A Political Love Affair Unrequited

By my count, Peter Ueberroth has now spent seven months in his strange courtship with California. Each time the fanfare about his possible run for the governor’s office begins to fade, Ueberroth does whatever necessary to revive the frenzy and then coyly backs away. It has all taken on a ritual quality.

The most recent episode occurred last week in Los Angeles when Ueberroth agreed to receive the attentions of Assembly Speaker Willie Brown and an entourage of Democratic assemblymen. This crowd flew down from Sacramento with the mission of luring Ueberroth into abandoning his Republican roots and entering the race as a Democrat. As before, Ueberroth uttered encouraging code phrases to the supplicants, saying he wanted to “serve the public,” but committed himself to nothing. Then he flew off to Colorado.

And so the churning started again. News of the meeting was passed on to reporters, who duly wrote their stories and speculated whether Ueberroth’s hour had finally come. Sen. Pete Wilson, with a virtual lock on the Republican nomination, was sufficiently threatened by the news to arrange a hurried-up endorsement from President Bush. Meanwhile, the man at the center of the churning said nothing.

This cycle has repeated about four times now. Peter Ueberroth, savior of the XXIII Olympiad, seems to be toying with California. It is a curious, Hamlet-like performance, full of ambivalence and arrogance at the same time. And yet California seems to have a vulnerability to this man. We seem to need him in spite of everything.

One of the more remarkable signs of this need is the widespread belief, apparently shared by some political leaders, that Ueberroth could still win the election in spite of the extraordinary barriers that now stand in his way. On the Republican side, for example, the major players have long pledged themselves to Wilson and are not likely to renege, given Wilson’s position as a U.S. senator.

And to run as a Democrat, Ueberroth would be forced to overcome a legal challenge. State election regulations require that a candidate declare his political party a full year before the primary, which will take place next March. Ueberroth is still registered as a Republican.

Add to all this the fact that Ueberroth, as far anyone knows, has not raised a nickel while the other main candidates--Wilson, Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp and former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein--now have millions in the bank.

Willie Brown and friends knew about these problems when they came to Los Angeles last week. And yet they came anyway. Perhaps, as some have suggested, the visit was a warning to Van de Kamp, who has repeatedly bungled his campaign and managed to offend his Democratic friends at the same time.

Perhaps, but I think there was something more behind the Brown flirtation, and all the others that went before. California has slipped into an era where the political landscape is a bleak as the moon’s, and the party leaders know it. Their candidates all seem to come from that same fraternity of C-minus, and voters are so weary of it they hardly bother going to the polls. Ueberroth is so valuable because he just might be that rare commodity, a leader; he might be all the things that Van de Kamp, Wilson and Feinstein are not.

And there’s something else. This state, in the midst of one of its greatest booms, is simultaneously paralyzed by decay. The schools don’t teach, the air has turned the color of Coca-Cola, the cities jump to the sound of gunfire, and half of the state legislators have a rap sheet. In the last decade no one has risen out of the muck in Sacramento to deal with any of this. Peter Ueberroth brings with him the persona of the fixer, a man who makes things work, and if he succeeds in California he could just possibly take his party to the White House.

Of course, the history of politics is strewn with the bodies of candidates who looked perfect until their first campaign. And Ueberroth, a well-known control freak, might find the messy world of the governor’s race an intolerable environment. He might unravel, he might just be boring, and no one will know until he tries.

Still, the reasons for wanting Ueberroth on your side are not bad ones, as Willie Brown and others have signified. So it is likely the courtship will go on. The creaky political apparatus of California needs and wants Ueberroth. What’s not so clear is whether Ueberroth wants California.