Yankee History Says Simon Hasn’t Struck Out

Want a real sporting proposition? Not the election, silly -- the World Series, which this time around is the California series.

Bill Simon, reading the tea leaves of series past, wants history to repeat itself: By beating the Yankees, recent history says, the come-from-behind Angels have given Simon a come-from-behind chance. A Yankee win almost invariably means a Democrat takes California, but when it’s any team but the Yankees, the GOP fares well:

1954: The Cleveland Indians beat the Yankees for the pennant, and Goodwin Knight, the appointed GOP governor, wins in his own right.

1958: The Yankees beat the Milwaukee Braves, Democratic Atty. Gen. Pat Brown beats Republican Sen. Bill Knowland.

1962: In a seventh-game squeaker, the Yankees beat the Giants, Pat Brown beats Richard Nixon. As one sympathetic Simon e-mail said, had Willie McCovey hit his line drive one foot higher, “Richard Nixon would have won the election ... would not have given that awful concession speech” -- the one about not having Nixon to kick around any more, and this being his last election and all -- and he “would not have moved to New York, would not have met John Mitchell,” his future felonious attorney general, “and, well, we know all the rest.” (Simon has not yet been seen in public wearing the NIXON sweatshirt he was given recently after his latest speech at the Nixon Library. Photographers are standing by.)

1970: The Yankees are out of the race, the Orioles beat the Dodgers, and Ronald Reagan beats Pat Brown. Four years later, the Yankees are still down and out, the Orioles win again, and Reagan beats Democratic Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh.

1974: Oops! The Zen of Jerry kicks in; the Yankees lose but Jerry Brown still beats Republican Houston Flournoy. Four years later, the Yankees are back, and Jerry is governor, again.

1982 and 1986: The Yankees are flat-lining again, and the GOP’s George Deukmejian beats the Democrats’ Tom Bradley, twice.

1990 and 1994: The Yankees are still dead, and Pete Wilson beats two Democratic women: Dianne Feinstein in 1990 and Kathleen Brown in 1994.

1998: The Yankees sweep the Padres, and Gray Davis sweeps Dan Lungren.

Now we have the Angels, who haven’t ever been in the series, and Simon, who hasn’t ever run for office.

The Davis campaign has derided the notion of Simon’s pinning electoral hopes on baseball patterns, and both men should be aware of homemade signs popping up in the Angels’ stadium reading “Salmon for governor” and “Scioscia for governor” -- the Angels’ right fielder and their manager.

Money Trail Takes Some Odd Turns

Now, for another kind of playing ball -- the kind that involves dollar signs.

Campaign filings show that, in September, the Simon campaign got $25,000 from the “Lungren for Governor” operation -- a kind of dead man’s money, inasmuch as Lungren lost to Davis by 20 points four years ago.

Another $1,000 made its way to Simon from Jon Iverson, the “tax director” at Oracle Corp. in San Jose, Oracle being the company whose contribution to Davis caused the governor much consternation earlier this year.

More money on the cash-parched Simon landscape came from simpatico Orange County, where GOP rainmaker Ron Cedillos hosted about 100 people, who paid between $250 and $10,000 for the meet-and-greet. Several attendees said privately they were aghast that Simon falsely accused Gov. Gray Davis of taking a campaign check on state property.

But they showed up loyally anyway, more for the sake of down-ticket candidates who rely on voter pull from the ticket topper. Cedillos’ Laguna Niguel spread is the address for Orange County political fundraisers -- why, it was there, in February, that Cedillos hosted a “do” for his first choice for governor: Bill Jones.

Pitting Davis Against Rapper Vanilla Ice

Whatever else the Simon campaign lacks -- money, political savvy -- it has someone with a sense of humor. The latest compare-and-contrast e-mail pits Gray Davis against passe white rapper Vanilla Ice. There’s the name (Vanilla vs. Gray), the hair (QED), and “view of his place in the world”:

Mr. Ice: “I’m just a white guy trying to rap, and I got lucky.”

Mr. Davis: “I’m just a poor working stiff.”

The e-mail did not note, however, that both have gone platinum: Ice with his music, Davis with his fund-raising.

Points Taken

* Angelenos who do the right thing and vote on Nov. 5 get a break: Parking regulations near polling places will be suspended between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. on Election Day so voters can take as much time as they need to cast this year’s lengthy, complex ballots. (Please, no sneak-shopping. This is citizenship.)

* Mosemarie Boyd, a former Davis administration aide who came in fourth out of four in March’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, says both Republicans and Democrats should be “grateful” for Gray Davis’ prodigious fund-raising, for “protecting Californians from Bill Simon.” She cites his “ineffective attempts to use his personal fortune to become governor.”

Bob Hertzberg, of late the Assembly speaker, took the lectern at Los Angeles Valley College to teach two free classes on using the Internet to figure out California government, like filing taxes and renewing auto registration online; students get a 46-page Internet guide to California government.

* Don Knabe, one of five Los Angeles County supervisors, is one of eight appointed members to President Bush’s Homeland Security Advisory Council’s State and Local Officials Senior Advisory Committee. First task should be, shorten the job title.

You Can Quote Me

“I think Mayor [Willie] Brown will look cute.”

Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly, who bet San Francisco’s Beau Brummel mayor on the outcome of the World Series. If the Angels win, Brown will wear a cowboy hat, the headgear of choice for the late Angels owner, Gene Autry. If the Giants win, Tom Daly will wear a brown and orange fedora in a style not unlike the one favored by the S.F. mayor.

*

THUMBS DOWN: A lone protester, left, expresses his displeasure with the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Bill Simon Jr. In right photograph, picketers including Guadalupe Rodriguez, left, and Marguerita Casillas march in front of the Ronald Reagan Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles to protest Gov. Gray Davis’ veto of a bill that would have allowed some illegal immigrants who are longtime residents to receive driver’s licenses. The decision forced Davis to weigh what he said were increased security risks from licensing noncitizens after last year’s terrorist attacks against the interests of groups supporting driving rights for illegal immigrants.

*

Patt Morrison’s column appears Mondays and Tuesdays. This week’s contributors include Michael Finnegan, Jean O. Pasco and Massie K. Ritsch.