California as a Political Backwater

While the Democrats analyze the latest primary results and look ahead to Super Tuesday next week, a presidential drama of another kind is taking place in California.

It’s an old story, shaped by a nominating process that places the decisive primaries in February and March. By June, when the California primary is held, the Democratic nomination is usually decided.

This has the effect of relegating the state to the Democratic Party fringe. The nominee and his advisers get a grasp of politics in New Hampshire, Georgia and the other early primary states, where they are pummeled with questions about hometown jobs, schools, roads and hospitals.

But California, particularly the Southland, remains a faraway, unfamiliar land--the New Zealand of Democratic presidential campaigns.

Unfamiliarity breeds ignorance and mistakes. And the failures have inflicted a nagging frustration upon Los Angeles Democratic politicians, who find doors closed to them in Washington because of their state’s irrelevance to the party’s nominating process.

At this early stage, however, hope prevails, even in an effort as troubled as that of Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas.

Exuberance was the mood last week at a breakfast speech by Hillary Clinton, his wife, at the Sportsmen’s Lodge at Studio City, one of the San Fernando Valley’s favorite political gathering spots.

You could feel a real sense of anticipation. Clinton’s California campaign manager, Geoff Gibbs, tacked a Clinton poster to the rostrum before the speech. “Visuals,” said Gibbs.

The excitement of a presidential campaign is all new to Gibbs, who got his first taste of prominence last year when, as a young black attorney and a member of the Langston Bar Assn., an African-American group, he testified before the Christopher Commission hearings on the Rodney G. King beating.

Another happy man was Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), who put together the breakfast. He escorted Hillary Clinton through the room, stopping at every table on their leisurely route to the dais. Her manner--a direct look, a warm smile and a big, drawling voice--added to the good feeling in the room.

But Katz might have been reminded of an earlier, less pleasant time, had his attention wandered toward the back of the room, to a table with a big sign proclaiming “Kantor Table.” That would be Los Angeles attorney Mickey Kantor, one of the top strategists in the Clinton campaign and a living monument to how bad things can get for the Democrats in California.

In 1984, Kantor was California chairman for Walter F. Mondale, the Democratic presidential nominee. Mondale was handicapped in California. Californian Ronald Reagan was running for a second term. And in the state’s Democratic primary, Mondale had lost to Gary Hart by a big margin. Things looked especially hopeless to California Democrats that year.

Kantor wrote a memo laying out a plan: Given Reagan’s popularity, forget about a major campaign in California.

But, Kantor continued, don’t admit the decision. The California press hates to be covering a backwater. And rich contributors don’t like to feel their state is being ignored. He recommended the campaign should keep the “press at bay by showing early activity” and “satisfy . . . fund-raisers and contributors . . . that we are laying the foundation for a possible campaign. . . . “

In other words, a con.

It was a very truthful memo. Unfortunately, it fell into the hands of television reporter Linda Douglass. And it was at the very moment that the national campaign manager, Bob Beckel, was meeting with top Democrats in Los Angeles, giving them the “you’re our top priority” con job.

The Mondale campaign dumped on Kantor for writing the memo. Mondale lost the state and everyone ended up mad.

It was similar to what happened in 1976 when Jimmy Carter hadn’t trusted the Californians at all. He sent out his own hired guns to lose the state. So did Michael Dukakis in 1988.

These bum decisions cost the party California’s large number of electoral votes. And there was also an impact long after the election.

If your state helps the candidate win, the White House listens to requests for big projects. If Bill Clinton becomes President, you can be sure he won’t forget Georgia, which gave him a crucial victory Tuesday night.

California Democrats haven’t been in that position since Lyndon Johnson carried the state in 1964. And given the continuing irrelevance of California to the Democratic nominating process, there’s no reason to think it will be any different this year.