GOP again sees state as winnable
By Michael Doyle -- Bee Washington Bureau
Published 2:15 a.m. PST Friday, February 27, 2004
WASHINGTON - Republicans next week will accelerate a drive to register 350,000 new GOP voters in California, in a campaign meant to both symbolize and boost their Golden State aspirations.
"California is definitely in play," Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie insisted Thursday. "We have a real chance to win it in November, and we are going to put our money where our mouth is in that regard."
It remains to be seen exactly what Republicans can do with a state that favored Al Gore over George Bush in 2000 by a margin of 53 percent to 41 percent. But with efforts like an upcoming presidential trip likely to include a stop in the southern San Joaquin Valley, an imminent ad campaign and the beefed-up registration efforts, Republicans are at least stepping up their activities in a state that has eluded them since 1988.
Next week, President Bush is expected to make his own case for re-election in California, with a visit whose details remained a White House work in progress Thursday. The Bakersfield area in particular appeared of interest to White House advance teams, San Joaquin Valley congressional staffers indicated Thursday.
Such a visit to Kern County, which boasts the fourth-highest Republican registration of any California county, likely would focus on the economy and jobs. If it happens, the visit would be part of a state trip also including a stop in the Los Angeles area.
Formal announcement of the California trip could occur as early as today. Bush's efforts, though, also come as more Californians grumble about how he's doing. Fifty-one percent of Californians surveyed in February disapprove of Bush's job performance, according to a Field Poll released this week. This is his lowest California approval rating since he took office.
"The fact is, our numbers are down everywhere," Gillespie said, blaming the polling downturn on a drumbeat of Democratic primary rhetoric. "Obviously, I'd rather be up than down, but we've got some things we're going to implement that's going to change this."
Between June and December of last year, for instance, California Republican Party spokeswoman Karen Hanretty said the party registered more than 245,000 new voters.
That still leaves Republicans lagging Democrats in the state. The secretary of state's office reported in January that 43.2 percent of registered voters were Democrats while 35.7 percent were Republican.
Republicans, though, have been showing more registration momentum of late.
Gillespie hopes to further boost what he termed Thursday the "ground game," in part by declaring March 6-13 National Voter Registration Week. Marketing slogans, though, are the least part of this effort.
California Republican officials, for instance, are trying to capture more voters who decline to state their party registration.
Currently, 16.2 percent of registered California voters decline to state a party affiliation, compared to 10 percent in 1996. In a new move, Hanretty said Republicans are contacting these declined-to-state voters to find out whether they're susceptible to the GOP message.
"We'll be targeting them with mail and phone calls," Hanretty said.
Hanretty said Republican Party officials are also attending citizenship swearing-in ceremonies in hopes of recruiting new voters, and contacting new home buyers with similar hopes.
This ground game will soon be joined by the air war that kicks off March 4, when the Bush-Cheney re-election committee will be running its first television ads of the 2004 season. The ads will offer a "positive message," campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said Thursday; they will include Spanish-language versions, and will also include some ads run nationally on cable television and others run on local broadcast stations targeting specific regions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About the Writer
---------------------------
The Bee's Michael Doyle can be reached at (202) 383-0006 or
mdoyle@mcclatchydc.com.
- Get the whole story every day - SUBSCRIBE NOW!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***
While I'm skeptical that California is winnable by Republicans, it's disturbing that Republicans are the only ones out there trying to reach out to new voters and register them. They work harder and organize better, and even after the past two election wins, I don't see the Democrats learning from that. The voter registration advantage of Democrats doesn't really work in most places around the country, even if it does in California, because many registered Democrats actually vote Republican.
