Monday, Jun. 15, 1992
Another Revolt
By all rights Bill Clinton should have felt on top of the world last week after sweeping the last coast-to-coast crazy quilt of six state primaries. The Arkansas Governor eliminated Jerry Brown by winning 48% to 40% in his home state of California, and consequently clinched the Democratic nomination with 366 delegates to spare. Then why was this ordinarily almost cockeyed optimist forcing his victory smile as lamely as a first-time sushi eater? In crucial California, at least, the reason was a climactic revolt against politics as usual that rewarded not Clinton so much as outsider Ross Perot and, to a historic extent, a surging team of women candidates led by Democratic U.S. Senate nominees Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.
Perot, the world's most announced "unannounced" candidate, won the exit polling hands down. Democratic voters indicated that if he had been on the ^ ballot, Perot would have won 43% to Clinton's 29% and Brown's 23%. With even more anti-Establishment enthusiasm, Republicans gave Perot 52% to President Bush's 38% and Pat Buchanan's 9%. Reaching out to Perot supporters, Clinton in Los Angeles almost plaintively declared, "Listen, if you want an outsider, if you want someone who's passed a program, taken on interest groups, got a plan for the future, that's my campaign. Give us a listen." Brown, for his part, vowed to turn his own Savonarolan campaign into a permanent 800-number "movement" after raising the rafters at what he promised was going to be a "very yeasty" Democratic Convention.
The gender victories raised the unprecedented prospect of two women Senators elected from California next fall. Moderate Democrat Feinstein, a former mayor of San Francisco, roundly defeated state controller Gray Davis 58% to 33% and will face appointed incumbent John Seymour, a moderate Republican, in November. Liberal Democratic Congresswoman Boxer, with 44%, overcame both Lieutenant Governor Leo McCarthy and Congressman Mel Levine and will take on conservative Republican Bruce Herschensohn for the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Alan Cranston.
In addition, 16 new women candidates, 14 Democrats and two Republicans, won nomination for California's 52 congressional races. All of them clearly benefited from the anti-incumbent mood in general -- and Anita Hill's coattails in particular. "We're seeing the shattering of the political glass ceiling for women in California," said University of Southern California election expert Eric Schockman. Moaned defeated Congressman Levine: "I got hit by a tidal wave known as the year of the woman."
The sobering effect of the Los Angeles riots also made itself felt in the primary with the overwhelming 67%-to-33% passage of a local ballot initiative, Charter Amendment F, which will impose greater civilian authority over the Los Angeles police chief. Lame-duck chief Daryl Gates, clearly the target of many of the yes voters, complained that they had been "sold a bill of goods." But Los Angeles' Urban League president John Mack called it "a home run for justice."