When seven Republican presidential candidates turned up at California’s recent state party convention, they expected to be star attractions. Instead, they were eclipsed by James Rogan, the second-term congressman who leapt to prominence during the president’s impeachment trial. Countless conventioneers wore buttons reading “Proud of Rogan,” and he was mobbed wherever he went. When he tried to enter a ballroom quietly where Dan Quayle was to be the featured dinner speaker, a few people rose and began clapping. Within 30 seconds, hundreds were giving him a standing ovation and chanting, “Rogan! Rogan!”
Rogan is now giving serious thought to trying to unseat Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is up for reelection next year. In public, he says he’s undecided, but in fact he’s strongly leaning toward a run. At the convention, he met for two hours with advisers and expressed great enthusiasm about a challenge. He’s also sought out an array of people for advice: Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian, who together spent the past 16 years governing California; Jane Clark, a San Francisco fund-raiser; and Walter Lukens, a Virginia-based direct-mail consultant. The near-unanimous counsel he’s received is to jump into the race. Deukmejian says challenging Feinstein is “a splendid idea.”
There are three arguments for a Rogan candidacy. First, if he remains a congressman, it’s highly unlikely he’ll ever again have as much impact as he did during the House impeachment proceedings and the Senate trial. Second, his suburban Los Angeles district leans Democratic, and even if Rogan is reelected in 2000, the Democrat-controlled California legislature will redistrict Rogan out of existence. Third, his stature will keep other serious Republicans from challenging him in the senatorial primary. Indeed, the only announced GOP candidate, state senator Ray Haynes, told me, “Jim Rogan is one of the finest men I know. If he gets into the race, I wouldn’t think of running against him.”
The paucity of Republican candidates isn’t only a testament to Rogan. It also reflects the decrepit state of the party in California. Last year’s GOP candidates for governor and senator, Dan Lungren and Matt Fong, both lost decisively. The number of Republicans in the legislature is the lowest in six years. And at the state convention, a feud erupted over abortion, with pro-choicers trying, without success, to defeat the incoming slate of pro-life party leaders.
In this depressed environment, Rogan is looked to resuscitate the party’s fortunes. He’s young (41), has a distinguished professional history (former municipal court judge and deputy DA), and a compelling personal story (born out of wedlock, raised in a broken home). A registered Democrat until 1988, Rogan is also one of the few California Republicans who can bridge the party’s ideological divide.
His dexterity in dealing with moderates and conservatives was on display at the state convention. While he supported the pro-life slate for the party leadership, he nonetheless was the only conservative to also appear at a reception for Brooks Firestone, one of the pro-choice challengers, and heaped praise on him in a short speech. Firestone told me he’s “very comfortable” with Rogan, who “would make a great senator.” Nor is Rogan’s appeal limited to Republicans. He’s been elected twice in a 40 percent minority district, and a few years ago the Los Angeles Times called him “that rare breed of right-wing Republican: a born-again, conservative Christian who is not an immediate turn-off to liberal Democrats.”
Whether Rogan can defeat Feinstein is, of course, another matter. “I think Dianne Feinstein will be very, very tough no matter who runs against her,” says George Gorton, a California consultant who was Pete Wilson’s main political strategist. Feinstein has high name identification (the 2000 race will be her fourth statewide campaign in 10 years), she’ll be well funded, and she’s not as readily labeled a knee-jerk liberal as fellow senator Barbara Boxer. Yet Gorton also points out that “Feinstein probably has 40 percent of the electorate against her at any given time” because of her reputation as a liberal former mayor of San Francisco. Rogan, sounding like a candidate, says, “I don’t think Dianne Feinstein has been a particularly good senator on the issues that motivated me to run for Congress. I think she’s beatable.”
The biggest potential obstacle for Rogan is that even though he received heavy media coverage during the Senate trial, he remains unknown to most California voters, and in a state with 32 million people and five major media markets, that will be difficult to change. Moreover, opportunities for free media are limited, as the state television networks have minimal interest in politics; they barely covered last year’s campaigns for governor and senator. Thus, with little opportunity to define himself, Rogan is vulnerable to Democratic attacks, given his opposition to abortion rights and gun control in a state that strongly favors both.
Will Rogan’s role in the impeachment drama help or hurt? Polls showed the state’s voters never favored removing Clinton, and Rogan’s high-profile part in the effort to oust him could be used to tar him as a right-wing extremist. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has announced it’s targeting him for defeat if he stays in the House, while Hollywood mogul David Geffen was quoted near the close of the Senate trial as saying, “Many of us are looking forward to spending time and money and effort defeating James Rogan.” Rogan cleverly replies that “if any of the liberals back in California . . . want to attack me for standing up for principle, for standing up for civil-rights laws, for standing up for sexual-harassment laws, . . . I welcome that argument.”
But Rogan’s impeachment experience would also motivate a dispirited Republican base. He was among the most hawkish of the managers, and he has no intention of running away from his record in a Senate campaign. “If it’s a liability,” he told me, “I’d be proud to lose the race on that issue.” The exposure from the Senate trial would prove in valuable in fund-raising, and being targeted for defeat by Democratic campaign operatives and gay liberals like Geffen would make for a potentially lucrative national direct-mail effort. Indeed, since the Senate trial, Rogan has already received thousands of dollars in unsolicited campaign contributions from around the country. And who knows whether having sought to remove Clinton might not look better by November 2000.
The prospect of a Rogan Senate candidacy has led some to draw a parallel with another southern California Republican, Richard Nixon. He, like Rogan, achieved fame as a junior member of the House of Representatives. Shortly thereafter, he capitalized on his fame and won what originally looked to be an uphill Senate race. The more immediate parallel, though, might seem to be with fellow Republicans Lungren and Fong, both of whom were slaughtered in their statewide races last November. Asked how he’d avoid their fate, Rogan doesn’t mince words: “If I run, I’ll win.”
Matthew Rees is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
