Among many others, big-name wizards like Robert Squier(Democrat) and Roger Ailes (Republican) are quietly courting prospective California clients and being courted in return. This is the time for all good candidates to pick their electoral Svengalis, and the usual round of party conclaves and pre-election candidates’ workshops have become mating dances between politicians and consultants. According to Lazlo, a how-to-succeed seminar in Sacramento last weekend attracted a crowd of 65 campaign professionals, of whom fully 40 were carpetbaggers. “Every out-of-state consulting firm is coming to California,” says a GOP campaign pro. “Six months ago they didn’t even know our names. Now they are calling on a daily basis. It’s like a feeding frenzy.”
They are coming to California for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks:because that’s where the money is. Running for the U.S. Senate is an expensive proposition in any state, but the cost of running for Senate in a state the size of California is altogether stupefying. By common estimate, the two winners of next year’s Senate races will spend upwards of $20 million apiece through the general-election campaign; by the same consensus estimate, each of the current crop of Senate hopefuls will have to raise at least $3 million to make a respectable showing in a contested primary. Much of that-at least $12 million in a $20 million campaign-goes to mass-media advertising, especially television. And a top-gun political consultant could collet 15 percent of the media buy.
The developing Senate battles are already so confusing, says Joseph Scott, editor of a political newsletter called the California Eye, that voters “need a grease pencil and a large wall chart” to follow them. For clarity, analysts refer to “Seat A” and “Seat B.” Seat A is currently occupied by Republican John Seymour, who appointed to serve out the remainder of former senator Pete Wilson’s term when Wilson was elected governor last year. Seat B is held by Democrat Alan Cranston, a major figure in the “Keating Five” ethics scandal, who is retiring because of poor health. The GOP primary for Seat A–also known as the short seat, since whoever wins it will have to run again in 1994–at the moment pits Seymour, a moderate, against conservative U.S. Rep. William Dannemeyer of Fullerton. On the Democratic side former San Francisco mayor Dianne Feinstein, who lost to Wilson in the gubernational election, is so far running unopposed, although state controller Gray Davis, another well-known Democrat, may run against her.
Seat B–known as the long seat, because the winner gets a full, six-year term–has attracted a much larger crowd of Senate wanna-bes. In the Republican primary, the prospective field includes U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell of Palo Alto, Los Angeles television commentator Bruce Herschensohn and U.S. Rep. Robert Dornan of Garden Grove. The Democratic primary is also a free-for-all. Former governor Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., who jokes that he is now a “recovering candidate,” has nonetheless succumbed to the temptation of a Seat B campaign. Brown will be opposed by U.S. Rep. Barbara Boxer of Greenbrae, U.S. Rep. Robert Matsui of Sacramento, Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy and possibly by U.S. Rep. Mel Levine of Los Angeles.
It does no good to point out that today’s electoral extravaganzas are too expensive, too mechanized and too slick. And it does no good to complain that the influx of nationally known consultants threatens to turn the list of Senate contenders into so many lumps of processed cheese. Politics is big-time marketing. The national Republican Party is dead set on winning both Senate seats-and Democrats, while hoping to blunt the GOP offensive, quietly concede that the other side’s hopes may be at least somewhat realistic. And that means California voters, gubernatorial contest, are about to be targeted in what is almost guaranteed to be the most expensive statewide image war of Campaign ‘92.
