Run, Bill, Run
The exciting nomination of Bill Simon.

By John J. Miller
March 6, 2002 11:40 a.m.

alifornia's come-from-behind Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Simon is the sort of candidate conservatives can get excited about. For nearly a year, he's toured the Golden State calling himself a "candidate of ideas," which is often what a newcomer vying for high political office must be. But it's also a kind of code that signals his willingness to challenge sclerotic liberalism.

Simon's got the perfect pedigree for it. His late father was treasury secretary in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and then went on to head the John M. Olin Foundation, which has been vital to the conservative movement for its steady and indispensable support of ideas.

Gov. Gray Davis already appears to be making an issue of this. "Bill Simon is a true-blue think-tank conservative. I am a practical problem-solver," he said last night. "I believe many of his ideas are out of step and out of touch with most Californians. We need to keep moving California forward. Not backward — and certainly not to the right."

It will be interesting to see how often Davis calls Simon a "think-tank conservative." It's not exactly a pejorative, though it does suggest a certain pie-in-the-sky eggheadedness that contrasts with Davis's self-description as a "practical problem-solver." Focus groups probably will decide its future.

Davis certainly will attack Simon on abortion. Simon calls himself pro-life, though he says there's really not much he could or would do as governor to advance his views. Davis and his advisers will consider this belief a weakness. They just spent $10 million on ads trying to block former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan from the GOP nomination — they accused him of flip-flopping on his support for abortion, which he once called an act of murder.

The difference with Simon is that he hasn't flip-flopped. Many voters, including those who don't share his pro-life views, will nevertheless see him as taking a principled stand on a controversial subject. It will help them take a positive measure of the man. Of course, everything depends on how Simon handles himself when the inevitable assault comes.

Simon will need some issues of his own, and he certainly doesn't lack ideas. But there's one he hasn't taken up, and should: bilingual education. It's something Riordan did in the final days of his primary campaign. How about a commercial in the coming weeks featuring these two men, and accusing Davis of threatening the future of California's children by making it difficult for them to learn English?