California’s New Starring Role in Presidential Primaries
By bumping up its primary from March to Super Tuesday, writes Bridget Johnson, California is finally more than just a ATM for cash-hungry presidential candidates - and Golden Staters are getting excited about it.
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An amazing thing happened in Los Angeles, and it didn’t even involve Britney Spears: Early this year, a slew of absentee ballots began showing up in mailboxes across the Golden State. And, unbelievably, the nominees haven’t even been decided yet! People care!
Does bumping up California’s primary from March really mean that, electorally, we matter now?
Before we finally became a part of Super Cowabunga Tuesday, this is how campaign season basically went: Presidential hopefuls would show up just long enough to snag a Randy’s donut and fistfuls of cash. Wasting no time on the little people and going straight for the moguls, candidates treated California as little more than a political ATM, stopping by just often enough to make the maximum withdrawal.
In the 2008 race, producer Jerry Bruckheimer has given to John McCain, as has the new owner of the Los Angeles Times, Sam Zell, who’s also given to Rudy Giuliani. Other Giuliani donors include Kelsey Grammer, Adam Sandler, “24″ producer Joel Surnow and producer David Zucker.
Not surprisingly, California really means cha-ching and bling for the Democrats, with Tom Hanks, Hugh Hefner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg, Paul Newman, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, Rob Reiner and, hey, Pauly Shore among the financial backers of Hillary Clinton. Not picking faves, many Clinton donors also have ponied up the dough for Barack Obama, like Spielberg and Hef. Obama has also found a friend in Jennifer Aniston and other Hollywood donors including David Geffen, Morgan Freeman, George Clooney and Halle Berry.
And the especially generous — or just politically confused — chairman of Paramount Pictures, Brad Grey, has spread the wealth among McCain, Giuliani, Clinton and Chris Dodd.
But standard cash withdrawals from the Bank of Hollywood aside, do politicians take California’s new starring role in Super Phat Tuesday seriously?
Rewind to mid-November, when I sat down with Giuliani on one of his swings through Cali. Barely had the words “California’s early primary this year –” come out of my mouth when Giuliani — who, er, used to have a big lead in this state — interjected “Good! Good!”
“Candidates usually don’t have a very good track record of showing up in California or spending much time here,” I said.
“I think I’ve exceeded this year the number of appearances that any Republican candidate has made in California in the year before an election since Ronald Reagan, I suspect,” Giuliani said in the first of many invocations of La-La Land’s beloved Gipper. “…And I honestly can tell you, if any of my opponents as a Republican is nominated they will close down their office in California the day after they get nominated. And I’m going to expand my office the day after I’m nominated.”
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