Simon Bears Dissonant Message, Observers Say

As Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon Jr. campaigns to unseat Gov. Gray Davis, he has been skeptical--and at times even derisive--about what government can accomplish.

In the fashion of a true-blue conservative, Simon has argued that government should be doing less, not more. Want to make housing more affordable? Loosen land-use restrictions. Hope to rejuvenate poor neighborhoods? Eliminate the capital gains tax for companies that invest in those communities. Need to build more dams, power transmission lines and highways? Contract the projects out to private companies.

“California can be a state that stands for limited government and unlimited opportunity, and not the other way around,” he tells audiences. In front of Republican audiences, the candidate often blames bureaucrats in Sacramento and state regulations for strangling the economy and school reform.

Simon’s message, which sticks closely to traditional Republican orthodoxy, has surprised many political experts, who say it is jarringly dissonant in the current climate. The terrorism attacks of the last year, the recent string of corporate abuses and the failure of California’s energy deregulation have made voters increasingly distrustful of big business and eager for more government protection, according to pollsters.

The message will strike many as out of step, said Carroll Doherty, a political analyst at the Pew Research Center.

“Government ratings skyrocketed after 9/11,” Doherty said. “It has come down a bit, but government is still doing better compared to corporations and business.”

Simon is making his pitch at a time when antigovernment rhetoric in national politics is at a nadir, analysts said. Other politicians have pivoted to address the changed mood. President Bush, who criticized Washington bureaucrats during the 2000 campaign, is advocating new regulations for corporations and the creation of a federal bureaucracy to combat terrorism. Unlike the 1994 election cycle, when Republicans took control of Congress promising to scale back government, conservative candidates this year are talking about homeland security and corporate reform, efforts that suggest a larger governmental role.

“This is not a cycle where generally across the country we’re seeing a lot of anti-politician and antigovernment rhetoric,” said Stu Rothenberg, a Washington-based political analyst. “Among Republicans and conservatives, there’s a sense that government has more of a job right now to protect the country ... and that right now, you need government.”

Simon said his philosophy about small government was influenced by his father, the late Treasury Secretary William E. Simon, who was a staunch believer in keeping bureaucracy in check. When Simon went to work for the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, he said, his father warned him not to abuse the authority he would have.

“I’ve seen situations where the government has a lot of power, and you’ve got to be very careful how you exercise that power,” Simon said. Otherwise, he added, “you get the sense that you’re above everything.”

Davis--a man who has spent almost all of his adult life in government--epitomizes for Simon the ills of that approach. The governor “takes a philosophy that the government knows better,” Simon said in a recent interview. “I have a reverse philosophy: I think our people know better.”

Garry South, Davis’ political strategist, dismissed the notion that Davis is an ardent support of big government.

“There are some things that government does well and has to do if it’s going to get done,” South said. But “this governor has never been one who has leaned to a government solution to every problem.”

Davis’ Republican challenger has a more stark philosophy.

Simon said that while he values the role of government in public safety, he believes that state rules and agencies can be a roadblock to economic growth, job creation and school reform--a view he believes voters share, despite the terrorist attacks and corporate scandals.

“To the extent that people don’t fear for their safety and to the extent to which they don’t feel they need to rely on the government, I think they just want the government out of their lives,” he said.

And so on the campaign trail, Simon has stuck resolutely to his call for limiting government and turning to the private sector for solutions.

“We all deserve opportunity, all of us, and we all deserve not to be interfered with by our government,” Simon told about 600 seniors during a visit to Leisure World in Laguna Hills on Sept. 12.

To partially close the state’s massive budget gap, the GOP nominee suggests cutting state operations by 15%. In his education plan, Simon would dramatically reduce the number of state regulations and decentralize school districts.

In the past week, he said he would get “the state out of the power business” to deal with California’s energy crunch.

Instead, Simon said, he would transfer the state’s power contracts to local utilities and create incentives for private companies to expand transmission lines.

Sometimes his message seems out of kilter with his environment.

In July, the Republican nominee toured the Shasta Dam, the largest man-made reservoir in California, a massive public works project that took the federal government six years and almost 5,000 workers to complete. But as he made his pitch about how he’d build more dams in California, Simon’s admiration for government projects faded.

“I think it’s about time that we stop relying on our government, and we start trying to limit the role of government and try to empower our people,” Simon said, adding that he would pursue private partnerships to build more reservoirs.

“I just don’t know that I’ve ever met a bureaucrat that I felt is going to proactively address a problem,” he added.