Republican Senator, Songwriter Face Off

It’s a contest between a seasoned state senator and ... a Southern California songwriter?

In a particularly low-key race for statewide office, Sen. Bruce McPherson, a former newspaper editor from Santa Cruz, is vying for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor against Ellie Michaels, a singer and tunesmith who hails from Thousand Oaks. The winner will face Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the Democrat seeking a second term, in November.

Though each GOP candidate says education is a key issue, the similarities between them appear to end there.

McPherson, 58, a former assemblyman serving his second term in the Senate, heads the Public Safety Committee and is vice chairman of the Education Committee. He has backed bills to reduce class sizes and to expand a program that helps needy students attend college.

“I don’t think she has comparatively the background and the proven record I do to stand up and be counted for the people of California at the state Capitol,” McPherson said of Michaels.

Michaels, 51, is a former sales representative and a self-described award-winning model who founded a music licensing and distribution company.

Her claim to fame is writing and producing “No Child Left Behind,” a song she says was partly inspired by a campaign speech of then-candidate George W. Bush. The tune, she said, was later used at Republican campaign events.

“I wrote this song because kids were killing each other at high schools in our nation,” Michaels said. “I wanted to send a message to humanity about what I thought was the problem, what I thought was the neglect of the education of the soul.”

The office of lieutenant governor comes with few responsibilities compared with other statewide positions. They include serving as a regent of the University of California, a trustee of the California State University system and chairperson of the Commission for Economic Development.

Though the day-to-day duties may appear low-key, the lieutenant governor is always hovering in the background ready to assume the state’s top job: running California in the event that something happens to the governor.

Regardless of who wins the Republican primary, Bustamante, 49, is considered the favorite in November.

A former speaker of the Assembly from Fresno, he made headlines in his first term for accidentally using a racial slur during a public appearance and for pushing legislation to empower the state to jail electricity producers for overcharging.

McPherson says Bustamante failed to show leadership that could have helped prevent the state’s current fiscal meltdown. “He hasn’t spoken up for the good of the state when he should have,” McPherson said.

Richie Ross, a campaign consultant for Bustamante, brushed aside McPherson’s contention. “He’s yelling from the back bench, where he sits in the state Senate,” Ross said.

Most political analysts rate McPherson a heavy favorite in the primary, based on fund-raising and his experience.

Campaign contribution records show McPherson with $400,000 cash on hand as of Feb. 16, compared with Michaels’ $15,000. Bustamante, waiting in the wings, had $1.6 million.

“McPherson should do fine with his ballot designation alone, which describes him as a California state senator,” said Allan Hoffenblum, publisher of the California Target Book. “I just don’t see people voting for a singer-songwriter.”

Dick Rosengarten, publisher of the state political news weekly CalPEEK, put it this way: “If he were to lose to her, it would be the biggest upset in the last 10 years in California politics.”

Still, Rosengarten predicted that Michaels will succeed in gaining support from the GOP’s right wing, where McPherson may be considered unacceptable because of his views on abortion and other issues.

Michaels, who received the endorsement of the conservative California Republican Assembly, supports abortion only in cases of rape or incest. McPherson supports abortion rights.

He lists a variety of law enforcement groups, Republican lawmakers and actor Clint Eastwood as his backers. Both candidates support the death penalty.

As a state lawmaker, McPherson provided his Democratic counterparts in the Senate the lone GOP vote needed to require health insurance companies to cover birth control pills, and he was the only Senate Republican to support a bill making it illegal for Californians to buy more than one handgun a month.

Michaels has seized on McPherson’s voting record, saying “he’s so far left he could fall off the left side of the world.”

McPherson contends that as a moderate Republican, he is in a much better position to accomplish his goals if elected to the executive branch. In the Democrat-controlled Senate, he is one of only three Republicans to chair a standing committee, and sits on several other key committees, including budget and appropriations.

He makes no apologies for siding with Democrats on a variety of gun-control bills.

“I see these as a matter of public safety, not as an imposition to the 2nd Amendment of our Constitution,” he said.

Gun violence touched McPherson and his family in November when his son, Hunter, 27, was shot and killed in San Francisco during an armed robbery. Though the tragedy may have set back McPherson’s campaign, he said it wasn’t a reason for him to pull out.

“We decided the worst thing we could do would be to quit,” McPherson said of his wife, Mary, and daughter, Tori.

Other candidates for lieutenant governor include Jim King, American Independent; Donna J. Warren, Green Party; Pat Wright, Libertarian; Kalee Przybylak, Natural Law; and Paul Jerry Hannosh, Reform Party.