Democrats go California dreaming

THE LAST time California had a Democrat for governor, the Sixties still cast an incandescent glow over the political landscape, and pumping tax dollars into education and social programmes was still an acceptable platform on which to fight and win an election.

Those were the days of Jerry Brown, a man once hailed as the radical, free-wheeling spirit of the West Coast, but whose legacy in these more conservative times seems so flamboyant and radical that even the Democrats do their best to disown him.

Hence this year's change of pace and indeed colour. As another Brown would clearly be too risque, the Democrats have opted for Gray. Gray Davis is the epitome of caution and pragmatism, a man who holds his opinions so close to his chest that some of his colleagues wonder if he really has any.

The choice is paying off. As election day looms, Mr Davis is the runaway favourite to end the Democrats' 16 years in the gubernatorial wilderness. Selling himself as the safest pairs of hands, he cruised past the free- spending, free-talking millionnaire Al Cecchi to clinch the primary in June. Now he has also wrested the all-important centre ground from his punchier Republican opponent, Dan Lungren.

In an election year in which political change is forecast to be minimal and working, if anything, to the Republicans' advantage, California is proving a national anomaly. Mr Davis is the only Democrat firmly ahead in any US gubernatorial race. The Democrats are solidly in control of the California state legislature, and even Barbara Boxer, the Democratic Senator whose re-election struggle seemed at one stage hopelessly compromised by the Clinton-Lewinsky sex scandal, appears to be pulling away from her Republican challenger, Matt Fong.

The consequences of a clean sweep by the Democrats could be profound. California is now the most populous state in the union, and one of the most influential on national political trends. Whoever controls the state over the next four years will control the upcoming reallocation of Congressional seats - the so-called "decennial reapportionment". This may give California 10 more members in the House of Representatives. A Democrat state government would be in a position to redraw district boundaries so that most, or even all, of these would be Democrat seats.

How have the Democrats pulled this off, in a state best known in recent years for tax-payers' revolts, prison building, radical anti-immigration policies and an end to affirmative action?

Part of the answer is a change in priorities. Four years ago, when Pete Wilson was re-elected governor (in a race with Jerry Brown's sister Kathleen), the big issue was pulling the state and its many defence-related industries out of a post-Cold War recession. Economic hard times also favoured Mr Wilson's crime-busting, anti-immigration agenda.

But now the economy is buoyant, crime is down, and the average voter is bemoaning the effect that severe tax cuts have had on education and public services. Rather than fighting immigration, politicians on both sides of the political divide are acknowledging the reality of a state that is 40 per cent Latino. They are attempting to woo, rather than alienate, the new population.

Against this background, a candidate like Dan Lungren suddenly looks a little too conservative. Having served as Governor Wilson's attorney- general, he has certainly shown he is in tune with California's tough- on-crime, pro-death penalty sensibilities. But his refusal to endorse restrictions on assault weapons and his uncompromising opposition to abortion have proved to be big strikes against him.

Mr Davis, a career backroom politician who is currently occupying the lieutenant-governor's chair, has capitalised on these weaknesses, but without exposing himself to the usual accusations of Democrat tax-and- spend tendencies.

He has carefully declared himself in favour of the death penalty and tough treatment for violent offenders. On education, he has criticised Mr Lungren's advocacy of vouchers that would effectively use public money to subsidise the private sector, without committing himself on where to find funds to shore up the declining school system.

Mr Davis' biggest detractors, in fact, come from the liberal left. Left- wing intellectuals worry that he will do nothing about schools, because he is unwilling to raise taxes and may cave in to union pressure not to introduce a so-called merit system in schools and fire underperforming teachers. The reform hostile teachers unions are among his biggest campaign contributors. the left also fears Mr Davis will resist the opportunity to roll back the republicans' harsher social policies.

"Search as they might into his psyche, [Republicans and Democrats] cannot identify a set of unwavering beliefs or compelling ideas that explain his rise to the top, other than a lifelong yearning to be governor," the New Times magazine columnist Jill Stewart wrote in a harsh piece last week.

That will not stop left-wingers from voting for him. "What are they going to do, give the race to Lungren?" commented a political analyst, Sherry Bebitch Jeffe. "It may not be very inspiring, but this is the way to win elections in California."