Message from California
The elections in California should, as usual, send powerful messages to the rest of the nation, announcing future waves about to crash over American politics, but none of the voters I encountered seemed especially burdened by this responsibility.
People would sooner talk about small changes in the weather or the autumn brush fires or the latest bizarre crime reported in the news. A two-year-old boy’s throat is slit in a shopping center holdup, and he hovers near death, a somber anchorman reports. A berserk street preacher plows his car into a crowd at a bus stop. An engineer from Silicon Valley, reported drowned in June, mourned and memorialized by his family, turns up alive in Canada.
Californians invent their own distractions. The San Francisco Chronicle has fastened upon the menace of pit bulldogs and, every so often, reports that another of these fierce little creatures has attacked a human being. Down in the Santa Clara Valley, farmers are posting armed guards to protect against garlic poachers, who steal the precious herb from open fields and peddle “hot” garlic on city streets. The Gay Olympics of ’82, which drew a thousand athletes of all persuasions, was San Francisco’s droll answer to the Los Angeles Olympics of ’84.
Politicians and political causes have difficulty competing with the daily spectacle of California life. So in the last two weeks of October, they are spending millions of dollars on melodramatic TV blurbs designed to crash through the general indifference. During that small window in their attention span, Californians will decide what to tell the nation about the future.
The messages this year will be significant, possibly even historic. In the bleak history of America’s race relations, no state has ever elected a black governor. If Tom Bradley –— the stolid mayor of Los Angeles and the Democratic candidate for governor– — wins, it will be a watershed for the nation and encouragement to black aspirations everywhere. Perhaps because this would be so significant, and despite Bradley’s lead in the polls, many political insiders cling to a visceral hunch that it won’t happen– — that somehow, without any talk about black and white, Bradley’s color will defeat him.
On another plane, Californians seem certain to overwhelmingly approve Proposition 12, the bilateral nuclear-freeze campaign, adding the endorsement of the most populous state to that national movement. On the other hand, even supporters are gloomy about the prospects for another “safety” referendum, Proposition 15, which would halt the proliferation of handguns. Campaigns for initiatives usually need money for TV time in order to win, and the handgun-control folks haven’t been able to raise it. A loss would suggest a perverse view of arms control: the nukes controlled by Washington and Moscow are really scary, but closer to home, everyone wants to keep a pistol in the bedroom.
Finally, in the race for the U.S. Senate, Californians will choose between originality and bland caution, between one of the most inventive minds in American politics, Governor Jerry Brown, and a gray mouse of a mayor, Pete Wilson of San Diego, whose own supporters complain about his “wimpish” campaign. Put that way, the outcome seems self-evident: Brown will be sent to the Senate, where he can enliven the national debate and maybe even inject some fresh ideas into the Democratic party.
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