Whatever the outcome in this state's primary on Tuesday, the campaign here offers the first big snapshot of how candidates everywhere are trying to navigate the politics of prosperity. With pocketbook appeals large-ly off the table, the issue of education - which was entirely neglected four years ago - came to the fore, not only in a ballot initiative that would essentially eliminate bilingual education, but also in a broader debate over how to improve California's public schools.
Other close-to-home issues are also bubbling, like growth management and cutting the state's vehicle licensing tax. And the void is also being filled by personal attacks."It's a world of difference in terms of voter attitudes this year," said Mark Baldassare, senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. In the San Francisco area, for instance, Baldassare said his polling shows that voters are "most satisfied" with their jobs and "most negative about traffic." But aggravating as it can be, traffic is hardly weighty enough to drive the elections in the most populous state in the nation.
"You're starting with an electorate here that isn't that interested in politics," said Dan Schnur, a Republican political analyst. "But when things are going so well, it's even harder to get them to engage. We have a candidate for attorney general who, out of desperation, declared that one of her top priorities if elected is dealing with road rage."
"In a time of prosperity, people can be concerned with other issues - as now they are about education - and rightly so," said Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican who in his re-election campaign four years ago devoted much of his time to staving off attacks about his stewardship of the economy. "When the economy is not good people have that deep concern about their own economic well-being and the incumbents can almost do no right.
"And the converse is true," Wilson continued. "When it is performing well and producing not just jobs but prosperity, their confidence returns as consumers and they are inclined to be highly tolerant of the incumbents. You saw that with Bush's defeat in '92 and with Clinton's re-election in '96. So one guy paid the penalty for a bad economy as an incumbent and the other guy enjoyed the benefits of a good one."
Besides California, voters in seven other states were picking candidates Tuesday, with Alabama Gov. Fob James testing the power of social conservatives.
Tuesday's primaries could also prove critical to who controls the House of Representatives next year; Republican and Democratic leaders alike were rooting for their most moderate candidates.
In Alabama, James was in a five-way Republican race as he sought another term. He needs to get a majority of the vote to avoid a troubling runoff.