White House Begins Reaching Out to Simon

After months of quietly working to boost Richard Riordan’s campaign, the White House is now hedging its position by reaching out through intermediaries to Bill Simon Jr.

The effort comes as Riordan has slipped from a commanding lead in the Republican contest to a dead-heat with Simon. The third major GOP hopeful, Secretary of State Bill Jones, is running a distant third.

The contacts between representatives of the White House and the Republican National Committee and the Simon campaign are apparently an effort by the Bush administration to compensate for months of ignoring the suddenly surging candidate, according to sources familiar with the efforts.

“Having egg on their face, they’re now frantically struggling to regroup,” said one Republican consultant with ties to both California and the White House, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Since he lost the state in a landslide in 2000, Bush and his political operatives have worked to assert greater control over California’s struggling Republican Party--while struggling to figure out the state’s political idiosyncrasies.

Convinced Riordan’s centrism and past success among Latinos was the perfect antidote for a party burdened with an image of intolerance, the president helped coax Riordan to run for governor.

Since then, White House operatives and their California allies have worked behind the scenes in various ways to boost the former Los Angeles mayor.

In one instance, the administration leaked advance word of a major policy decision to Riordan, to give him an opportunity to claim credit. Earlier this month, the White House and its proxies worked to quash a straw poll at the state GOP convention, fearing that Riordan would be embarrassed.

The effort backfired when word of the intervention became public; Simon won handily after Riordan announced that he was pulling out of the popularity contest.

But as recent opinion polls showed Riordan slipping, the Bush administration seemed to shift its posture.

Earlier this week, a Washington lobbyist with political ties to the White House approached Simon strategists to discuss a joint appearance with the president after the primary, in either California or Washington--assuming, of course, that Simon emerges as the nominee.

The talks also involved post-primary financing and appearances in California by national GOP luminaries.

“The White House is already looking beyond Tuesday,” said the GOP consultant, who has discussed the campaign with senior White House officials and members of the Riordan and Simon camps.

In an interview Thursday night, Gerald Parsky--the president’s chief California emissary--denied any such discussions had taken place. He said that the White House will be “very supportive” of the Republican nominee. Until then, he said, the Bush administration is officially neutral.

The Simon campaign would not discuss any contacts it may have had with the White House or its representatives.

“Republicans are committed to beating Gray Davis and I think we’re all going to come together on Tuesday,” said Sal Russo, chief strategist for the Simon campaign.

The behind-the-scenes maneuvering came as the three major Republican gubernatorial candidates continued to fight it out in campaign appearances across the state.

Simon called for tax cuts as Riordan--in a sign of the fight he suddenly faces--tried unsuccessfully to arrange a last-minute debate todayin Los Angeles.

Jones, meantime, took on Simon’s marquee backer, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, at a stop in Bakersfield.

“With all due respect to Mayor Giuliani, in this post-Sept. 11 world, voters want an experienced leader who can get straight to work solving problems without having to conquer a steep learning curve,” Jones said. “Bill just doesn’t have that experience.”

Simon, a political neophyte making his first try for public office, was also in the Central Valley. In Sacramento, he joined the president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. to file paperwork for a 2004 ballot initiative that would at least triple the homeowner tax exemption.

If passed, the proposed March 2004 measure would cost the state budget $1.5 billion at a time when the state’s legislative analyst predicts billion-dollar deficits for several years.

Simon did not say how he would pay for the cut, instead wrapping himself in the mantle of the Jarvis group, a powerful anti-tax organization that has already sent voters more than 4 million pieces of mail pushing Simon in the primary.

The candidate noted that he has been talking about keeping taxes low throughout his campaign. “This is just definitive proof of how serious I think this is,” he said.

But under questioning by reporters, Simon acknowledged that he and his wife gave $10,000 to the March 2000 campaign to pass Proposition 26. The initiative, which lowered the proportion of votes needed to pass school bond measures, was opposed by the Jarvis group.

Simon said he made the contrition at the urging of Riordan, a friend at the time, after seeing the poor conditions at his son’s school. ‘It’s a difficult issue, it’s a balancing act,” Simon said.

Riordan had only one public event on his campaign schedule Thursday, a lunchtime visit to an outdoor shopping mall in San Luis Obispo. Shortly after reporters asked why the schedule was so light, the campaign announced that it would open up a private evening fund-raiser outside San Francisco.

Over a tri-tip steak sandwich and fries at the Firestone Grill, Riordan reprised his criticisms of Simon for failing to vote in past party primaries and registering as a political independent during the 1980s when he lived in New York.

Riordan also continued emphasizing his conservative credentials, citing his support for the death penalty, opposition to bilingual education and 1986 efforts to oust Chief Justice Rose Bird from the California Supreme Court.

Despite the sudden tightness of the race, Riordan was in a joshing mood. At Mondeo Pronto, an outdoor cafe, Riordan greeted Justin Woodward, an 18-year-old Cal Poly San Luis Obispo student who told the candidate that he hadn’t registered to vote.

“You know, you could be executed for not voting,” Riordan joked.

More seriously, Riordan operatives scrambled unsuccessfully to set up a candidate debate today on a West Los Angeles public affairs program. It was a turnabout from earlier in the campaign, when Riordan was leading and his campaign strategists insisted on a three-week buffer between election day and the final debate on Feb. 12.

On Thursday, however, it was Simon who balked. So Riordan, Simon and Jones will make separate, back-to-back appearances on Adelphia Cable’s “Week in Review.”

The show will be available to broadcasters statewide.

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Times staff writer Michael Finnegan contributed to this report.

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