Between the Lines -- Byron de Arakal

Karen Robinson is not a stupid woman. You don’t just crawl over the

nail bed of law school and ace the state bar exam on your first stab if

you have the brainpower of, say, cauliflower. Nor do turnips pin down

judge pro tem slots in Superior Court at the fresh-scrubbed age of 31.

And the vapid, certainly as political novices, rarely are keen enough to

mount a last-minute campaign for the highest seat in city government and

succeed.

So when word surfaced on my radar in early December that the freshman

Costa Mesa City Council member would soon hatch a write-in candidacy to

unseat besieged Orange County Superior Court Judge Ronald C. Kline, I

thought it an uncharacteristically impetuous and ill-conceived idea for

the normally deliberate and witted Robinson. More on that in a moment.

In the meantime, we should note in the margin that Kline is buried in

legal trouble of the most unseemly kind. In December, he pleaded not

guilty to five federal counts alleging that he possessed more than 100

images of child pornography on his home -- and perhaps office --

computer. And earlier this month, the Orange County district attorney’s

office brought him up on child molestation charges stemming from an

alleged incident with a young boy some 25 years ago.

Now one would think that these charges would make Kline unelectable. A

pariah among decent and civilized folks. Nonetheless, he’s boring ahead

with his reelection campaign (he is unopposed on the ballot) by staying

well below the radar (he has no choice) and hoping the public and the

media don’t notice.

And there’s a reason why.

Having poked around a few political campaigns as a writer, my

recollections reminded me that the political arena is a surreal place. In

it, incumbents who hold obscure offices -- even if they’ve been tattooed

with felony charges for some sort of perversion or impropriety or crime

against another -- almost always win reelection. That’s because when you

get deep into the ballot -- down where you find candidates for sanitary

district or water board -- most voters’ eyes glaze over. In politics,

cannibals can win reelection to the nook-and-cranny offices. And, at

least in election terms, judgeships are nook-and-cranny offices.

The politically scarred know too that write-in campaigns are

notoriously difficult exercises that seldom succeed. Snatching up a

write-in victory is something like scaling K2 clad in Bermuda shorts with

but a ball of twine in hand. Near as I can recall, the last write-in

campaign in Orange County that bore fruit (perhaps the only one) was

former Rep. Ron Packard’s successful pencil-in for the 48th Congressional

District in 1982.

When weighed against these general realities of politics, the

conventional wisdom dictates that Robinson (though clearly qualified) has

about the same chance of dethroning Kline on March 5 as a meatball

sandwich surviving five minutes in the same room with my 13-year-old son.

The conclusion becomes more vivid when you ponder the peculiar

dynamics of Robinson’s race to unseat Kline. Not only did she announce

her candidacy a scant eight weeks before the election, she is joined by

seven other write-in hopefuls, including former Daily Pilot columnist Gay

Geiser-Sandoval. Geiser-Sandoval was the first in the packed field to

announce her initiative to oust the troubled judge.

Such a large gaggle of candidates pursuing a write-in victory for the

same office virtually dooms any of their chances, say the handful of

political consultants I’ve spoken with. It also guarantees Kline’s

victory, they say.

Which brings me back to Robinson. Why, just 13 months deep into her

first term on the City Council, would she hatch an eight-week write-in

candidacy for a public office few voters pay attention to? Why risk being

branded a political opportunist for a nearly zero chance to unseat a

judge whose troubles garner only passing mention in the news media? She

isn’t, I wondered, that naive.

Indeed, she isn’t.

Robinson will tell you -- adamantly -- she’s in it to win. She’s

acting like it. Her campaign manager, Cindy Brenneman, says that between

now and the March election, Robinson will be making up to eight campaign

appearances every weekend. She’s already filmed a handful of television

commercials that will air throughout the county on local-access cable. As

many as 2,000 signs will be going up within the next seven to 10 days.

More important, Robinson says some very high-profile leaders in the

Orange County community will be officially endorsing her soon.

But I don’t think that’s how Councilwoman Robinson will become Judge

Robinson. The odds are too deep. The deck too stacked. I think she knows

this, though she denies it.

What Robinson and the others are really in is a beauty contest. The

judge is Gov. Gray Davis. And as beauty contests go in politics, the

betting I’ve heard in legal and political circles is that Robinson will

come out the winner. So that if Judge Kline is convicted on any of the

charges arrayed against him -- a scenario that means the governor will

appoint his successor -- Davis won’t be able to pass over the opportunity

to appoint the Orange County Superior Court’s first female African

American jurist.

Karen Robinson is not a stupid woman.

* Byron de Arakal is a writer and communications consultant. He lives

in Costa Mesa. Readers can reach him with news tips and comments via

e-mail at o7 byronwriter@msn.comf7 .