Wednesday’s Question: ‘What Do We Do Now?’

Robert Redford’s name isn’t on the ballot, but he looms over Tuesday’s vote. For the winner of the GOP gubernatorial primary will greet Wednesday’s dawn asking the same question that was Redford’s final line in his film, “The Candidate”: “What do we do now?”

That is, what does he do besides speed-dialing potential donors. With 32 weeks to Election Day, the GOP nominee will need to raise a cool million bucks a week to be competitive with Gov. Gray Davis.

And, whomever the nominee is, he will be the Republicans’ odd man in, having won a a hard three-way primary without broad-based party support. The first order of business will be reaching out to disaffected fellow Republicans to solidify the GOP base.

Let’s say Bill Simon prevails. Common sense dictates that he make a beeline for those establishment/big-donor Republicans who sided with Richard Riordan. Simon will have to convince them that he’s not Dan Lungren in designer glasses--another conservative gubernatorial candidate who can’t attract the support of women and minorities. Simon would do well to jettison his primary campaign mantra that he is the “conservative Republican” candidate.

But what if Riordan defies Simon’s late-campaign momentum to claim victory? After a primary in which Riordan’s record was spun enough times to earn a Grammy , the former L.A. mayor would need to re-educate conservatives to his life story. It’s not an impossible sell: He balanced budgets, cut taxes, fought for Rose Bird’s ouster. Not bad for a Republican, conservative or otherwise. The bigger challenge will come from within--he’ll have to stifle the kind of gaffes he made during the primary, i.e. no more remarks about fellow Republicans like former Gov. George Deukmejian.

Watching all of this with more than passing interest is the Bush White House. For as Republicans in California fare, so too will President Bush’s ability to make inroads into “blue state” America--those states whose support of the president, popular though he currently is, runs only anti-terrorism deep.

It was the White House that set this state’s GOP primary dynamics in motion by encouraging Riordan to throw his hat in the ring--and now finds itself awkwardly building a last-minute bridge to a Simon campaign that it didn’t take seriously until the poll numbers changed. The White House saw Riordan as an extension of its plans for California, appealing to women and minority voters. If Simon wins the primary, Bush has to decide if he can execute the same play with a different GOP quarterback.

On Wednesday morning, California Republicans will gather in L.A. for a traditional unity breakfast. The featured speaker will be either a “moderate” trying to make peace with angry conservatives or a “conservative” hoping to enthuse disappointed moderates. Either way, it’ll be good theater.