Go WEST, OLD MAN

If that wasn’t enough, Dole got another earful in April when California Assembly speaker Curt Pringle dropped by his offce in Washington. Dole can win the state by copying Wilson’s successful reelection campaign in 1994, Pringle said. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Dole said. He’d heard that line of argument a few times. “He was frustrated there was talk he would abandon California,” Pringle says. As Pringle left, Jill Hanson, political director of the Dole campaign, assured him this won’t happen. Dole, she said, “is 100 percent committed to California.”

Maybe so, but Republicans in California are still apprehensive that Dole may do what President Bush did in 1992. By Labor Day, Bush concluded the state was a lost cause. He stopped spending money and campaigning in California. The result was terror in California GOP ranks. And with Clinton running strongly and lifting the entire Democratic ticket, the Republican drive to capture the state legislature fell short, House gains didn’t materialize, and the GOP lost both Senate races. Now, Republicans are desperate for Dole to show he won’t cut and run. “He probably needs to invest more time here than any other state because Bush’s write-off of the state is so firmly planted in our mind,” says assemblyman Jim Brulte, the former GOP leader in the statehouse.

The political logic behind a major Dole push in California is simple: California is big and Clinton needs it. The state’s 54 electoral votes are 20 percent of the 270 required to win the presidency. And since Clinton must take California, given Dole’s likely strength elsewhere, denying him the state means Dole wins the election. California Republicans subscribe to the adage of Bush strategist Lee Atwater, who died in 1990: “If they need it, I want it.” Even if Clinton captures California, forcing him to spend time and money in the state is important. That would detract from the Clinton drive in other states.

The president’s allies here have no reason to take Dole seriously at this stage — and they don’t. “If Clinton’s prospects were any better, I’d be afraid I was on drugs,” says Bill Carrick, a senior adviser to the Clinton- Gore campaign. Clinton has a natural advantage. Younger, more vigorous, and more optimistic-sounding than Dole, he seems more comfortable in California. ” On the surface,” admits Brulte, “Bill Clinton appears to be a better fit for California than Bob Dole.” Clinton has hardly taken the state for granted. He’s made 23 trips to California since he became president. Dole has come rarely, and then usually for fund-raisers. He spent two days touring California just before the March presidential primary, but even Dole advisers soured on that trip. Choreographed by Wilson’s political team, it included a trip to the Mexican border in San Diego and a visit to the death chamber at San Quentin prison. “It was a ‘Pete Wilson’s greatest hits’ tour,” sneers Carrick.

That was no accident. The formula recommended to Dole for winning California is essentially the Wilson model. It’s what one Dole adviser calls the “Central Valley strategy.” Dole would forget about Los Angeles and San Francisco, both Democratic strongholds, and count on Republican strength in San Diego and Orange County. His campaign would concentrate on the farm belt from Sacramento to the inland empire east of L.A., the home of the state’s swing voters. If Dole does this, “he could be a very good candidate for California,” argues Steve Merksamer, a Sacramento lobbyist and senior adviser to the Dole campaign. “There’s not much difference between a wheat grower in Kansas and a grape grower in Fresno.”

The other part of the strategy is a full-throated embrace of Wilson’s twin issues, immigration and quotas. Carrick insists reruns don’t work in elections, but Dole may try anyway. “Immigration,” says Pringle, “is the hottest populist issue in the state.” And Cox told Dole it will become even hotter should Clinton veto the new immigration bill. If the final version allows states to bar illegal immigrants from public education, the president is pledged to kill it. Affrmative action may be more salient, however, since a referendum banning it in state government — the California Civil Rights Initiative — is on the ballot this fall and is expected to pass. Dole is already in sync with the initiative, having cosponsored a bill to get rid of racial and gender preferences in the federal government.

Still, it would be an enormous gamble for Dole to emphasize California. Brulte says the campaign would have to earmark $ 10 million for TV spots. Another $ 10 million would have to be spent by the Republican National Committee for get-out-the-vote and other efforts. That would make Dole a player, though not automatically a threat to Clinton. Dole must also bring order to his operation here. The two top California Republicans, Wilson and attorney general Dan Lungten, have bickered over managing the Dole effort. For now, Wilson is in charge. The test of his effectiveness is how many times he can persuade Dole to come to California. To make his presence felt, Dole needs to campaign here two or three separate times before the GOP convention in San Diego in August, then at least weekly in the fall. That would be a major commitment of time in a state where he starts far behind.

California Republicans have a surprising ally in Washington, House speaker Newt Gingrich. He told a GOP delegation from Sacramento he believes California should be a top priority for Dole. For one thing, that will help Republicans avert losses in congressional races and leave the House in GcP hands (and Gingrich as speaker). Gingrich said he won’t abandon California. He’ll show up time after time even if Dole doesn’t.

There’s a way for Dole to touch off panic in the Clinton campaign in California: choose Wilson or Lungten as his running mate. Lungten is more popular, but Wilson makes more sense. By September, Wilson may have gained a bit in popularity, but that’s not the point. With Wilson spending full-time as a candidate in California, masterminding a disciplined, relentless campaign, he could swing the state toward Dole. And Dole would be free to focus on Michigan and Ohio. “Pete Wilson knows how to win a California race,” says Pringle. That goes for a lot.

by Fred Barnes