Simon Triumphs With Hefty Doses of Help From His Foes

The “Rocky” theme song blared as the newly crowned Republican champ bounded onto the stage, waving his arms, pointing to cheering fans and grinning.

Always the grin. I finally figured out whose grin this reminds me of: the late U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston’s. Like Bill Simon, Cranston was an incessant, beaming grinner while working a crowd.

But that’s neither here nor there--just one similarity between two very diverse politicians whose abilities to connect with voters were underestimated.

“Rocky” has been a hokey song for politicians ever since the movie came out 26 years ago. But Tuesday night, in a hotel ballroom near L.A. airport, the music matched the candidate perfectly.

Bill Simon--a real-life Rocky Balboa underdog, a political newcomer who had never run for office--was 14 points behind in late January, according to the Times Poll. He won the GOP gubernatorial nomination by 18 points--a 32-point turnaround in less than six weeks. Based on the Field Poll, it was a 51-point turnaround.

All of which prompted this dry comment in the ballroom from political operative Sean Walsh, spokesman for Secretary of State Bill Jones and, previously, for then-Gov. Pete Wilson:

“Of all the candidates in this race, Bill Simon had the least to do with his own success.”

Simon ran a good race. He listened to his coaches, kept cool, stayed focused and never stumbled. But practically everybody I’ve talked to outside Simon’s own campaign agrees with Walsh.

Recapping this historic contest, by candidate:

* The Democratic governor won his first-ever Republican primary. With $9 million in TV attack ads, running from Jan. 25 until election day, Gov. Gray Davis trashed the potential November challenger he feared most--centrist Richard Riordan--and swung the election to conservative Simon.

It had never happened before in modern California.

There’s folklore--a myth--that Gov. Pat Brown influenced the 1966 Republican primary and helped nominate Ronald Reagan. It is true that Democrat Brown mostly feared Reagan’s GOP rival, former San Francisco Mayor George Christopher. But Brown merely leaked one anti-Christopher story to a national columnist. Any help that gave Reagan was minuscule. Besides, he didn’t need any. Reagan won the primary by 34 points.

* Riordan was an unwitting co-conspirator in his own demise. The Davis attack ads knocked him off balance, and he made the wrong moves trying to right himself. Moreover, he attempted to run a general election campaign that ignored and insulted the Republican Party’s conservative base.

The core of Riordan’s problem was that he did not understand the two-party political system. The former L.A. mayor’s late-in-life career had been spent entirely in nonpartisan local politics, and in a city that was heavily Democratic. He did not comprehend the delicate handling required of volatile Republican primary voters.

He needed one seasoned, trusted campaign strategist--

somebody in charge. Nobody seemed to be.

That job was offered to Wilson’s longtime strategist, George Gorton. He looked around at a menagerie of unorganized hangers-on, saw looming disaster and said no thanks.

* Jones furnished former Gov. George Deukmejian, whose attack on Riordan for aiding and abetting Democrats was devastating. When Deukmejian declared in a TV ad that he could never vote for Riordan--even over a Democrat--it was like pouring jet fuel on the fire ignited by Davis.

So Simon didn’t win the election as much as Riordan lost it. And Riordan lost it, in large part, because of poundings by Davis and Duke.

That’s not to take anything away from Simon. He played it smart and cautious--yet was bold enough to run.

In early 2001, the wealthy investor talked about running for state treasurer, or maybe lieutenant governor or attorney general. Consultant Sal Russo convinced him his best shot was governor, because Davis would be vulnerable--energy, spending, schools--and without a strong GOP gubernatorial candidate, Simon couldn’t win a lower office anyway.

Last summer, friends of Riordan tried to coax Simon out of the race, tacitly offering to support him for another office--then or in the future. But Simon liked his chances.

He got a break when his mentor, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, became a national star after the terrorist attacks. Simon took full advantage of that, stumping the state with the new political hero and drawing attention to himself.

Only two months ago, Simon was being dismissed by most politicos and pundits, including me. No more.

The consensus in the ballroom seemed to be that Simon’s odds of beating Davis--”Apollo Creed”--are 3 in 10. “Rocky” will gladly take those odds.