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LOS ANGELES - On a loosely crowded plaza near Los Angeles' oldest street there's a funk band playing. It's a large ensemble by the name of Bill's Band and they're all in red. They can play anything from James Brown to Van Morrison to a raunchy rendition of "Lady Marmalade." The "Voulez Vous Coucher Avec Moi, Ce Soir" chorus by the way, isn't sung by one of the two go-go dancers in the short leather minis with the high leg kicks, synchronized booty bouncing, and up-skirts galore. There are three other less scantily clad singers for that. Still there's just something about hearing "Do you want to go to bed with me?" in French that seems to really help get out the Republican vote down here on Olvera street. It doesn't even seem to faze those sullen people on Broadway either, the ones grasping their posters of dead fetuses.
But never mind that. Or the fact that Bill Simon, the Republican candidate for Governor of California, picked probably the most clichéd spot in Los Angeles for a last ditch effort to woo the Latino vote. As Simon reminded the crowd on Sunday, after receiving a national Boy Scouts award, Californians would only have to put up with all of this campaigning nonsense for a couple more days. Then he'd become governor.
Even in a lively, innocuous scene such as this, it's too easy to paint a bad picture. But that's been the problem with Simon's whole campaign. Some call it stupidity, others naivety. Regardless, the politicos in both parties seem to agree it has been one of the worst run gubernatorial campaigns in Republican history.
In the final couple of days before the election security is tight. There's a fear of a 'hit' from an operative in the Davis camp, some damaging piece of information released right before Tuesday in order to put the final nail in Simon's coffin. This means no getting on the bus from San Diego to the ballroom at the LAX Westin for reporters that haven't been properly scrutinized months in advance. Barring an earthquake up the central coast, Simon will arrive at the Westin at 8 pm on Tuesday night to give his concession speech.
The juxtaposition of go-go dancers and pro-lifers is a perfect segue for anyone wishing to address the current schizophrenic nature of California's Republican party.
Back before the primary results in March, a much more centrist Richard Riordan seemed the most likely Republican candidate. As the former mayor of Los Angeles, he would have known (as Simon did not) that if you're looking for a good spot to have a get out the Latino vote funk jam, you've got to move camp a few miles east to be in the heart of LA's Latino Culture, not on Disneyfied Olvera street. Riordan had many supporters and was even hand picked by President Bush.
But Governer Gray Davis, correctly fearing the prospect of a general election opponent with appeal to the same centrist voters as himself, spent $10 million on negative television ads to discredit Riordan during the Republican primaries. The move worked. When Simon won, he was in a dead heat with Davis. But he was soon forced to face his own mythology.
Simon was riding on the coattails of New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's popularity after September 11. He once worked for the Mayor as an assistant criminal prosecutor and claimed to have helped convict five heads of New York's top crime families during that tenure.
In reality, Simon's role was quite diminished, his claim about as credible as Al Gore's boast of having invented the Internet. Davis, otherwise known as 'The Machine' was quick to seize the opportunity in nasty little TV ads portraying Simon as inexperienced and prone to exaggeration. Simon never figured out what hit him.
As Republican strategist Allen Hoffenblum puts it: "There has been no strategy. He spent the first three months going around saying what a genius he was and that Gray Davis had nothing to do with him winning the primaries. By the time he got focused on November, Gray Davis had already spent $20 million saying what a %#$!head he is."
Davis has been highly effective in attacking Simon's professional character, delivering spots showing failed businesses and layoffs, not to mention a Savings and Loan going belly up while Simon was on the board of directors. Davis also pointed out that Simon, who over time has given more than $3 million to charities, wouldn't release his income tax statements, nor would he denounce a Spanish language ad made by an independent supporter that attacked homosexuals and stereotyped Latinos.
And while Davis certainly had plenty of dirt on Simon, Simon had at his disposal arguably even more on Davis, but somehow failed to capitalize. The Simon team brought up numerous charges accusing Davis of granting questionable favors to businesses who also happened to be contributing large sums to Davis' campaigns. The list includes software giant Oracle, the Tosco oil company, and the infamously scandalous, now defunct Enron Corporation.
But Simon lost credibility after moving on one particularly damning tip without bothering to do a follow up investigation. The tip accused Davis of receiving money from the political action committee COPS while in the Lieutenant Governor's office. The picture, it turned out, was actually taken at a private residence, and the donation was perfectly legal.
Consequently, many of Simon's recent accusations against the Governor haven't had the kind of impact on voters that does the Simon campaign any good. In a mud slinger like this campaign it seems to come down to who has the most money to call the other an idiot the loudest and the most times. And Simon has never garnered the financial support to counter the sheer volume----four to one on television ads alone----of Davis' attacks.
Davis to date has spent about $60 million. That's double the amount Simon has been able to raise and precisely the amount he naively boosted he'd spend when his campaign began. But the money never came through. Why?
Republican political operatives suggest that part of the problem is a clear, though unofficial division among Simon supporters. There is team A, who have been Simon supporters all along, and Team B, who once supported Bill Jones, but who switched after Jones and Riordan were defeated in the primaries. The Jones people apparently are mainly out to make Davis look bad, but aren't willing to throw their whole support behind Simon. Logic would say that there should be a team C as well, composed of former Riordan supporters, but according to Bill Whalen, former speechwriter for Pete Wilson, many of the Riordan people simply switched allegiance over to Gray Davis.
Whalen sees a duality too, not among Simon supporters, but among California conservatives as a whole. The division, as he views it, is between those who "vote based on ideology, and those who vote for who they think will win."
The strange bedfellows of Pat Robertson and Adam Smith that haunt the Republican image in much of the country don't work with the large block of moderate GOP supporters in California----those who want to make money and pay little taxes, but who are also pro-choice, pro gun control, pro child care and pro affirmative action. Whalen points to his former boss as the model of what he would call a kind of "buffet candidate" that Californians like. He described Wilson as a conservative, but one who still protects some of California's more progressive sentiments.
Hoffenblum, frustrated by suggestions that the Republicans could have put forth a different face, said:
"There is no such thing as 'the Republicans.' The Republican Party are registered voters from Eureka to San Diego. We don't caucus. We don't go down to Orange County and discuss issues. The governor's campaign was run by Bill Simon and his political team," he said.
He continued:
"If you look at the polls today, do you know who the most popular elected official is?" Hoffenblum asks. "George Bush. Do you know who the least is?" To which he answers himself, "Gray Davis. But the democrats are going to sweep the elections tomorrow. Does that make any sense?" Hoffenblum laughs. "And the reason is because Bill Simon ran a crappy campaign. I don't think he's a right wing cook or an incompetent shifty businessman, but most voters think so and that's all that counts."
Bill Simon was helped by endorsements from the National Rifle Association and the Pro Life Council early in the primaries, but since then has tried to go centrist. Only he can't help but turn right whenever his original backers step in. Once again, Team A, Team B. Maybe Simon should have thought better about who he was before getting into the race. As Hoffenblum points out, "You can't win just by saying, I'm not Gray Davis."
Maybe he just needed more dancers.