A celebration — and wake — for a political time gone by

PALM DESERT — They came to the baking desert to honor one of their own, a political professional, a legend and a throwback to a time when gatherings like this one — a companionable assembly of Republicans, Democrats and the odd newspaper columnist — weren’t such a rare and noteworthy thing.

They came to bid a last farewell to Stuart Spencer, who died in January at age 97.

They came to Palm Desert on a 98-degree spring day to do the things that political pros do when they gather: drink and laugh and swap stories of campaigns and elections past.

And they showed, with their affection and goodwill and mutual regard, how much the world, and the world of politics, have changed.

“This is how politics used to be,” Democrat Harvey Englander said after sidling up to Republican Joel Fox. The two met through their work with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., a spawn of the Proposition 13 taxpayer revolt, circa 1978.

“We had different views of how government should work,” Englander said as Fox nodded his assent. “But we agreed government should work.”

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Spencer was a campaign strategist and master tactician who helped usher into office generations of GOP leaders, foremost among them Ronald Reagan. The former president and California governor was a Hollywood has-been until Spencer came along and turned him into something compelling and new, something they called a “citizen-politician.”

Hanging, inevitably, over the weekend’s celebration was the current occupant of the Oval Office, a boiling black cloud compared to the radiant and sunshiny Reagan. Spencer was no fan of Donald Trump, and he let it be known.

“A demagogue and opportunist,” he called him, chafing, in particular, at Trump’s comparisons of himself to Reagan.

“He would be sick,” Spencer said, guessing the recoil the nation’s 40th president would have had if he’d witnessed the crass and corrupt behavior of the 45th and 47th one.

Many of those at the weekend event are similarly out of step with today’s Republican Party and, especially, Trump’s bomb-the-opposition-to-rubble approach to politics. But most preferred not to express those sentiments for the record.

George Steffes, who served as Reagan’s legislative director in Sacramento, allowed as how the loudly and proudly uncouth Trump was “180 degrees” from the politely mannered Reagan. In five years, Steffes said, he never once heard the governor raise his voice, belittle a person or “treat a human being with anything but respect.”

Fox, with a seeming touch of wounded pride, suggested Trump could use “some pushback from some of the ‘old thinking’ of the Stu Spencer/Ronald Reagan era.”

A flag flown over the U.S. Capitol in Spencer’s honor was displayed at his memorial celebration, along with White House schedules from the 1984 campaign.

(H.D. Palmer)

Behind them, playing on a big-screen TV, were images from Spencer’s filled-to-the-bursting life.

Old black-and-white snapshots — an apple-cheeked Navy sailor, a little boy — alternated with photographs of Spencer smiling alongside Reagan and President Ford, standing with Dick Cheney and George H.W. Bush, appearing next to Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Wilson, a spry 91, was among the 150 or so who turned out to remember Spencer. He was given a place of honor, seated with his wife, Gayle, directly in front of the podium.)

In a brief presentation, Spencer’s son, Steve, remembered his father as someone who emphasized caring and compassion, as well as hard work and the importance of holding fast to one’s principles. “Pop’s word,” he said, “was gold.”

Spencer’s grandson, Sam, a Republican political consultant in Washington, choked up as he recounted how “Papa Stu” not only helped make history but never stinted on his family, driving four hours to attend Sam’s 45-minute soccer games and staying up well past bedtime to get after-action reports on his grandson’s campaigns.

Stu Spencer, he said, was a voracious reader and owned “one of the greatest political minds in history.”

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Outside the golf resort, a stiff wind kicked up, ruffling the palm trees and sending small waves across a water hazard on the 18th green — an obvious metaphor for these blustery and unsettled times.

Fred Karger first met Spencer in 1976 when his partner, Bill Roberts, hired Karger to work on an unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign. (In 2012, Karger made history as the first out gay major-party candidate to run for president.)

He no longer recognizes the political party he dedicated his life to. “It’s the Trump-publican Party,” Karger said. “It’s no longer the Republican Party.”

But politics are cyclical, he went on, and surely Trump and his MAGA movement will run their course and the GOP will return to the days when Reagan’s optimism and dignity and Spencer’s less-hateful campaign style return to fashion.

His gripped his white wine like a potion, delivering hope. “Don’t you think?”