that face Simon.

To start, both oppose abortion rights and gun control. Those positions put Bush and Simon at odds with most voters in the state and provide opponents two major lines of attack.

Bush and Simon also support vouchers to send children to private schools at taxpayer expense--another issue that California voters have opposed and that Davis has used to hammer Simon for weeks.

And Bush and Simon have ties to the oil industry that heighten their vulnerability on the environment--a touchstone issue among California moderates.

For Bush, overcoming those liabilities could require both success in the war and sustained improvement in the economy, said political scientist Larry N. Gerston of San Jose State.

“If the economy is moving well, people are more forgiving on a lot of those issues,” he said.

Democrats and independents in recent California focus groups have praised Bush’s handling of the war, but still see him as a “daddy’s boy, not very smart, not very articulate--all that stuff,” said Democratic strategist Bill Carrick.

“If he’s really popular nationwide, he’s going to be popular here, but less so,” Carrick said. “If he’s unpopular nationwide, he’ll be more so here.”

Bush advisors expect the president’s approval ratings to drift downward and level off. But because of his response to the Sept. 11 attacks, they said, Bush can compete in 2004 from a stronger foundation in Democratic states like California.

“Voters’ perception of the president has been fundamentally altered,” said White House pollster Matthew Dowd.

To win California, Bush and Simon must gain support among two crucial voting blocs: Latinos and moderate suburban women. Bush has appealed to both by stressing his support for school reforms, a tactic adopted by Simon.

Bush has taken pains to appeal to Latinos and other minorities, albeit with limited success. Immigration reform has been high on Bush’s agenda as president. Monday, he will visit South-Central Los Angeles on the 10th anniversary of the riots.

Simon, however, has focused less on minority outreach. On Cesar Chavez Day this month, Simon ignored the occasion; the Democratic governor celebrated with Latinos at a school in East Los Angeles. It has been five weeks since Simon’s last campaign stop targeting Latino voters.

The absence of a major effort by Simon to reach beyond his conservative base has worried some GOP leaders. Several privately have acknowledged losing confidence in him as Davis has managed to define the campaign’s focus, most recently by attacking Simon for refusing to release his tax returns.

Simon “is a little bit off balance right now, but he’s got time to catch up,” said Ken Khachigian, a veteran GOP strategist.

“I think if the election were held right now, Simon would be very close to Davis, but I’m not so sure we’d win today,” he said.

Still, Simon’s campaign will get a lift from the Bush fund-raisers Monday night in Century City and Tuesday in Santa Clara. With six months until election day, the events offer Simon a media platform before a public that is paying little attention to the race.

But it is far from clear that Bush’s popularity will rub off on Simon. In November, candidates for governor of New Jersey and Virginia lost despite the president’s support.

It also is unclear whether Bush will steer substantial resources to Simon in the fall when Republicans will be fully engaged in the fight to regain control of the Senate and keep a GOP majority in the House.

What Simon needs most, at least now, is money. Bush’s visit will produce a windfall in that regard, but leave Simon far short of the more than $30 million he needs to run a strong race against Davis.

Simon spent nearly all of the $9.7 million he raised for the primary--$5.5 million of it from his family’s fortune, the rest from outside donors.

Since then, he has been slow to attract big-money donations, but key Bush supporters have begun to help out. The chief organizer of Simon’s Silicon Valley luncheon is venture capitalist E. Floyd Kvamme, a Bush technology advisor.

Leading the fund-raising team in Los Angeles is investment banker Bradford M. Freeman, a Bush friend who was instrumental in securing White House support for Riordan, but switched with the president to Simon.

As Simon made the rounds on conservative radio talk shows last week, he touted Bush’s visit as a major coup. On KMJ in Fresno, he recalled that Bush assured him during a recent Oval Office meeting that he would stump for Simon in California “a number of times” before the Nov. 5 election.