A Golden Opportunity
California's earlier primary may rewrite the rules of the 2008 race. But candidates are struggling to figure out how
SACRAMENTO, CALIF.-The way Fabian Núñez sees it, moving California's presidential primary to February 5 next year from its customary June has already paid off. Testifying on global warming before the U.S. Senate in March, Núñez, the speaker of the State Assembly, was invited to an impromptu half-hour private meeting with Illinois senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama. On another trip to D.C., Núñez was dining with other California lawmakers when Sen. Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton stopped by the restaurant to say hello. They stayed for two hours. Former Sen. John Edwards, another Democratic presidential contender, has telephoned. And when Núñez ended the wooing last week by endorsing Clinton, he got an impressive campaign title: national cochair. "I wasn't looking to play a national role," he says in his office, where the drapes are emerald to match the green in the state flag. "But I'm not going to shy away from it, either."
Neither are Núñez's fellow lawmakers. Republican Assemblywoman Sharon Runner met with presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani at the state GOP convention earlier this year but was troubled by the ex-New York mayor's support for abortion rights. So he called her afterward to say he didn't oppose all abortion restrictions. "The other presidential candidates were not being as aggressive," Runner says, so she endorsed Giuliani.
Money talks. It didn't used to be like this in California. In the past, presidential candidates beelined to the Golden State for one purpose: to fill their campaign coffers. They seldom left donor-rich enclaves like Hollywood-or, more recently, Silicon Valley-to court elected officials or voters. But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger changed all that in March, signing a bill that shifted California's primary to February 5, immediately after early-caucus and primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire. In the past, presidential nominees had effectively already been chosen by the time of the California primary. Though many other states have moved their primaries up to the same day-including delegate-rich New York and New Jersey-none select as many presidential convention delegates as California. For Democrats, California picks 440 delegates, more than twice as many as the first four caucus and primary states combined.
But as the opportunity for picking up such hefty support is focusing presidential campaigns on California for the first time in decades, the state's peculiarities also inject a potent shot of uncertainty into the race. With more than a dozen television markets and a $3 million-a-week price tag for even a light statewide ad buy, none of the candidates may be able to afford a serious TV presence, the mainstay of political campaigns. And since the GOP primary is structured as individual winner-take-all contests in each of the state's 53 congressional districts, Republican candidates may have to pick and choose which districts to compete in and which to cede. On top of those challenges, investing much in California may turn out to be a mistake if both parties have front-runners with strong momentum out of earlier states. But San Francisco-based Democratic consultant Chris Lehane says candidates are preparing for California to matter a whole lot in '08. "If the picture is muddled or an insurgent candidate injects themselves into the mix after Iowa and New Hampshire, California will play a huge role," says Lehane. "The top-tier campaigns are recognizing they need a serious California strategy."
That may be especially true for the best-financed candidates, who see California as providing a possible firewall against weak finishes in earlier states. "The February 5th states may diminish the bounce one does or doesn't get in the early-primary states," says Rep. David Dreier, a Giuliani adviser. "California has a slightly more tempered view on social issues, and that dramatically enhances Giuliani's chances." And because Republican candidates get three California delegates for each congressional district they win, Giuliani will focus on the 30 or so districts that are Democratic, including those in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, with small populations of more moderate Republicans.
One little-noticed factor that may bolster the California-as-firewall scenario is its early and absentee voting programs, which will allow voters to begin casting ballots on January 7, a week before the Iowa caucuses. Nearly half of California's 2006 primary voters cast absentee ballots. With the major candidates planning to poll to see who's ahead in early and absentee voting, the first momentum in 2008 may actually come out of California. "The secret is that we'll have more voters casting early ballots than the total votes in Iowa and New Hampshire," says a top adviser to Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa who has consulted with some presidential campaigns.
With millions of Californians expected to cast early votes next year, combined with the high cost of TV, the major presidential candidates are concentrating on launching strong ground games in California. For the Democrats, that puts a premium on endorsements from labor, environmental, and Latino groups and from the likes of Villaraigosa and Assembly Speaker Núñez, who can provide huge organizational networks. Núñez and other state officials say their support rides largely on candidates vowing to re-examine federal funding formulas that leave California getting roughly 80 cents in benefits for every dollar it sends to Washington in taxes. That's why California Democrats say they moved the primary up in the first place. (Some analysts say the early primary is largely a scheme to pass a ballot initiative to loosen term limits in time for current state legislators to benefit.)
With Clinton having a leg up among A-list endorsements-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is rumored to be leaning her way and she is well-connected to Villaraigosa's L.A. donor base-the Obama campaign is looking to harness grass-roots excitement. An Obama rally at Oakland's city hall in March drew 10,000 and led to the formation of a constellation of Obama support groups in the Bay Area.
Obama was back in California last weekend for the state party's convention in San Diego. For the first time in memory, the convention drew all the Democratic front-runners and some second-tier candidates: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich.
Brass ring. The Republican field is spending more time than usual in California as well, with the first GOP debate slated for May 3 at Ronald Reagan's Presidential Library in Simi Valley. And Republican candidates are also looking to tap existing support networks in the state, where a Schwarzenegger endorsement is the brass ring. The governor says he'll stay neutral in the primary, but alumni from his campaigns and administration populate the upper ranks of the Giuliani campaign and that of Republican Sen. John McCain. And though most candidates so far have limited California hires to their fundraisers, McCain has four ground organizers in place and will soon announce campaign chairmen for every California congressional district.
The Arizona senator is telling California Republicans he's in the mold of native son Ronald Reagan. "He's a westerner with an independent streak," says John Peschong, his chief California adviser. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, is targeting Orange County and San Diego-area social conservatives and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, playing up his own venture-capitalist past. But Giuliani, the most socially liberal of the bunch, is winning over some hard-core conservatives in Sacramento by arguing that his nomination would finally make their blue state competitive in the general election. That's a tantalizing prospect for Californians of any stripe, who've only just begun to taste national electoral relevance.
This story appears in the May 7, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.