Long, Dull Election Campaign : Deukmejian’s Low-Key Style May Assure Victory

SACRAMENTO —  Most governors would jump at the chance to appear on national television on a prestigious show, for example, like “Meet the Press.” But not George Deukmejian.

People might think he was running for President, and everybody knows what happened to former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr.’s popularity when he ran for President, Deukmejian has lectured aides.

Most governors would eagerly accept a head table seat at a fancy dinner honoring a world leader like Chinese President Li Xiannian. But not George Deukmejian.

He had “a longstanding personal family commitment.” One adviser, requesting anonymity, commented: “It’s fine to take your wife out to dinner, but. . . .”

Most governors, if a rare humpback whale named Humphrey swam virtually into their backyards, would exhibit some normal human curiosity--not to mention politically sensitive concern for an endangered species--and go have a look. But not George Deukmejian.

“When I suggested it, the answer was, ‘Why do you want to do that?’ And I said, ‘Well, if you don’t know, I’m not going to be able to tell you,’ ” recalled Doug Watts, a private political consultant and former media adviser to Deukmejian.

An anonymous high state official, who also advocated a gubernatorial visit to the whale, noted, “ ‘Duke’ does not have a P. T. Barnum streak in him, and this would have required it.”

Most big-state governors--certainly a California governor--indeed would be plotting to become President. But not George Deukmejian.

“He’s never talked about it,” Chief of Staff Steven A. Merksamer said, echoing a report of all the governor’s top advisers.

Kenneth Khachigian, a speech writer, political adviser and longtime confidant of both Deukmejian and President Reagan, said, “That bug stings people at odd times, but I can say this: George has been extremely immune in the past to the fluff and sound of (running for President). There never has been any of that unstinting ambition in him that you see in other people.”

Most governors like Deukmejian--relatively reclusive, unassertive nationally, seemingly lacking higher ambition, kind of humdrum--would be in deep trouble politically as they approached reelection. But not this governor.

Seen as a Winner

There is virtually no one on either side of the political fence in California who does not regard the Republican incumbent as a heavy favorite to win a second term next November in a reelection race with Democrat Tom Bradley, the four-term mayor of Los Angeles.

“Deukmejian’s pretty strong,” conceded Assembly Speaker Willie Brown of San Francisco, one of the state’s most powerful and politically astute Democrats. “His strength comes from a public perception that he’s a good manager.

“And that is because financially we’re in pretty good shape. There have been no major problems--no riots, no breakdown in the mental health system, no blackouts, no Medfly, none of those things that plagued Jerry Brown during the last years of his governorship, or plagued other governors full time. . . .

“So far, nobody has raised a glove on George Deukmejian.”

Deukmejian’s dullness has paid off in durability. Entering his third year in office, this governor has a public job performance rating that was found by pollster Mervin Field to be higher than it ever had been for Reagan as governor and equal to Brown’s early popularity in that office, before it took a nose dive.

“George Deukmejian is not flashy--he’s a good, gray, sober-sided steward of trust,” Field said in an interview. “People have only a vague notion of him, but it’s not negative.”

Little Voter Pique

Deukmejian is not electrifying, but neither is he a lightning rod for voter pique--and there does not seem to be a lot of voter pique right now anyway. Field, director of the California Poll, reported last spring that “the public is decidedly upbeat in their appraisal of the state of the economy (and in) their own sense of economic well-being. . . . Nearly nine in 10 Californians feel that things are generally going well in the state.”

If Deukmejian and Bradley do run against each other--a foregone conclusion because neither faces the prospect of a major challenge for his party’s nomination--it will be the first rematch of a gubernatorial contest in California’s 136-year history.

In their first race, Deukmejian, then attorney general, won by a scant 1.2% of the vote, a margin of 93,345 ballots of the nearly 7.9 million cast. That 1982 contest was the closest gubernatorial election since 1902.

“It’ll be another close race this time, but not as close as ‘82,” predicted veteran GOP strategist Stuart K. Spencer, who was an adviser to Deukmejian in the days when he was winning legislative races but is not involved in the governor’s reelection campaign. “I don’t see what Bradley’s done to improve his position. In politics, sometimes you get one good shot and that’s it.”

Months after the last campaign, Field analyzed his polling data and the official election results and concluded that among some voters there had been a “racial bias” against Bradley because he is black. It cost Bradley 96,500 votes, Field figured, and represented the margin of Deukmejian’s victory.

Taboo Subject

The mention of racism appears to be taboo in the Deukmejian camp. Veteran campaign manager Bill Roberts was fired by Deukmejian three weeks before the 1982 election after he spoke candidly to reporters of a hidden anti-black vote worth up to five percentage points. Today, a reporter does not hear any talk from gubernatorial aides about racial bias.

As he begins stumping for reelection, Deukmejian is said by one adviser to be “a tad bit scared.” In public, his aides profess to being only cautionsly optimistic. But these are only superficial attitudes, aimed at foiling overconfidence. Privately, the governor and his advisers scarcely could be happier about how the election is shaping up.

“We know how to run a campaign against Bradley,” said one veteran of the 1982 race.

Deukmejian is structuring his campaign team into a condensed version of Reagan’s potent 1984 reelection organization.

In the President’s case, the big strategy was decided by White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III, in concert with longtime Reagan aide Michael K. Deaver and certain trusted non-government political advisers, including Spencer, campaign manager Edward J. Rollins, Khachigian and pollster Richard B. Wirthlin, plus Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.), the President’s close friend and general chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Deukmejian’s organization will be a lot smaller, but the idea is the same: to keep the real power under the control of the incumbent’s chief aides. In the governor’s case, that means Merksamer, 38, a key player in 1982 who took over as campaign manager when Roberts was fired. Fulfilling “the Spencer role” as outside ad hoc adviser will be Khachigian, 41, who has been close to Deukmejian for years and shares his Armenian roots.

Formal Title in Doubt

The way things are headed, Merksamer and Khachigian will be the two most influential advisers in the governor’s reelection bid, although neither may ever have a formal campaign title. The official campaign manager, who will be responsible for overseeing the actual day-to-day work, is not expected to be selected until early next year.

Deukmejian’s finance chairman--the chief fund-raiser--is Los Angeles attorney Karl M. Samuelian, another fellow Armenian-American and a veteran of the 1982 race. So far, Samuelian has banked more than $3 million for Deukmejian’s campaign--several times what Bradley has in the coffer--and is aiming for a record $9 million.

The campaign pollster is Lance Tarrance, a Texan who conducted public opinion surveys for Deukmejian in 1982.

The very important role of media adviser--the person who creates the television and radio commercials, writes the newspaper ads and greatly influences the campaign themes--recently was filled by Roger Ailes of New York, a newcomer to California politics.

The decision to select Ailes was reached after months of jockeying and unsuccessful negotiations with the veteran California political consulting team of Sal Russo and Doug Watts. They became Deukmejian’s media advisers at the tail end of his 1982 campaign, after Roberts was fired, and for a while they served in the new governor’s Administration. Recently, they formed a partnership with Rollins in a Sacramento-based campaign management firm that is branching out nationwide.

The decisions of Russo, Watts and, especially, Rollins to pass up Deukmejian’s 1986 campaign basically were reached in light of the conclusion that the governor lacks any ambition ever to run for President. They opted to “go national” and look for other horses while still running some smaller California campaigns.

Boring, but Long

This gubernatorial contest that many believe may be the most boring in three decades is certain to be the longest. Deukmejian and Bradley have been stumping around the state for weeks as if next year’s general election campaign had already begun, starting their race long before they even formally announce their candidacies. Neither politician, particularly Deukmejian, is willing to let the other fire an unreturned shot.

“These two candidates seem in some ways to be almost interchangeable,” Field said. “Both are relatively unexciting.”

And that is a major reason why Deukmejian started campaigning so early: to compensate for the lack of interest by Southern California television stations in his gubernatorial activities. There are no Southern California TV news correspondents based in Sacramento, in contrast to the heavy coverage of the Brown and, especially, the Reagan eras.

“In L.A., he’s blah,” Russo said of Deukmejian. “People approve of him on the intellectual basis that he’s done a good job, but there’s no real feeling for him. There’s a price to be paid for being a hands-on governor. He wasn’t communicating with the guy driving the bread truck in L.A.”

Bradley’s campaign strategists see this lack of intense feeling--the absence of a strong voter loyalty toward Deukmejian--as the mayor’s political opening. Other politicians of both parties contend that under present circumstances, it will require some combination of economic recession or state scandal or inept Deukmejian campaign coupled with extraordinary Bradley astuteness to oust this incumbent governor.