Loyalty Test

Brace yourself. The election to recall Gov. Gray Davis -- or, more precisely, the fight Davis is waging to beat the recall -- is about to produce something so rare these days in U.S. politics that most voters under 60 have never experienced it.

Call it a classic campaign, one that is short, tightly focused, built around political parties rather than candidates, waged about issues rather than personalities and designed to engage and mobilize grass-roots voters. It’s the sort of bygone electioneering political scientists rhapsodize about when they try to explain what ails the contemporary political process and why voters are so disenchanted with it.

True, this little interlude of classic campaigning arises out of a recall process most scholars regard as populism run amok. And, true, the recall ballot has peculiarities that would not surface in an ordinary election. But these factors need not spoil the unexpected opportunity to put a few of academia’s pet theories about campaigns to the test.

Academics are fussy about categories and definitions, so a quick word of caution. The champions of classic campaigning should not be confused with either civic reformers or good-government types. The latter, especially, tend to believe money is a corrupting force in politics.

By contrast, political scientists who pine for classic campaigns have no problem whatsoever with political money, as long as it is raised and doled out by political parties. They are interested in noisy, no-holds-barred campaigns in which party loyalty matters more than anything else and is enforced by good old-fashioned patronage. Patronage is one of those things that got California progressives exercised about cleaning up government in the early 20th century, which is why we have a recall provision in the state Constitution.

So, what to look for between now and Oct. 7: Lots of talk about national agendas and reminders about who stands for what and who stood with whom on which important fight.

Democratic Party activists in San Francisco got a sample last week. Davis, more mobilized and engaged than usual, appeared at a pep rally with House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe and a cast of state and local Democratic leaders.

The governor used the occasion to recast the budget problems that have helped fuel the effort to recall him. “Republicans want to strip health insurance from 400,000 of the 1 million kids we’ve been able to insure,” he said. “I won’t let that happen.” The recall, Davis told the crowd, “is not just about me. It’s about changing direction and policy in this state. I am the steward of your dreams and aspirations.”

All right, bad choice of words. Most California Democrats probably wouldn’t describe any governor, let alone this governor, as the steward of their dreams and ambitions -- particularly when up to one-third of Democratic voters have told pollsters they support the recall.

But it is precisely because Davis’ popularity ratings in recent polls are so low that he must convince voters he is not the issue and that something bigger is at stake. Just what the classic-campaign crowd would favor.

“It’s a gut check,” said professor Raymond J. La Raja of the University of Massachusetts. “Is this election about the man or the party? Political scientists have always wanted it to be about the party.”

One by one, the Democrats who joined Davis on the platform in San Francisco hammered home messages aimed at the party’s core constituencies. Art Pulaski, executive secretary of the California Labor Federation, summed it up. “This is a recall of public education, of a woman’s right to choose, of environmental protection,” he thundered. “It’s a recall of the eight-hour day, of domestic partners and a living wage. It will set California back 100 years.”

Pelosi labeled the recall a part of a national Republican agenda “to achieve what they can’t achieve in an election.”

McAuliffe, who had already stopped in Los Angeles to promise that the national party would pump money and muscle into the anti-recall campaign, pledged that no other Democrat would enter the race against Davis.

Then he waved the proverbial bloody shirt.

“We’re in a state where Democrats won the election and Republicans are trying to steal it. You mean, we’re not in Florida?”

It’s not that these predictable pitches don’t pop up in an ordinary election campaign. They do, but usually as window dressing for a strategy that takes the base for granted and is really aimed at swing or independent voters. Political professionals who run campaigns are so skilled at slicing and dicing the electorate that a candidate’s positions often amount to pablum. That has always been true for Davis, a cautious centrist by nature.

This time, the Democratic base, in all its colors, is the campaign, because Davis must rack up a majority of votes to keep his office, while those seeking to replace him can win by capturing only a sliver of the electorate.

The recall ballot consists of two questions: Should the governor be recalled? And: If he is recalled, who should replace him? Voters who say no to recalling Davis can still select a replacement for him. Candidates have until Aug. 9 to file, but, by law, Davis’ name cannot appear on that list.

If the party discipline that political scientists prize so highly actually holds, one big question is what will happen if Davis appears to be a sure loser as the candidate filing deadline approaches. Who makes the decision, and who chooses which Democrat steps forward?

Another hallmark of a classic campaign is a coalition of interest groups prepared to put aside individual agendas for the good of the whole. That’s what the pep rally is about. It works well in liberal, urban San Francisco, where Davis spent more time last week and where polls show that he would beat the recall. But will it translate to Greater Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and the Central Valley, where Democratic coalitions are more difficult to assemble and where, at the moment, polls show the governor would lose the vote?

The political science experiment would be more complete if California Republicans recognized the wisdom of running a single candidate against Davis. That way we might learn if candidates and their strategists can resist the temptation to focus on personalities once the election heats up. The state GOP has been urging potential Republican contenders to delay filing until the last possible day so that the party can assess the situation on the Democratic side.

The academics will reap some unexpected campaign-finance data connected to contribution limits governing this election. Because recall campaigns are exempt from the new campaign-finance law Californians approved in 2000, Davis gets to collect an unlimited amount of money. But the candidates to replace him are subject to limits on how much they can take from individuals and small donor committees.

Finally, the campaign may be classic, but that doesn’t mean Davis strategists will be relying on torchlight parades to get out the Democratic vote. Turnout, after all, is crucial in a special election.

So, is the party base best stirred by more or less than the usual barrage of TV ads? Since the campaign will be brief, should the commercials be more rousing or nasty than usual? Can pollsters and media consultants rely less on the airwaves and instead flood the party faithful with mailers and absentee ballots?

Maybe. But there is an extra California twist to this campaign, an initiative that deals with -- what else -- race. The measure proposed by UC Regent Ward Connerly was to have appeared on the March 2004 primary ballot but will now be part of the recall election. It would ban state and local governments from collecting data about the race and ethnicity of individuals.

In the contest to maximize turnout, can either party resist the temptation to play the race card?