Conservatives

Notwithstanding the California Republican party’s well-intentioned anointment of Sen. Pete Wilson as its gubernatorial nominee, it is no secret that he continues to have an uncomfortable relationship with the conservative wing that dominates it.

As we move closer toward the general election, conservatives across the state, and particularly in vote-rich Orange County, are now asking the question, “What would a Gov. Wilson offer to conservatives?” Some have already answered that question, and for them, the answer is: not much.

This could spell disaster in November, especially if the slickly packaged former mayor of San Francisco, Dianne Feinstein, wins the Democratic Party nomination over liberal Establishment candidate Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp.

Last March, the California Republican Assembly, the largest volunteer, grass-roots Republican organization in the state, adopted a vote of no-confidence in the senator. Pro-life and pro-family organizations–an integral part of winning Republican coalitions–are openly hostile to his candidacy. The conservative Young Americans for Freedom has already gone on record against him. In a futile but symbolic gesture, YAF even put up one of its own, Jeff Greene, to challenge the senator in the June primary.

So far, these are but chinks in the formidable Wilson campaign armor. Though most state conservative leaders are publicly backing Wilson, many are clearly wondering what happened to the Reagan Revolution in California. How is it that the one-time, anti-Reagan moderate mayor from San Diego might now become head of the party in the very state that produced “The Gipper”? (This frustration explains, in part, the enthusiasm among conservatives for the “renegade” primary campaign of “charter” Reaganite Bay Buchanan for state treasurer against the incumbent, Tom Hayes, who was appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian.)

Conservative Republicans have always been suspicious of the “progressive” mayor of San Diego. To begin with, they have never quite forgiven then-Mayor Wilson for campaigning for President Ford against favorite son Ronald Reagan in the 1976 New Hampshire presidential primary. These suspicions contributed to Wilson coming in a poor fourth in the Republican primary for governor two years later. By 1982 he learned a lesson. He then campaigned in the U.S. Senate Republican primary against several Ronald Reagan conservatives, including Rep. Barry Goldwater Jr. and Robert K. Dornan. While Goldwater was preoccupied with trading off his father’s name and latecomer Dornan was in search of campaign funds, Wilson preemptively blitzed the airwaves with commercials tightly wrapping himself around support for President Reagan. Fellow candidate and “first daughter” Maureen Reagan was particularly galled. So were others. But it worked, and Wilson won what was clearly the make-or-break election of his statewide political future.

Once in the Senate, Pete Wilson went on to very smartly, and sincerely, carry the banner of many issues important to conservatives. From his berth on the Senate Armed Services Committee he defended the Reagan military buildup, railed against the Soviet threat and became an ardent spokesman for the Strategic Defense Initiative. He helped protect California’s defense industry, the Long Beach Naval Shipyard and even got Mayor Feinstein to support home-porting the nuclear-powered battleship Missouri in liberal San Francisco. Wilson strongly backed the freedom fighters in Nicaragua and Afghanistan and was up front in his defense of Oliver L. North.

Occasionally, but never reliably, Wilson has voted with conservatives on key social and family-oriented issues. For these things and more, Wilson avoided a primary challenge from the right and deservedly received virtually unqualified conservative support for his 1988 reelection.

The problem now facing gubernatorial candidate Pete Wilson is that those defense and foreign policy issues so essential to his overall appeal to conservatives are no longer available to balance out his generally moderate-to-liberal campaign positions on many social, domestic and environmental issues. Unfortunately, the messages from his campaign and the press seem only to highlight the pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, anti-prayer in school, anti-growth, higher transportation taxes, costly mass transit, and other big-government elements of his platform (including the creation of another costly government Cabinet department to deal with the environment).

As a result, his yeoman efforts on behalf of the speedy-trial initiative seem pale. To many conservatives, the Pete Wilson of 1990 sounds a lot like the Pete Wilson of 1978.

Unlike Sen. Wilson’s 1982 race against Jerry Brown or his 1988 reelection against Leo T. McCarthy, this year every conservative vote will matter–a lot. So, too, will the crossover votes of conservative Democrats who today keep many Republicans in office. We cannot afford to have any one of them sit at home or cast a protest vote for a third-party candidate.

What is of added danger to Wilson is that conservative Democrats are being told that Feinstein is a candidate they can finally support. Who’s kidding whom? A conservative Democrat mayor from San Francisco is about as believable as Dana Rohrabacher being appointed head of the National Endowment for the Arts. Yet the liberal Southern California media persist in mislabeling the Lady from Babylon by the Bay largely because of her “traitorous” support for the death penalty. Look for a finely tuned “come home” message from the Feinstein campaign to conservative Democrats in November.

When the media are not calling her a conservative, they frequently remark that on substantive issues there is little difference between Feinstein and Wilson. Strike another blow to a proven Republican campaign axiom: Fail to differentiate yourself from your Democrat opponent and you lose.

Wilson’s recent campaign commercials do not help. He emphasizes his environmental record, support for mass transit and the need to control those nasty developers. At best it seems an ill-timed ad for the primary season. At worst it emphasizes management, not leadership, and is not conservative on either count. Better he should first shore up his traditional Republican credentials.

The senator should probably not count on the evils of a Democratic-controlled reapportionment process to give him an added loyalty boost, either. Voters have shown either an inability to understand the issue or often view it in partisan terms. But if a state commission on reapportionment is created by the voters on June 5, the argument that a Republican governor is needed to keep the Democrat Legislature honest will be moot.

Finally, the precedent exists for an electorally significant percentage of the conservative vote to be cast in protest for a third-party candidate. That occurred in the Zschau-Cranston race. Despite a strong Republican Party sales effort aimed at ensuring conservative backing for the former moderate Rep. Ed Zschau, including four trips to California by President Reagan (two in Orange County alone), the word went out to the fall-on-your-sword conservatives to cast a protest vote for the pro-life American Independent Party candidate Ed Vallen. Vallen received nearly double the normal statewide and Orange County AIP vote that year (1.5%). Zschau lost to Alan Cranston by only 1.4%. While there are important differences between the seasoned Wilson with proven statewide electability and newcomer Zschau, the point is that a small electoral shift could prove fatal to him in a close race.

Despite what some political pollsters and self-appointed media opinion makers would have us believe, the successful Reagan electoral coalition has not dispersed. Nor have their beliefs in traditional family values, small government, low taxes, free enterprise and equal opportunity for that chance at the American dream taken a back seat to child care, global warming and acid rain.

Pete Wilson, known for waging smart, well-financed campaigns, has some reassuring to do on the right. To win in November, he has to count on every conservative vote in Orange County–and it is not clear yet that he is going to get them.

phil.willon@latimes.com

Twitter: @philwillon

UPDATES:

9 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details on the Young America’s Foundation conference.

This article was originally published Jan. 17 at 12:05 a.m.

It’s become predictable in this tempestuous campaign season: First Lady Michelle Obama, who has chosen fighting childhood obesity as her favorite cause, utters something that seems judgmental about healthy eating, and conservatives pounce. (Nor is her husband immune to criticism for the ruckus he causes when he steps out for a bite.)

The pattern repeated itself Tuesday, as the right-leaning chattering classes reacted to an exchange Obama had with Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Gabrielle Douglas when the two appeared Monday on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”

Obama had already done her segment with Leno, discussing how she and her husband messed up, then redeemed, their “kiss cam” moment at a recent basketball game, and how her Secret Service detail reacted when U.S. Olympic weightlifter Elena Pirozhkova hoisted her during the London Games. (“Fortunately, they didn’t take her down,” said the first lady.)

Leno asked her to stick around for his visit with Douglas, and Obama happily obliged.

When Leno asked about whether the teensy athlete, who generally eats a restrictive, protein-heavy diet, splurged after winning her gold medal for best individual all-around gymnast, Obama’s teasing response provoked predictable criticism. “You train your whole life, you win. How did you celebrate and what did you do?” Leno asked Douglas.

Douglas, who looked adorable in a black leather jacket, said she wasn’t able to celebrate right away because she had team finals coming up. “But after the competition,” she said, “I splurged on an Egg McMuffin at McDonalds.”

“Egg McMuffin?” Leno asked brightly.

Obama leaned toward Douglas. “Yeah, Gabby, don’t encourage him. I’m sure it was on a whole wheat McMuffin.”

“Oh, on a whole wheat bun,” Leno said. “So an Egg McMuffin, very good.”

Obama pretended to chastise the gymnast: “You’re setting me back, Gabby.”

“Sorry!” Douglas replied.

The spin machinery sprang into action: “Michelle Obama Lectures Gold Medal Gymnast about Eating One Egg McMuffin,” said the headline on a blog post on Town Hall, the conservative website.

Calling her a “food cop,” Reason’s website went with “Michelle Obama Makes Gabby Douglas apologize for Celebrating her Olympic Gold Medals with an Egg McMuffin.”

Many outlets noted that an Egg McMuffin packs a mere 300 calories and is hardly a serious arterial threat, particularly as a splurge.

If the conservative reaction seems a little over the top, it should probably be noted that Obama’s anti-obesity campaign has also struck fear into the heart of the most powerful man in the free world, already known for his healthy eating habits. Monday morning, President Obama told supporters in Council Bluffs, Iowa, that he was happy to be back in the state that gave him his first important victory in the 2008 presidential campaign.

“I think I’m going to end at the state fair,” he told the crowd, referring to every presidential candidate’s obligatory stop at Iowa’s signal summer event, where crowds delight in hideously caloric fried foods and a refrigerated life-size bovine sculpture.

“Michelle has told me I cannot have a fried Twinkie,” said the president. “But I will be checking out the butter cow, and I understand this year there’s a chocolate moose. So I’m going to have to take a look at that if I can.”

He did avoid the Twinkies, but it cannot be said that he opted for a health-food alternative. He sampled pork chops — though not on a stick, an Iowa favorite — and washed them down with a beer.

Later, according to the Des Moines Register, Republican Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley set off another Obama food controversy when he tweeted that the president’s visit to the fair’s popular beer tent had cost its proprietor thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

“How does PresO justify havin secret service shut down the bud tent @ the state fair dn the owner told me he loses 50,000 n 1 nite,” tweeted Iowa’s senior senator.

The ticked-off proprietor, a Republican who does not plan to vote for Obama, told the Register that his losses were more like $25,000, which would have come from fairgoers attending a concert of the rock cover band Hairball on an adjacent stage. The disgruntled owner, Mike Cunningham II, told the Register’s Kyle Munson, “I was in a position to make a campaign donation against my will.”

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robin.abcarian@latimes.com

Twitter: @robinabcarian

If they were true to their principles, moderate Republicans and consistent conservatives would be supporting John Kerry. Instead, their acquiescence to the reckless whims of George W. Bush marks a descent into that political abyss of opportunism where partisanship is everything and principle nothing.

How else to explain their cynical support for this shallow adventurer, a phony lightweight who has bled the Treasury dry while incompetently squandering the lives of young Americans in a needless imperial campaign? If Al Gore had been knighted president by the Supreme Court and overseen this mess instead of Dubya, the rational remnant of the Republican Party would be rightly calling for his head.

Instead, a century’s worth of conservative ideals are tossed out the window for political expediency. Soaring budget deficits suddenly don’t matter, and not a tear is shed for the wasted surplus accumulated during Bill Clinton’s tenure. Despite two huge tax cuts for the super-rich, Bush turns out to be a big believer in that old GOP boogeyman, Big Government. An equal-opportunity spendthrift, he throws billions into the sinkhole of Iraq as easily as he doles out corporate handouts.

In the newspapers we read about American mothers and fathers working in deadly Iraq as drivers and security guards because they can’t find work at home. More than a million jobs have been lost since the end of the prosperous Clinton era, while real wages are stagnant. The rich have enjoyed unprecedented tax breaks even as the middle class has eroded and millions have fallen below the poverty line.

Healthcare costs are spiraling, nothing has been done to shore up Social Security and Medicare against the impending flood of retiring baby boomers, and the number of those without medical insurance is a national embarrassment — though perhaps not to the former governor of Texas, a state that far and away leads the country in this disquieting statistic.

Bush’s startling inattention to our serious problems is explained away by reference to the new burden of the war on terror. How odd, then, to note that it was Bush’s preoccupation with Iraq both before and after 9/11 that has left us so vulnerable to Muslim hatred and terrorist attacks. Before Sept. 11, 2001, ignored warnings and flaccid response; afterward, a campaign of lies to justify a military occupation at the Muslim world’s heart.

Instead of making the U.S. safer, the hasty and unilateral dive into the Iraq quagmire shredded the post-9/11 international unity of purpose indispensable to any serious effort to root out terrorism.

But don’t take my word for it: That the occupation of Iraq is a festering disaster was finally acknowledged by some Republican senators on Sunday’s talk shows in the wake of the latest depressing prognostications of U.S. intelligence agencies.

“The fact is, we’re in deep trouble in Iraq,” Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) conceded. “We made serious mistakes,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, blamed the glaring failures in Iraq on “the incompetence in the administration.”

Unfortunately, the solution offered by these Republican critics was an escalation of the U.S. military effort, the root cause of the rising anti-U.S. nationalism in Iraq that is crossing ethnic, religious and regional lines. A true conservative would heed George Washington’s warning to avoid such foreign entanglements. This is why in 2000, candidate Bush, pretending to be conservative, said he was against “nation-building.” Now, led by radical ideologues way outside the conservative mainstream, he’s got us trying to build two nations — and failing — with many in his administration hoping to take on a few more in a second term. Talk about flip-flopping.

On Monday, Kerry made his strongest case yet that Bush was leading us dangerously astray. “Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions and, if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight,” Kerry said, calling Iraq a “profound diversion” from the war on terror. “The satisfaction we take in [Saddam Hussein’s] downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure.”

Kerry has now framed the debate we need to have concerning American priorities. And in their hearts, responsible Republicans and independents must now realize that Kerry is right.