At the end of 2001, California Gov. Gray Davis looked like he was in serious trouble, with a negative job rating brought about by his perceived handling of the state\u2019s electricity problems. And the most formidable Republican lining up to take him on was recruited by none other than Karl Rove and the Bush White House itself \u2013 former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, a moderate Republican who had won twice in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. In a December 2001 survey by the respected, nonpartisan Field Poll, Riordan was leading Davis 43-36, with only 39 percent of voters indicating they were inclined to re-elect Davis (and even 33 percent of Democrats saying they would probably vote against the Democratic Governor).<\/p>\n
Riordan launched his primary campaign by ignoring the other two GOP candidates, Sec. of State Bill Jones, the only Republican then in statewide office, and newcomer William E. Simon Jr., a businessman and son of former Nixon Treasury Secretary William Simon. In a fall \u201901 Field Poll, Riordan sported a 27-point lead on Jones and a 41-point advantage over Simon. Riordan\u2019s primary pitch to GOP primary voters was that as a Republican who supported a woman\u2019s right to choose, he had the best chance of defeating Davis in this overwhelming pro-choice state.<\/p>\n
But the Davis campaign, lead by Chief Strategist Garry South, turned the tables on Riordan by running $10 million worth of ads reminding voters of Riordan\u2019s previous financial support for anti-abortion groups and his national chairmanship of the campaign to confirm the anti-Roe v. Wade Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. Then, just as Riordan vehemently protested, the coup de grace: a videotape of Riordan himself, a devout Catholic, telling a TV interviewer in 1991 that he \u201cstrongly\u201d supported the Catholic Church\u2019s opposition to abortion, calling it \u201cmurder.\u201d South had acquired and squirreled away the videotape in 1993 when he worked as Communications Director for the candidate Riordan beat in the Los Angeles mayor\u2019s race that year.<\/p>\n
When the hypocrisy and mendacity of Riordan\u2019s flip-flop soaked in, his support evaporated almost overnight among both pro-choice GOP women and anti-abortion activists, with both groups just concluding he was lying. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen so much movement in such a short period of time like this,\u201d said Mark Baldassare, who conducts polling for the non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California. On Primary Election Day, Riordan received only 31 percent of the votes, buried by the novice Bill Simon, who got 49 percent.<\/p>\n
Newsweek, in a story on the GOP primary upset titled \u201cSouthern Strategy,\u201d called South \u201ca one-man brain trust on the battlements of Fort California [who\u2019s] shown a knack for foiling Rove\u2019s plans.\u201d Bruce Cain, Director of the Institute for Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley described South\u2019s strategy to The New York Times as a \u201cpolitical hall of fame\u201d move. South went on to direct Davis\u2019s successful re-election effort, helping Davis become only the third Democratic Governor in the state\u2019s history to win a second four-year term, and the first since Jerry Brown 24 years before.<\/p>\n