GOP Hopes the Shrubs Grow Quickly

As a metaphor for the strange tenor of the race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, it was hard to pass up this one: State Treasurer Matt Fong, opening a news conference before a fund-raiser for his exploratory Senate campaign, marched toward his microphone-laden podium. And then he marched right past it, planting himself off to the side, where no one could pick up his words.

A few uncomfortable moments later, his ideological lodestar and the fund-raiser’s main speaker, former vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp, stepped forward to pull Fong back toward the microphones, much as a father might gently correct his young son’s stance in the batter’s box.

In a state that likes to think of itself as home to political heavy-hitters, the race for the Senate nomination is being seen even by Republicans as, one might say diplomatically, lacking due experience. That is particularly striking because the battle against incumbent Barbara Boxer is one for which the GOP has been salivating for five years.

Three candidates are exploring the race--Fong, San Diego Mayor Susan Golding and car alarm millionaire Darrell Issa. None is well known statewide and none has a proven fund-raising base, unless you count Issa’s wallet.

The situation has given rise to a groundswell of critical euphemisms, all shrouded in anonymity. The Senate candidates, so goes the buzz, are not ready for prime time.

“There is not tall timber at this point,” said one high-ranking Republican, who nonetheless believes that one of the candidates will leap from shrub to sequoia by the time the general election rolls around.

So small is the field, and so little-known, that rumors daily run rampant about someone else tossing in a hat. Who knew it would come to this, that anxious Republicans actually would fill the vacuum with this unexpected whisper: “Hey, do you think Sonny will do it?”

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In charmingly Sonny-esque fashion, singer-turned-congressman Bono said what most others have been saying under veil of secrecy.

“I have to be very diplomatic when I say this because I don’t want to appear arrogant at all,” Bono hemmed and hawed from Washington. “It doesn’t appear a--jeez--some people are saying maybe we need some more players, let me put it that way.”

“They’re all very good people,” Bono, who has not decided whether to run, hastened to add. “It’s just how some campaigns bite, where you get a lot of buzz from the get-go. That has not happened in California yet.”

That is a polite way of saying that all three of the announced candidates could walk buck naked down Interstate 5 without anyone recognizing them. Or caring.

The shrub phenomenon is not all that uncommon when it comes to Senate candidates. Pete Wilson was one himself, a little-known mayor of San Diego--roughly equivalent to where Golding finds herself now--when he ran for the Senate, and he managed to knock off the sitting governor. Of course, the sitting governor was Jerry Brown.

Ed Zschau came from nowhere--OK, the Silicon Valley--to almost defeat incumbent Alan Cranston in 1986. Boxer herself was a congresswoman hardly known in Southern California when she eked past Bruce Herschensohn, a broadcaster little known in the north.

What it underscores anew is the thin Republican bench. Republicans may have commanded the governor’s office for the last 14 years, but they have been kept out of the farm teams in the Legislative leadership and in statewide office for so long that they have few candidates with the seasoning to take on bigger contests.

It is no accident that when they needed to win the governorship in 1990, the GOP had to beg Wilson to give up his Senate seat. It is no accident that their sole candidate for governor this time out is Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, the only GOP official who has served more than a couple of years in a statewide job. Republicans now hold five of the seven statewide seats, but only Fong among the newcomers felt ready to grab for a bigger brass ring.

A few seasoned members of Congress--like U.S. Reps. Christopher Cox of Newport Beach and David Dreier of San Dimas--might have been tempted to run for Senate. But they now find themselves wielding majority power--and are loath to give it up.

Perhaps that is why, even though one might expect a lot of loud bleating on the part of Republican partisans, most seem to be sitting on their hands. Why waste your time when there’s no one out there to beg?

“If there was a hand of God coming down, who would it touch?” snickered one Democrat. “God can only touch Dan Lungren so many times.”

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Someone will break out of the pack, to be sure, knowing enough about Namibia or NAFTA in a candidates’ debate to look effectively senatorial. Right now, the campaign is being conducted largely behind closed doors.

Fong has worked hard to position himself as the front-runner, pinning down enough endorsements to be considered the establishment candidate. Golding has hired Wilson’s well-regarded campaign team, though she faces substantial opposition as a social moderate in an increasingly conservative state party.

Issa, a major donor to Republican causes who is making his first bid for elective office, won the endorsement of former state party chairman John Herrington and has been making the rounds with leaders in Sacramento and Washington. He acknowledges that he, as well as the others, has little name ID. So what?

“Name ID would only qualify movie stars and career politicians,” he said.

So with the closest thing to movie star being the long-shot chance of a Bono candidacy, the race is left to the shrubs. Who eventually, Republicans hope, will mature.

“There is an excitement level still about Boxer being replaced,” said one Republican. “I don’t think anyone feels she’s less than vulnerable. Even if this crowd is less than first string.”