GOP Candidates Face Uphill Battle for Statewide Offices

From attorney general to state treasurer, Republican candidates are clear underdogs in every down-ballot contest this fall, a predicament that reflects the flagging political fortunes of the California GOP in recent years.

The Republicans’ longshot status is the logical consequence of prior election defeats. The California Republican Party lost all but two statewide races four years ago, and one of its winners, former Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush, later resigned amid a widening corruption scandal. The other, Secretary of State Bill Jones, is being forced out due to term limits, leaving Republicans with no incumbents running for reelection this fall.

The result for Republicans is a perilously thin lineup of candidates for California’s statewide offices this November--a situation that exposes the GOP to the threat of a shutout at the hands of Democrats for the first time in more than a century.

For Republicans, the pain of such a lopsided defeat this fall could sting well into the future. The down-ticket offices have historically been a breeding ground for future governors, and being swept out of all those positions would leave Republicans with no “bench” whatsoever.

Democratic Gov. Gray Davis served as controller and lieutenant governor before winning the state’s highest office in 1998. Former GOP Gov. George Deukmejian, who served from 1982 to 1990, was elected to that post after having been attorney general and building a record there.

With eight months left between this month’s primaries and the November general election--an eternity in politics--countless events could reshape candidates’ fortunes. But for now, many political experts and consultants say the GOP’s best hope of avoiding a shutout begins and ends at the top of the ticket, with Bill Simon Jr.’s uphill campaign to unseat Davis.

Even more so than usual, Republicans need a commanding win by Simon to raise the profiles of other GOP candidates and help carry them to victory. Simon stunned the state’s political establishment by crushing former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan in the Republican primary.

If Simon runs strong in November, Republicans have a chance to ride the coattails of the conservative financier and win a number of statewide positions. But if he does not, as some of the down-ballot candidates acknowledge, they may lose them all.

“If Davis wins, I will probably lose,” state Sen. Richard Ackerman (R-Irvine), the only Republican who campaigned for attorney general, recently told The Times.

The last time Democrats held all the statewide offices was 1883-87, according to the California State Archives.

In sharp contrast to the Republicans, Democrats field three powerful and well-funded incumbents besides Davis: Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, Treasurer Phil Angelides and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, all of whom hold gubernatorial aspirations. And John Garamendi, the Democratic candidate for insurance commissioner, brings near-incumbent status, having held the job before Quackenbush.

Democrats already hold both of California’s U.S. Senate seats--the place Republicans found their last governor, Pete Wilson--and most big-city mayor’s offices in the state, including Los Angeles, now that Democrat James K. Hahn has replaced Riordan.

As a result, Republicans canvassing for statewide candidates have had to look for recruits in the Legislature, where their party is a minority in both houses and lawmakers thus have few accomplishments on which to campaign.

Further complicating their prospects, several of the Republican candidates in the down-ballot races are Riordan disciples with similarly moderate views on social issues that stand apart from the more conservative Simon. They were counting on Riordan’s support during their campaigns, and his defeat left them adrift.

Now that they must hitch their wagons to Simon, Republicans of all stripes are making a bid for solidarity from the top of their ticket on down.

Simon met with other statewide candidates during a dinner in Sacramento this month, and they agreed to emphasize issues that are part of Simon’s platform, said Simon’s communications director, James Fisfis. Mindful that Davis will probably try to use the wedge issues of abortion and immigration to portray Simon as a right-wing extremist, the candidates vowed to stand together and talk about the subjects on which they agree, such as fiscal conservatism.

The next day, Simon met in private with Republican legislators in the Senate and Assembly--most of whom endorsed either Riordan or Jones--and emerged with a similar consensus.

“Now it’s a new day,” a smiling Simon said during a news conference afterward, dismissing the lawmakers’ previous support for his rivals. “The people have spoken. Now it’s time that we unite.”

In their newfound embrace of Simon, the GOP candidates are pinning their hopes on the possibility that like Ronald Reagan nearly four decades before him--another conservative with little political experience--Simon will prove stronger than anticipated and bridge the divide between conservatives and more moderate mainstream voters. Reagan was elected governor in 1966.

“The most vulnerable Democrat is the one at the top,” said longtime Republican strategist Tony Quinn.

But in a state where Democrats hold a large lead in voter registration, and independent voters have recently sided strongly with Democrats, a sweeping Simon win, several political experts said, appears to be a longshot.

“If for some reason the conservatives realize their dream and everyone is energized by Simon and we have Reagan II, then perhaps this will be averted,” UC Berkeley political scientist Bruce Cain said of a Democratic shutout. “I assign almost an infinitesimally low percentage to that. I just don’t see a mandate of conservatism in this state right now.”

In addition to incumbency, the Democratic candidates all appear to have another important factor in their favor: money.

Angelides and Lockyer both have more than $4 million in their campaign accounts--about $4 million more in each case than their Republican rivals, former Public Utilities Commission President P. Gregory Conlon and state Sen. Ackerman.

Steve Westly, the Democratic nominee for controller, is a former EBay vice president whose personal fortune has been estimated at more than $100 million. His opponent, state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), is considered a maverick within his own party, and though he is easily the best known of the Republican candidates, political experts predict he will have a hard time matching Westly in fund-raising.

Assemblyman Kevin Shelley of San Francisco, who defeated former 19-year incumbent March Fong Eu in the Democratic primary for secretary of state, has major backing from labor unions, a deep source of campaign cash. His Republican opponent is former Victorville Assemblyman Keith Olberg, who has been out of office since 2000.

Even in the nominally nonpartisan race for superintendent of public instruction, Democratic state Sen. Jack O’Connell of San Luis Obispo is supported by the California Teachers Assn., one of the state’s biggest campaign contributors. Republicans are rallying behind Anaheim school board member Katherine H. Smith, who outpolled the GOP’s original choice for the job, Assemblywoman Lynne Leach of Walnut Creek, and faces O’Connell in a fall runoff.

Ackerman was named vice chairman of the Senate Budget Committee last year, a position that makes him one of the top Republicans in the budget process. It is his most prominent political role to date.

State Sen. Bruce McPherson (R-Santa Cruz), the GOP’s nominee for lieutenant governor, at least gets to chair a committee, Public Safety. Fellow lawmakers say McPherson, a former newspaper publisher whose gun-control and pro-choice views make him one of the most liberal Republicans in the Legislature, got the assignment because Senate leader John Burton (D-San Francisco) likes him.

Both Ackerman and McPherson endorsed Riordan in the gubernatorial primary. So did Gary Mendoza, the GOP nominee for insurance commissioner and a partner at the former mayor’s law firm, Riordan & McKinzie.

After the backlash caused by Proposition 187, the 1994 measure to limit public services to illegal immigrants that was supported by former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, GOP leaders sought to recruit candidates who presented a more inclusive image. But those efforts have largely failed, lately because many Republican women and Latinos have found better opportunities with the Bush administration.

In the future, some experts predict, the GOP may have to turn to Congress for statewide candidates, although most representatives have little name identification outside their home districts. Or the party may need to lean heavily on inexperienced celebrities such as actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has expressed an interest in entering California politics.

That is, unless Simon can right the Republican ship this fall.

The latest Field Poll had Davis and Simon in a virtual tie. More important in a state where a growing number of voters decline to register with a political party, it also showed many independent voters still have no opinion of Simon, which suggests he has an opportunity to widen his base of support.

“He’s a blank slate to many voters,” said Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo. “If he can get out of the box now and position himself as more than the antiabortion conservative Davis will make him out to be, then things could get very interesting.”

But DiCamillo noted, “The Republicans are in an all-or-nothing situation.”