Davis Finds an Old Playbook Handy

SACRAMENTO

Sixteen years ago, U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston was running for reelection and was uncontested in the Democratic primary. Same as Gov. Gray Davis today.

Cranston was a ferocious fund-raiser and had campaign money to burn. Like Davis.

The Republicans had a bruising primary contest to nominate their candidate. Like now. And there was one potential GOP nominee--a moderate--who particularly worried the Democratic incumbent. As there is today.

This year, Davis clearly has studied and adopted the late senator’s then-novel strategy, while altering the playbook to fit his own situation.

Cranston fretted about U.S. Rep. Ed Zschau of Los Altos, who intrigued centrist swing voters--just as former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan does today. But Cranston wasn’t sure who would win the primary. Conservative broadcaster Bruce Herschensohn was on Zschau’s heels.

So Cranston produced two TV ads, one attacking each candidate, and bought a lot of air time. Just before election day, the senator shipped both spots to the major TV stations.

“First thing Wednesday morning,” recalls Cranston advisor Darry Sragow, “we called the stations and told them to start airing the negative ads on Zschau.

“He woke up the day after the primary, exhausted and thrilled he had won a difficult fight, and saw ads all over TV painting him as a flip-flopper.

“We all knew if Ed Zschau won the primary, Cranston was going to have the fight of his life. We needed to plant doubts [about Zschau] in people’s minds.”

Zschau never recovered from the flip-flopper ads. Cranston’s quick strike was unprecedented. The Democratic senator won in November by a 1.4% margin.

Davis didn’t wait for the primary voting. He assumed that Riordan--with his well-known name, personal wealth and big lead in polls--would win on March 5. At any rate, as a moderate, Riordan was his most feared threat.

The other two GOP contenders--Secretary of State Bill Jones and rich political novice Bill Simon Jr.--were too far off on the right fringe to win in November.

So Davis last month opened up a $1.3-million-per-week TV attack on Riordan, portraying him as a flip-flopper on abortion rights, crime control and the death penalty.

New ads currently running in San Francisco and San Diego also claim that the former mayor “gouged the rest of the state” in selling surplus electricity, “charging ... more than Enron.”

“We’re just killing him with these spots,” says Davis strategist Garry South.

The Davis camp is polling likely voters five nights a week. The tracking poll shows “Riordan sinking,” South asserts. The front-runner’s lead over Simon has fallen to 6 points, with Jones further back. Davis is 8 points in front of Riordan in a November runoff.

Nonsense, says Riordan strategist Don Sipple. In their polling, Riordan has a monster lead in the primary and a 7-point spread over Davis.

True, Sipple admits, the voters’ “unfavorable” impression of Riordan is rising. But that’s mostly among liberals who probably wouldn’t vote for him anyway. Davis’ negatives also are climbing, especially among the swing voters he needs.

Whoever’s right, South says, the governor now is rethinking his strategy of running negative ads right up until election day. Riordan might have been portrayed flip-flopping enough. Save the money. Why risk backlash?

Besides, isn’t this a dirty job for Jones and Simon?

Davis’ campaign strategy is being praised by politicos as brilliant. He has forced his most dangerous adversary into a bloody two-front war. “He’s weakening him as a general-election opponent,” says longtime Republican analyst Tony Quinn.

“That is encouraging the jackals to attack Riordan from the right. These are activists far more interested in the ideological purity of the Republican Party than in defeating Davis. Riordan’s more of a threat to them because he would take away their party control over social issues--abortion, guns, gays....

“They want to make it easier to kill live people, harder to kill unborn people.”

Meanwhile, notes Quinn, Republican business leaders are unhappy with Davis over energy policy and his new workers’ compensation pact with labor. But they’ve developed a comfortable relationship with the centrist Democrat and are not worked up about ousting him.

“Riordan has not made his case to the business community about how he would change things,” Quinn notes. “They’re not all that engaged.”

For now at least, everything’s going Davis’ way--thanks, in part, to Cranston’s old playbook.