Connecting With California
When the Democratic presidential hopefuls meet in California Wednesday night to debate, they will find an audience that's very engaged, yet severely disillusioned.
Pundits often portray California, with its large and diverse population, as a bellwether for the nation. If that's true - and not everyone agrees that it is - candidates planning to court voters here before the March 7th primary have their work cut out.
"The mood in California this year is very positive," according to sociologist Mark Baldassare, who has polled the state's electorate extensively over the past two years. "Yet Californians remain anxious about the future."
Baldassare made the comments Tuesday at a political forum co-hosted by the Public Policy Institute of California and KCET, the Los Angeles public television station. The panel included campaign strategists, academics and national political reporters.
"Managing prosperity has become a big theme," said Baldassare. His research also shows that Californians care most about education, health care and how the federal government will spend the budget surplus.
The national candidates cover those issues routinely in their stump speeches. But voters in the Golden State are also struggling with overwhelming growth, record levels of immigration, and a shifting population away from the coastal cities to the Central Valley, now the fastest growing region of the state.
Can we expect candidates to discuss these concerns during debates and campaign stops?
Don't count on it.
Democratic strategist Bill Carrick noted that the compressed primary schedule leaves little time for candidates to focus on complex local issues, and there's little reward for those who do. "The presidential campaign is moving through here like a circus coming into town," said Carrick. "A lot of the tougher issues won't be discussed."
Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior associate at Claremont Graduate University's School of Politics and Economics, held out hope that issues will receive more attention later. But for now, she said, the media is focused on the "horse race" and the candidates are focused on a narrow band of the electorate. "The primary is about winning," said Jeffe.
Leslie Goodman, a GOP strategist, said it is tough for a national candidate to come to California and address its issues, because it's not a monolithic state. She also tried to knock down the state's national image as ultra-liberal. "It's a conservative, center-right state," said Goodman.
She wasn't the only one to take a swing at a California stereotype.
"We tend to believe that as California goes, the nation will go. It will not," added Gregory Rodriguez, a Los Angeles-based fellow at the New America Foundation. Rodriguez pointed out that most other states do not face the diverse future of California, where Latinos are expected to outnumber non-Hispanic whites by the year 2030
Rodriguez said a "divide is growing between California and the rest of the states."
But most of the experts agreed that Californians do share at least one trait with the rest of the country - disillusionment with the current political system. Pollster Mark Baldassare said the majority of Californians distrust their elected officials and see bureaucracies as bloated and unable to solve problems or spend taxpayer money wisely.
That's one reason why a good deal of Tuesday's forum discussion swirled around the turbulent candidacy of Arizona Senator John McCain. While there was much debate about his stand on the issues and his self-proclaimed role as a unifier for the Republican party, most experts on the panel felt that McCain had struck a nerve with many voters.
As Democratic strategist Bill Carrick put it: "Voters are as disconnected now from Sacramento and Washington as they've ever been."
Democrats Bill Bradley and Al Gore will try to reconnect with voters Wednesday in Los Angeles, in a debate sponsored by the Los Angeles Times and CNN. George W. Bush and John McCain are scheduled to debate together on Thursday.
Perhaps they should heed this additional finding by Mark Baldassare: Eighty-five percent of voters in California say that they get their information about candidates through debates.