Race to Right Is Won by a Real Conservative

Wednesday’s gubernatorial forum brought the dawn of a new political era in California, complete with our two new political parties. With the three Democratic candidates racing to the right to embrace conservative positions on crime, education and taxes, the policy distinctions between the two traditional parties were almost erased.

But ready to take the place of the Republicans and Democrats are two new political parties: the Veterans and the Rookies. Through performances that were overly programmed, overly simplistic and overly underwhelming, political newcomers Al Checchi and Jane Harman demonstrated for a statewide audience the difference between weeks of rehearsals and decades of government experience. Statewide officeholders Dan Lungren and Gray Davis, on the other hand, showed both a deeper understanding of the issues and a greater willingness to engage in serious discussion.

Harman, her own second-choice candidate after Dianne Feinstein decided to skip the race, proved beyond a reasonable doubt her lack of ability to hold statewide office and the utter lack of rationale for her candidacy beyond her chromosome count. Coached to reach out to the female voters who constitute almost 60% of the Democratic electorate, the multimillionaire’s wife held herself up as an example of the state’s diversity and explained that she was “proud to be a woman and working mother.”

More puzzling were her repeated derogatory references to the “macho politics” of negative campaigning, particularly because they were accompanied by her decision to close by leveling the day’s nastiest attacks against all three of her opponents. She had mentioned earlier in the forum that she favored a ban on automatic weapons, which was a good thing, because by the time she finished going postal against Checchi’s “corporate takeover of California,” Lungren’s “out of the mainstream” beliefs and Davis’ inability to provide bold leadership, the studio audience was probably relieved to know that she didn’t have access to a gun.

Checchi went into the forum with both the most to gain and the most to lose and did neither. Anyone who was ready to vote for a political novice who is pretending that he can increase state spending by billions of dollars without raising taxes probably will still do so. And voters skeptical about the ability of a man worth three-quarters of a billion dollars to understand the concerns that average Californians face heard nothing to ease those concerns. Checchi’s most significant policy declaration was as the only candidate who would not devote a penny of the state’s $4-billion budget surplus to a reduction in California’s car tax.

Davis, though clearly more comfortable talking about policy issues than his two Democratic rivals, had his own problems. Perhaps overly conscious of his vulnerability as the chief of staff to former Gov. Jerry Brown, Davis may have overcompensated by volunteering his ties to Gov. Moonbeam on at least three occasions. For good measure, he also threw in a reference to his own role in the selection of Brown’s Supreme Court appointee Cruz Reynoso, who was thrown off the bench by California voters for his repeated votes to overturn death penalty sentences against convicted murderers.

Despite his opponents’ efforts to reinvent themselves as born-again conservatives, Lungren’s presence reminded voters of the legitimate policy differences that still exist between the two parties. Lungren was the only one, for example, to come out for the full repeal of the car tax, arguing that taxpayers deserved to share in the state’s economic recovery.

In marked contrast to the other candidates, who talked about what they hoped to achieve if elected, Lungren repeatedly pointed to his own record as an indicator of what he would accomplish as governor. In fact, Lungren received one of the few compliments of the forum, when Checchi unexpectedly praised his role in the reduction of California’s crime rate.

Lungren urged the Democratic candidates to commit to a full series of debates throughout the campaign season, beginning two weeks after the primary. After the debate, each of the Democrats accepted Lungren’s challenge, which is good news for voters. But even better news for Lungren.