Kerry’s Win Might Give California More Clout

The victory of Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry in the Iowa caucuses has increased the chance that California voters will get a real say in the choice of a major party’s presidential nominee for the first time in more than three decades.

The Iowa results smothered speculation that onetime front-runner Howard Dean -- who placed a distant third -- would romp to the nomination. With Kerry’s triumph -- and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards’ surprise second-place finish -- strategists foresee a longer-than-expected clash for domination.

“The early-knockout coronation scenario seems far more remote today than it did yesterday,” Edwards strategist David Axelrod said.

For California, a prolonged battle would enhance the state’s clout in the selection of President Bush’s Democratic challenger. At stake in California’s March 2 primary is the biggest prize of the race: 370 of the 2,159 delegates needed to capture the party nomination.

“I’ve always felt that California would be competitive; now I’m thinking it might be decisive,” said Jude Barry, Dean’s California campaign director.

That judgment is far from certain. Nationally, the race remains highly volatile. In the six weeks before Californians vote, 18 states and Washington, D.C., will hold primaries or caucuses. The field of seven candidates, down from nine just a week ago, is apt to be winnowed further as February contests in Michigan, Georgia and other big states establish which contenders are sure losers.

But the upended dynamic was enough to give California operatives hope.

“By the time we get to California, we’re likely to have two to three candidates in this race,” said Garry South, a senior advisor to Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. “I don’t see this going away any time soon.”

California’s late primary date has long relegated the state to de facto irrelevance in naming major-party nominees for president. The last time the state played a key role was in 1972, when George McGovern sealed the Democratic nomination by defeating Hubert Humphrey in California.

In 1996, California advanced its June primary to March in a bid for more pull, but the effort was undercut when other states made similar moves. This year, too, the state is far from alone in its March 2 placement; 10 states, including New York and Ohio, will hold contests the same day.

For now, candidates are focused mainly on Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary. For Lieberman and retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who both bypassed Iowa, it will be the first test of voter support.

The Iowa results have already scrambled strategic calculations for the fast succession of contests that follow New Hampshire’s. The withdrawal Tuesday of Rep. Dick Gephardt, who finished fourth in Iowa, sets the stage for hotly contested races in his home state, Missouri, and in Michigan, where his labor support was strong.

“If they come up with a muddled verdict, you’re headed to California,” said Gephardt strategist Bill Carrick of Los Angeles.

A Field Poll survey released Friday found Dean leading the Democratic field in California with support of 25% of likely primary voters, followed by Clark with 20%, Lieberman at 12% and Kerry with 7%. But momentum from Iowa, New Hampshire and other early-voting states could shift the landscape dramatically by March 2.

“The winds come in, and it’s which way the winds are blowing,” said Gephardt advisor Bill Wardlaw, a California campaign strategist for President Clinton. “The real guts of a campaign are determined by forces way beyond your control in California.”

Indeed, the candidates would be hard-pressed to influence California voters with substantial television advertising, given the state’s costly media markets. Instead, they must rely largely on free news coverage.

Until now, the candidates’ frequent trips to California have largely been efforts to harvest campaign money, much of it from Hollywood and the Silicon Valley. Campaign staffing has been minimal, apart from professional fundraisers.

Over the next few weeks, though, each campaign must tackle the Byzantine task of organizing candidates to be their California delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Each campaign must find three or more delegate candidates in each of the state’s 53 congressional districts. The delegate candidates must file paperwork by Feb. 4, then gather four days later at caucuses in each of the congressional districts.

“It’s not easy,” said Gale Kaufman, a Democratic strategist who ran Bill Bradley’s California campaign for president in 2000 but who is unaligned this year. “Just thinking about doing it is pretty intimidating.”

As the next contests approach, some California Democrats hope the race will remain a tossup.

“The race is in flux,” said state Democratic Chairman Art Torres, “and that’s good for California.”