Hearts and minds yet to be won in governor’s race

Memo to Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner and Jerry Brown:

I’ve been talking to independent voters, the fastest-growing political force in California and a group that could decide this year’s race for governor, and they are not impressed.

With any of you.

On the up side, they haven’t counted you out yet. So, with next month’s primary and the November general election, you’ve got time to win them over. But it won’t be easy.

This little project of mine began a few weeks ago when I put out a call to independents, asking for volunteers who’d let me check in with them over the next several months as they endure millions of dollars worth of vapid TV advertising, distortions, generalizations and name-calling by candidates.

Today, I’ll introduce you to four of them, each a concerned independent voter who is hoping that, against all odds, the candidates will at some point speak honestly, and with clarity, about how they intend to rescue this budget-strapped, dysfunctional wreck of a state.

There’s Ladera Ranch resident Maureen Hayes, 50, a single mother and VP of a construction and engineering company. She’s a political junkie registered as “Decline to State,” and she says the negative TV campaign ads so far are like car accidents — it’s hard not to look at them in horror. “I feel like I’m moderating between my children rather than looking at an important decision that needs to be made.”

Arcadia resident Adam Serrano, 23, is a recent poli-sci grad from UC Berkeley who covers soccer for a website and hopes one day to teach high school government. A Mexican American, he joined a campus Republican club at Berkeley, but has been turned off by Whitman and Poizner’s trench war on illegal immigration. “Here I stand,” said the self-described political drifter, “without a candidate to call my own.”

Randall Gwin, 37, a married Newport Beach toy designer, calls himself as an “independent conservative liberal-minded Christian O.C. resident with ties to the arts and academia.” “I truly don’t know who I’m going to vote for,” he told me. “I’d just like someone to answer a few questions in a way that doesn’t make my b.s. . detector shriek.”

Paul Song, 44, a Korean American physician living in Santa Monica, describes himself as a former libertarian and a progressive independent who has voted for George W. Bush and Barack Obama. “Unfortunately, our state is never going to recover unless we get somebody in office who’s not worried about reelection,” said Song.

He doesn’t much care which party the new governor is from as long as he or she is willing to bite the hand that feeds. “I’d like to see a Democrat who gets elected and says [to the unions], ‘Is there any reason you have to retire at 45 and get a full pension, or 75% of your pension? Is there any reason you can’t work longer, like the rest of us?’ ”

And Song would like to see a Republican governor who tells corporate special interests they don’t own Sacramento, and tells voters the future is bleak for a state that ranks near the top nationally in spending per inmate and closer to the bottom in spending per pupil.

Gwin has different gripes. Spendthrift Democrats are too inclined to see the good in people, he says, while stingier Republicans are too inclined to see the worst.

“I’m Christian. I believe people are fundamentally flawed.”

So help them find their way, said the fiscal conservative, but don’t bust the bank doing it.

This kind of moderation is pretty common in California. And yet we have a Legislature that’s accurately described by Serrano as a clubhouse for extremists.

“It’s bipolar, with hyper-conservatives and hyper-liberals who can’t seem to work together. What I really wanted to see in a governor, which is why I voted for Schwarzenegger, is someone who can get people together in the middle ground.”

That’s why Hayes thinks one of the most important items on the June ballot is Proposition 14, the open primary amendment designed to give more moderate candidates a chance by letting voters choose across party lines.

“I remember having a conversation with Pete Wilson when he was governor and he was a moderate, and he said it was tough being a Republican and pro-choice,” said Hayes. “It’s why I didn’t want to be a Republican anymore.”

Like the others, Hayes hasn’t ruled out Jerry Brown, but the Democrat has no primary opposition and so he’s been hibernating. Serrano said he’s surprised by friends who are gung-ho fans of a man with nothing to say thus far.

“I know a lot of people up north who are going to vote for him, but I tell them they know him as mayor of Oakland or as attorney general, or they know the Jerry Brown who was governor in the ‘70s. But we don’t know the 2010 Jerry Brown, and that worries me.”

Whitman’s success in business isn’t necessarily a plus for these independents, given the fact that ethics in the business world are every bit as unsavory as ethics in politics. As for Poizner, Song considered him an attractive moderate until “he completely morphed into a very intolerant right-wing conservative” in a desperate move to close the gap on Whitman.

So like the others, Song’s vote is still up for grabs.

“I want to hear concrete solutions as to how the state, which is now viewed by everyone as ungovernable, can move forward,” said Song.

Is that too much to ask?

Stay tuned to this space, where we’ll be keeping score.

steve.lopez@latimes.com