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California's Knight of the Extreme Right By Bill Berkowitz
Now, Simon intends to deliver the same message to incumbent governor Gray Davis. Is Simon the state's new Ronald Reagan - a political neophyte who can take down the Davis machine? Or is he another in a long line of GOP candidates too extreme for most California voters? How will the anti-abortion, anti-gun-control, pro-voucher, anti-environmental, and anti-gay conservative candidate win the gubernatorial race? First, he will raise lots of money. Simon is the heir to the fortune of his father, the late Nixon Treasury Secretary and right-wing philanthropist William Simon. With the governor's office such a highly prized position, Simon will surely get financial support from conservatives across the nation. Second, he will try to turn the campaign into a debate about the economy instead of the bevy of right-wing social issues he supports. It will be difficult, however, for Simon to divorce himself from the bedrock conservatism that defined his primary run, making him so attractive to his right-wing base. He repeatedly referred to himself during the campaign as the true conservative in the race. But, before the polls were closed, Simon began to take the predictable steps toward the political center. In an interview on CNN's Inside Politics with Judy Woodruff, Simon denied plans to campaign against Davis on the anti-abortion, pro-death penalty and pro-gun rights positions that endeared him to conservatives. "I have said publicly on many occasions that those issues will not be a centerpiece of my agenda," Simon said. "The overwhelming majority (of Californians) want to talk about their pocketbook. They want to talk about their children's education. And they want to talk about their daily lives." While Simon will prefer talking about the economy, Davis will undoubtedly slap him silly with advertisements examining Simon's positions on reproductive rights, the environment, and other issues of concern to Californians. Religious right salivates
Ken Connor, president of the right-wing Washington, DC-based lobbying group, the Family Research Council, called Simon's victory a "tremendous boost for the state's pro-life, pro-family voters, who rejected Richard Riordan's anti-family, anti-life views." In the March 7 edition of Falwell Confidential, the Rev. Jerry Falwell's called on President Bush to "to step up to the proverbial plate…. [And] devote himself to helping Bill Simon win back California from the Democrats…. It's time for true political battle and I am praying that George W. Bush will take up the mantle of leadership and exuberantly pilot the effort to steer our nation to a moral reawakening, in the same magnificent way he is leading our war on terrorism." Riordan, who had called Simon "too extreme" in the final days leading up to the election, pledged to join Simon in his "crusade" against Governor Davis. Riordan's failure or Simon's savvy campaign?
Simon has a veteran and impressive campaign staff: John Herrington, President Reagan's Energy secretary, former California GOP chairman, and former co-chair of Steve Forbes's presidential campaign is his campaign chairman; and Sal Russo, a veteran GOP operative, is his chief strategist. Many pundits are pinning the loss squarely on Riordan's shoulders, blaming him for running a lackluster, uninspiring campaign. They say it was his election to lose -- after all, he had been encouraged by President Bush to make the run, and Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and Gerald Parsky, one of Bush's big-money men in the state were on board. In a pre-election report, the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out that Los Angeles businessman Brad Freeman, a major GOP donor, Bush's presidential campaign state finance chair and a former partner in an investment banking company with Riordan, was a "driving force" in convincing Riordan. To be fair, Riordan's defeat says as much about the state of the state's GOP as it does about the inadequate campaign Riordan ran. In reality, Bill Simon's primary victory is not an aberration. In fact, it is another in a series of victories won by far-right conservative Republican candidates in the state. They win in the primaries because the GOP's grassroots turn out to vote in large numbers. In recent years, the GOP's grassroots appears to derive greater pleasure in defeating the party's moderates than in running a competitive campaign during the general election. In a May 2001 profile published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Carla Marinucci described of some of Simon's business holdings: "He is chairman of the board of the privately held GeoLogistics Corp., a Santa Ana-based logistics firm with annual revenues of $1.5 billion, 6,000 employees and 650 offices worldwide. He is a big real estate investor: He and his partners invested $100 million last year in what was described as a 'spending spree' in San Francisco's multimedia gulch, buying a host of properties for loft development, among other things." He is "the executive director of William E. Simon & Sons, an investment firm… vice chairman of the board of Paxon Communications, a family entertainment network founded by Bud Paxon, co-founder of the Home Shopping Network." Simon served as the Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York under former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani -- which accounts for Giuliani's endorsement in the primary. He is also the founder of the Cynthia L. and William E. Simon, Jr. Foundation. Simon also served as a trustee for the Washington, DC-based powerhouse think tank, the Heritage Foundation. In an address before the Foundation Board last September called "Why America Needs Religion," Simon, a devout Catholic, argued "religion must play a greater, not a lesser, role in our national life."
In light of this dissatisfaction, several questions remain to be answered: Will Simon's newcomer status attract voters as it once did for Ronald Reagan? Will he be able to finesse his conservatism? Or will he go down in flames, like the last right-wing Republican gubernatorial candidate, former Attorney General Dan Lundgren, did in 1998? |
Bill Simon Jr. is the GOP's gubernatorial candidate in California 
Simon will face incumbent Democrat Gray Davis 
Simon defeated former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan in an upset for the GOP nomination 
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