• English Site
• > World
• > United States

The Primary Epicenter

California Braces for Super Tuesday

By Gregor Peter Schmitz in Los Angeles

With 36 million people and almost a fifth of Democratic delegates, a win in California on Tuesday is critical to any presidential campaign. But the state's fractured voters are a nightmare to persuade -- and predict.

Los Angeles -- Numbers and predictions are her life, and that's why Susan Pincus has been raging for half an hour already. Just a week ago, she conducted a poll for the Los Angeles Times that showed Hillary Clinton 17 points ahead of Barack Obama. Among Republican candidates, her poll showed John McCain 10 points ahead of Mitt Romney. But the Kennedy clan hadn't thrown its weight behind Obama yet, and Arnold Schwarzenegger hadn't endorsed McCain. Oprah hadn't campaigned for Obama in Los Angeles, and Bill Clinton hadn't yet visited the African-American churches in the area.

In short: A lot has happened in California this week alone. It's the epicentre of the presidential battle right now. "We're seeing some polls with Obama and Clinton neck-and-neck again, or even with Obama ahead," Pincus sighs. She's sitting in a conference room in the mighty LA Times office building sifting through piles of figures. For a pollster, she's astonishingly ironic about her profession. "I'm always amazed at these experts on TV who can predict everything. No one really knows what's going to happen in California."

The massive state is the grand prize of this week's Super Tuesday, when voters in 22 Democratic primaries and 21 Republican primaries will decide on their favorite candidates. A win in California means 411 candidates at the Democratic convention, nearly one-fifth of the total. For Republicans the state represents about a tenth of its party delegation.

But California is a nightmare for opinion researchers -- it's home to 36 million residents, it's a country within a country and an economic powerhouse comparable to France. It's made up of important but nonetheless under-researched minorities who together form a majority -- 36 percent of Californians are Latino, 12 percent Asian and 7 percent African-American. In a sense, it's the pulse of the nation -- but it's a hard one to measure. Not least because plush Beverly Hills luxury exists just a few minutes' drive away from the rough-and-tumble streets of East Los Angeles, where Spanish is the only language spoken. It's these two worlds that can decide the fate of the Democrats, because Hispanics make up at least a fourth of their voters.

"A vote for the fatherland"

So Obama's most important campaigner, Ted Kennedy, is standing on a playing field at East Los Angeles Community College. For a moment one imagines oneself back in 1968, the year Robert Kennedy triumphed in the Democratic primary here -- and was assassinated on the day of his victory. A Kennedy is speaking once more, but this time he has gray hair and a belly. The younger brother of Robert and John F. Kennedy wears a golden watch, but he rumbles like a union boss: For more than 40 years Kennedys have fought for the blue-collar worker," he says. He talks about his work in the Senate, where he's served since 1962. He speaks of family, of faith, of hard work. All values the traditional Hispanic voters tell pollsters are important. The audience cheers, Kennedy says a few sentences in broken Spanish and quickly translates: "A vote for Obama is a vote for the people."

Jose Sanchez is one of the audience members. He's a warehouse worker here in Los Angeles, and both his kids attend the community college. He remembers the Clinton years fondly, but Obama has aroused his curiousity. "I get the feeling," Sanchez says, "that he has a better idea what it means to be an outsider." Sanchez's wife stops him, and says in Spanish: tell him about the TV ad. So Jose tells about the TV ad that Obama's been running in Spanish the past few days. The most important sentence goes like this: "Hope has led me to where I am today. With a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas -- and a story that's only possible in the United States of America." Obama is paying almost $4 million to run ads like this in California's expensive media market in the run-up to Super Tuesday.

He needs to catch up among Hispanic voters here -- voters who until recently gave Clinton much of her edge. "That's why Ted Kennedy is so important," says Art Torres, the head of California's Democratic Party. "Latinos here hold the Kennedy clan in high regard. Ted can really launch Obama. It's crazy to think Latinos wouldn't vote for a black man. Los Angeles had a black mayor for a long time, and he won a majority of the Latino vote. But they want to get to know Obama better."

Torre has to stay neutral, but he still starts to compare Obama's campaign with Bobby Kennedy's without being asked: "this elation, this feeling of a new beginning." But Torre knows something else: "The Clintons have always paid a lot of attention to California. Bill Clinton was here 70 times as president, and his daughter went to college here."

Like a Concerned Mother

And now they're coming again. On Friday, Chelsea Clinton appeared, and on Saturday her mother Hillary took the stage at the California State University Los Angeles. She speaks of family values, of her daughter. "Lots of Latinos see Hillary Clinton as a strong mother figure," explains Torres. And like a concerned mother Clinton focuses on her battle to secure health insurance for all Americans -- something that no Democratic candidate can get away without. She tries to portray Obama, whose health insurance plan is slightly different, as a traitor to the idea of universal health care.

So goes the bitter battle between the Democratic rivals. It will be repeated in every precinct. Thanks to the proportional division of delegates, a close race could mean that Clinton gets the majority of votes -- but Obama has almost as many delegates. Indeed, the Clintons are so concerned that husband Bill rushed unheralded into the fray on Sunday with lightning-fast appearances in four African-American churches.

The Republican fight pales in comparison. The competitors have raised less money than their Democratic rivals, and they don't have the money for expensive ad campaigns. But the stakes are high here too. Because only registered Republicans can vote in the state's primary, this could be the last chance for Romney to stop John McCain. The Arizona senator is leading in national polls, but struggling with the Republican base.

Romney's trying desperately to breathe life into these doubts. He's standing in Fountain Valley in front of a dismal furniture warehouse accusing McCain of only showing leadership on "liberal" issues. "Liberal" is Republican code for leftist -- support for illegal immigrants or reluctance to lower taxes, for example.

McCain's so far ahead in the California polls that he can afford to ignore these attacks. Mark McKinnon, the ad guru who helped George W. Bush win two elections, has already produced a new TV ad for McCain: the candidate as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, then in an intimate discussion with Ronald Reagan and, finally, it shows his support for a surge of American troops in Iraq. And if that weren't enough, now California's powerful "Governator" is behind him. "Senator McCain," Arnold Schwarzenegger said last week, "is a real American hero."

Dissension in the Governor's Mansion

But don't expect universal support for McCain in the Governor's Mansion. On Sunday, three women campaigned for Obama on the University of California-Los Angeles campus. There was Oprah Winfrey, the black talk show legend, Obama's wife Michelle, and John F. Kennedy's daughter Caroline Kennedy, who had written an editorial the week before comparing Obama's power to inspire the nation to that of her legendary father. As the women spoke, a fourth suddenly appeared -- Maria Shriver, Schwarzenegger's wife and another Kennedy. She made a surprise announcement: She was supporting Barack Obama. "Obama's not about himself. He's about us," she told the crowd jubilantly.

In front of the stage, an Obama advisor looked on ecstatically. "There are 3 million undecided voters in California. If these women can mobilize just a few hundred thousand of them to vote for us, we can win," he said. Then he turned and looked out at the 10,000 rapt spectators. "It's a great show, no matter what," he grinned.

Indeed, this race may be all about the White House, but California is still the home of Show Business.