11/29/00 4:50 p.m.
A Golden Opportunity
California points the way for Bush.

By Arnold Steinberg, a political strategist living in Los Angeles

s President-elect George W. Bush confronts the future of the Republican party, California may point the way. That's because the selection of a new party chairman by California Republicans affects more than the Golden State.

At first glance, the battle set at the Sacramento Hyatt on February 23-25 appears ideological. "Moderate" Republicans, who blame losses here on the image of the party, say the GOP needs new branding. Oddly, their candidate, a decent and respected country club Republican who once served in the state assembly, could be the wrong brand. He is vintner Brooks Firestone — perhaps handicapped, if unfairly, by his family's tire heritage.

The well-connected Firestone bases his campaign on mythology reinforced by the news media. In a remarkable column in the Los Angeles Times, that newspaper's Sacramento bureau chief, George Skelton, blamed the party's losses here on being in "bed with the religious right, the gun worshipers, and the polluters." Conveniently, Skelton attributes Dan Lungren's 1998 loss to issues, rather than to Lungren's campaign. Alone, the columnist has also boosted a future Senate candidacy for congresswoman Mary Bono.

The reality is that Republican candidates in Skelton's mold keep losing. Consider recent U.S. Senate candidates John Seymour (1992), Michael Huffington (1994), Matt Fong (1998), and, this year, Tom Campbell. In fact, the party just lost six of seven target congressional races. Why, for example, did "solid Republican centrists" (Skelton's term) like congressional incumbents Steven Kuykendall and Brian Bilbray, and challenger Jim Cunneen (running in Campbell's district), lose? Taking cognitive dissonance to the extreme, Skelton says they "were tainted by their party."

With the backing of McCain forces, Firestone is running against movement conservative Shawn Steel, party vice chairman who sees himself as the true party reformer. Democrats run better campaigns, according to Steel, who lives in the Kuykendall seat. Steel emphasizes that Kuykendall won on Election Day but lost in the late absentee ballots. Boldly and courageously, Steel faults both the party and Kuykendall's campaign.

The national silver lining in California's dark cloud? George W. Bush can now insist on reform at the Republican National Committee. Historically, the RNC has raised money effectively but spent it ineffectively, including legally laundering money through the California Republican party and other state parties to favored beltway vendors outflanked by more competent Democrat strategists. For example, here in California (as elsewhere), millions of dollars were squandered on ineffectual RNC television advertising that was proven, at best, irrelevant for Bush. Thus, even a respected strategist like California Bush campaign chair, state Sen. Jim Brulte, had one hand, maybe both, tied behind his back.

California's demographics, notably the dramatic increased Latino vote, provide no margin for the national party's legendary incompetence, so the consequences of the old-boy network are profoundly evident here, first. Sure, the national party still coasts to victory in states (see the electoral map) more hospitable to Republicans. But the party is behind the proverbial eight ball here — and the future is here.

California's battle for party leadership, quite simply, is more than ideological: Bush loyalist Steel is conservative and more. He knows that for George W. Bush to win reelection in four years, he needs a party here, and nationally, that is beyond business as usual.