Lost In The Shuffle?

The Republican National Committee recently released a high-profile political attack ad against Al Gore. Entitled, Really?, it suggests Gore would say anything to get elected, such as preach campaign finance reform after attending a fund-raiser at a Buddhist temple.

The ad received broad news coverage. But unless they've been watching the news, Californians have never seen it.

The RNC says it has no plans to run the ad in the state with almost one-fifth of the 270 electoral votes needed to elect a president. Instead, California voters will see 30-second spots addressing Bush';s views on education and Social Security.

"This is just the first in a long series of ads designed to continue to introduce Governor Bush to the people of California," said state Sen. Jim Brulte, a finance chairman for the state GOP who is spearheading the campaign.

The California ads, paid for by the state and national Republican parties, are positive, said Brulte, because the Democratic National Committee has not run ads considered negative.

In fact, the DNC has not run any ads in the state, and has no plans to do so with just two months left in the campaign.

DNC spokesperson Rick Hess cites Gore's double-digit lead in California as the reason. "Bush has not shown any indication he can win in California ... their numbers have gone down, not up," said Hess.

The most recent statewide poll, conducted by the nonpartisan Field Institute after the Democratic National Convention, gave Gore a 13-point lead.

"It's a solid Gore lead," said Field pollster Mark DiCamillo. "I haven't seen any indication of a major shift since the primary."

But as recently as the Democrats' L.A. convention, party heavyweights such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein were cautioning fellow Democrats not to take California for granted. She told the Los Angeles Daily News Gore could lose the state without an all-out effort.

Hess counters that Gore and his running mate Sen. Joe Lieberman have and will continue to make campaign stops in the state, and he's quick to remind critics of the significance of the convention.

"There's probably not a bigger gift you can give to a state than have a convention (there)," he said.

Jay Ziegler, a spokesman for Gore's California campaign, declined to say whether the candidate would respond to the Bush TV ads, but predicted the campaign would be "insignificant."

"Nothing can hide the fact that George Bush is fundamentally out of touch with Californians on the issues they care about," he said.

The Bush campaign also insists their candidate will not write-off the state.

The Democrats "think they have the state in the bag. We obviously disagree," said Lindsey Kozberg, a spokesperson for the Bush campaign in California. Besides the new statewide ad buy, Kozberg cites the numerous trips the Texas governor has made to California (an average of two per moth) and notes that Bush and Cheney conducted a high-profile post-convention train tour through the Golden State.

"It is clear we"re not a battleground state," said political scientist Sherry Bebitch Jeffe of Claremont Graduate University. "They have nominated the Midwest as the ‘battleground."

But while Jeffe believes Gore has a solid hold on the state, she warns that limiting focus on the presidential race is "short-sighted." Four congressional seats in the state currently held by Republicans are considered too close to call, she points out, and Democrats need a net gain of just six seats nationwide to regain the House.

"California is ground zero for control of U.S. Congress," she said.

That fact is not lost on Californians such as Sen. Feinstein, who is pushing for Gore's presence in the state to bolster Democratic House candidates. Nor is it lost on state Sen. Brulte, who has seen Republican numbers dwindle in the state government over the past eight years.