Low Turnout Likely to Be Factor in Senate Contest

The political gathering, small though it was, amounted to a convening of the local Barbara Boxer faithful here on Kole Upton’s farm, a 1,400-acre spread of wheat, nut and cotton fields in the eastern Central Valley.

Perched on mismatched chairs dragged from Upton’s nearby ranch house, about 20 people listened in a metal-walled work barn to Boxer’s plea for help in her bid for a third term in the U.S. Senate. Boxer didn’t have to do much convincing -- most were invited because they were longtime supporters.

But with only a handful of print reporters on hand and no local television cameras, the event highlighted what could be the biggest challenge facing Boxer and Bill Jones, her Republican rival: How do you get voters to pay attention during what will likely be a low-boil California election season?

“It’s definitely a concern for us,” said Rose Kapolczynski, Boxer’s campaign manager. “I think it affects both camps.... It affects your ability to do grass-roots organizing because volunteers want to be involved in something exciting, and they want to know they’re making a difference.”

How -- and whether -- the public gets engaged in the Senate race could prove to be more important to the outcome than any of the issues the candidates hope to use to define the race.

Although the Jones camp is confident that the Bush reelection campaign will link with freshman Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to make a play for California, most analysts expect the presidential race to be fought in such battleground states as Ohio, Minnesota and Florida, which would mean few campaign appearances here by President George W. Bush or Sen. John F. Kerry.

Without that electoral lightning rod to draw voter interest, Jones and Boxer will be on their own to charge up core supporters and independents in the months leading up to the November general election.

A low-key campaign could open a door for Jones. But at the time, reduced voter interest means fewer votes will be needed to win, and analysts say a disinterested public would likely give the advantage to Boxer, an incumbent Democrat with wide recognition and a huge lead in fundraising.

“In the short run, it makes it a lot harder for Bill Jones, because in an ideal world there’d be a president coming here regularly, and there’d be some resonance between the issues the president is trying to emphasize and what Bill Jones is campaigning on,” said Bruce Cain, a political analyst at UC Berkeley.

Even if the presidential contenders put California into play, it’s unclear how much help Jones could expect from Bush, whose political team places a premium on loyalty. In 2000, Jones, then California secretary of state, rescinded an early endorsement of Bush to back Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid just before the California primary. He then returned to the fold after McCain bowed out.

And while Schwarzenegger has endorsed Jones, no one can say exactly what that means. In the primary, Schwarzenegger’s picture was emblazoned on a Jones flier, but the two had few appearances together.

“The magic wand for Jones is the governor, and whether or not Schwarzenegger has simply endorsed or is really going to get active,” said USC political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe.

Yet even getting the governor’s help carries risk.

“To appear on the same forum together is to invite questions about their differences, and there are differences on gay marriage and abortion and God knows what else,” Cain said. “It would have to be something carefully stage-managed. If the press gets them in a spontaneous forum, they’re going to ask about those issues.”

Sean Walsh, Jones’ senior strategist, said even a distant presidential campaign focusing on national security and international affairs would help Jones, a Fresno-area farmer who served two terms as secretary of state and 12 years in the state Assembly.

“The national and international issues present us with a good opportunity to define Sen. Boxer’s past record,” Walsh said. He acknowledged that the campaign would need heightened media interest to be successful.

“In the final couple of months of the campaign, we will have to have the resources because she will try to define us” using television ads. “If we don’t have the resources [to counter], it will be very, very difficult to win.”

Both camps last week worked on two fronts: trying to turn core supporters into activists to do the nuts-and-bolts work of campaigning, and trying to define in the public mind what the election would be about. It was a rough-and-tumble signal that the race would be built on sharp exchanges, bromides about each other’s voting histories and a struggle to paint the opponent as a political extremist.

“Every campaign is a matter of defining the issues to your advantage,” said Dan Schnur, a Republican strategist who worked for Peter Ueberroth during his abortive gubernatorial run in the recall race, and for McCain’s presidential campaign. “If the race is about abortion and the environment, then Boxer will be reelected. If Jones can make it at least in part about national security and defense issues, then he stands a better chance.”

The most immediate battle will be for image, Jeffe said. Boxer was successful in her first two races in part because she was able to effectively portray her opponents as excessively conservative compared to most voters -- while they failed to make her own liberal views seem out of step.

“She needs to paint [Jones] as outside the mainstream, and the best way to do that would be to swamp the airwaves,” Jeffe said, adding that the longer Boxer waits to air ads, the less effective they will be and the more opportunity Jones will have to persuade voters Boxer is the one on the political fringe.

“It’s a big risk for any candidate to allow his or her opposition to define himself or herself,” Jeffe said. “I don’t think either of them will be well-served by hiding until Labor Day, if the other one takes control of creating the images.”

Already, Jones has accused Boxer, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, of being to the political left of most Democrats -- including Sen. Dianne Feinstein -- soft on defense and national security and reliant on “wedge issues” of abortion, gun control and offshore drilling.

Boxer, in turn, has accused Jones of being to the right of his party, and distorting her record. “He keeps making things up,” she complained last week, as her campaign van ferried her between events.

She also accused Jones of being oblivious to the importance Californians place on abortion rights, gun control and offshore drilling, all key issues in past elections.

“When Bill Jones says he wants to ‘get past these issues,’ he says they don’t matter,” Boxer told more than 100 supporters Thursday at a luncheon in Visalia. “The truth is, they do matter. They matter a lot.... Here we have it: a very clear choice.”

Still, neither side’s arguments will hold much sway if voters aren’t watching. And if neither side is covered by “free media” -- television, radio and print -- the only alternative will be campaign ads. Both camps agree that television advertising in the last two months will be crucial, an expensive turn in a race that could cost each side more than $20 million.

Boxer spent $14 million in 1998 to defeat Republican Matt Fong, and already has $5 million in the bank. But Jones closed out the primary with little money, and has no track record of raising the amount he’ll need.

In theory, he could be helped out by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which already has $9.7 million on hand, said spokesman Dan Allen. Under federal funding formulas, the committee could pump more than $3 million into Jones’ campaign, Boxer aides said. But Allen said the committee had not decided which Senate races to support.

Walsh said Jones was not counting on Allen’s group for money, although Jones plans to meet with the committee and Bush campaign officials this week. Striking a tone of confidence, Walsh said Jones had always raised enough money to win his races -- and this year would be no different.