California primary's new clout

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — As 10 Republican presidential hopefuls gather in Simi Valley today for their first debate, their political advisers are rewriting decades-old strategies about how to campaign in the nation's most populous state.

With the state's primary looming as the biggest prize in the massive national primary developing for Feb. 5, California has shed its status as a nonfactor in recent nominating contests, said top campaign advisers and the state's veteran GOP activists.

New rules adopted by the state party, meanwhile, have scrapped winner-take-all voting in favor of a system that awards three delegates to the victor in each of the state's 53 congressional districts. That change, coupled with the state's decision to move its primary date, has scrambled the Republican contest less than a year before it takes place.

"It's like a mini-Electoral College," Ed Gillespie, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said of California. "It's going to help make the nominee and have a lot of sway."

When the Republican hopefuls take the stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library tonight, their audience will be national.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney will be looking for a bump in polls that have shown him stuck in single digits. Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the two leading candidates, will be trying to avoid mistakes. The lesser-known candidates will be looking to get some attention.

All are certain to invoke the memory of the late Ronald Reagan, whose wife, Nancy, will be in the front row.

"Optimism will be at the heart of being at the Reagan Library," said Gerry Parsky, a trustee of the Reagan Foundation who ran George W. Bush's California campaigns in 2000 and 2004. "One of Reagan's greatest attributes was optimism. People want that."

For the top candidates, the goal is simple: Don't commit any major gaffes. "These early debates are made to be not lost, not won," said San Francisco State University's Joe Tuman, an expert in analyzing political debates. "So you go in with the central aim of not laying an egg on national television."

The debate has drawn a surprising amount of interest. When MSNBC hosted the first Democratic debate last week, 2.2 million viewers tuned in, its biggest audience since the start of the Iraq war.

Next

The same 10 Republican presidential candidates will debate in Columbia, S.C., on May 15.

Fox News Channel will broadcast the debate live, starting at 6 p.m. PDT. Fox News Channel Washington managing editor Brit Hume will moderate, and Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace and White House correspondent Wendell Goler will question the candidates.

McClatchy Newspapers

The front-runners, McCain and Giuliani, have the most to lose.

McCain has been battered in the polls over his support for the Iraq war, and his weak early showing has left him with less cash than Giuliani and Romney. Any flubs could further complicate efforts to raise money, just as new polls show him edging up again.

"His primary objective, probably his only objective, is to convince conservatives that they can trust him more than the other two," a McCain insider said.

The source also said it would be a mistake for McCain to go after Giuliani directly. "You're not going to dent Rudy's 9/11 armor, no matter what," the source said.

Changing dynamics

Giuliani, as the perceived pack leader, has a huge target on his back. And the surest way for any of the seven lesser candidates to get noticed — they are, in alphabetical order, Sam Brownback, Jim Gilmore, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo and Tommy Thompson — will be to take a shot at Giuliani.

"Giuliani has been known to respond aggressively," said Baruch College professor David Birdsell, an expert on debates. "He's got to leave that behind in New York and project a sunnier Giuliani."

Tonight's debate is only the beginning of the California campaign. Parsky, a senior economic adviser to McCain this time around, said the dynamic in California has changed for Republicans since Reagan, Bush and Bush's father campaigned in the state in the 1980s and 1990s. Until the recent rule changes, money was all that mattered in a state where a week's worth of television ads can cost about $3 million.

Now, Parsky said, "it will require a good organization, an organization that's focused on going into local markets, and candidates that have enough resources to make their views known."

Senior aides to the candidates said they are examining novel ways to marshal their resources to compete in specific congressional districts in California, such as highly targeted mail that costs much less than television commercials. By doing so, they might pick up delegates without having to spend money in the state's largest television markets.

Los Angeles is the second-most-expensive media market, after New York City and just ahead of Chicago, strategists said.

"You can target messages into districts where there are very few Republicans with the microtargeting techniques that a modern campaign uses," said a Republican operative familiar with McCain's campaign strategy. "You take off huge amounts of delegates in a very cost-effective way."

While California may have a better chance of being a big factor in the race, top strategists for the leading Republican candidates remain focused intently on Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, where they said early voting could trigger an unstoppable momentum for the winners of those states.

If one candidate wins all three of those, voters in California and the other states Feb. 5 could quickly fall in line behind someone they see as a winner. That's largely what has happened in most previous elections.

Don't forget momentum

New York, New Jersey and Tennessee are among the states that will hold Feb. 5 primaries, and at least seven others are trying for that date.

"At the end of the day, it's going to be momentum. Who has the momentum out of the early primary states?" said Steve Merksamer, a California lawyer and former chief of staff to Republican Gov. George Deukmejian in the 1980s. California is "completely up for grabs, but at the end of the day it's going to come down to who has the best organization."

The early indication is that that honor may belong to Giuliani, who has lined up six congressional endorsements, including those of Reps. Ed Royce, George Radanovich and David Dreier. He also has won endorsements from some key conservatives in the state Legislature. McCain also has begun to build an organization in the state, signing on the state's former secretary of state.

In a late March poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, Giuliani led with 33 percent, McCain followed with 19 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had 14 percent and Romney trailed with 7 percent.

But veteran California Republicans said the state's liberal reputation and its centrist Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, don't necessarily mean Giuliani and McCain will do well in the Republican primary, which is closed to independents and Democrats.

"There's no question it skews very conservative," said Rob Stutzman, a Republican consultant who served as communications director for Schwarzenegger. "I reject any notion that because California is a blue state, the moderate GOP candidates will do well out here in the GOP primary."

Stutzman said, for example, that Romney could target pockets of conservative voters who care deeply about immigration and social issues. Many of those voters live inland along the state's rural Interstate 5 corridor. Others live in historically Democratic districts that were ignored when the state was an all-or-nothing affair.

"It really makes it a lot more interesting," Stutzman said. "It makes it different than most years, that's for sure."

Material from the New York Daily News and The Associated Press is included in this report.