Editorial: Steve Garvey wants to make the California GOP relevant again. Good luck with that
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Can baseball legend and former Dodger Steve Garvey make the GOP relevant in California again? He will have to if he wants a shot at winning the race for U.S. Senate seat held until recently by Dianne Feinstein.
The 74-year-old Republican announced his run for the seat on Tuesday, entering a race that has been dominated by three prominent congressional Democrats — Reps. Barbara Lee, Katie Porter and Adam B. Schiff. His plan for overcoming the handicap of his party's declining registration among voters and dismal track record in statewide elections? Apparently trying to pretend he isn't really a Republican.
Read more: Former Dodgers star and Republican Steve Garvey enters U.S. Senate race
When asked by Fox 11 News political reporter Elex Michaelson to talk about how his win might help the Republicans in Washington, Garvey wouldn't go there. Instead he said, “This is a Steve Garvey campaign for all the people and building a consensus.”
That’s a nice sentiment, but it does smack of the kind of magical thinking that has beset the increasingly irrelevant California Republican Party over the last couple of decades. Its registration has slipped to less than one-quarter of California voters and no Republican has won a statewide race since 2006 when Steve Poizner was elected insurance commissioner and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was reelected. (And, let's be honest, Schwarzenegger was at best a Republican-lite who benefited politically from marrying into the Democratic political dynasty of the Kennedy family.)
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Yet the GOP in California continues to cling to its positions on guns, abortion and immigration that alienate most Golden State voters and to embrace fringe culture war issues. A party behind the movement to ban books that dare to talk about race or gender issues, and that wants to out transgender kids seems to be more interested in deepening political divides rather than bridging them.
Less than two weeks ago, moderates in the party hoped to tone down the state GOP's extreme platform during the fall convention by removing official opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion. It was voted down. “They refuse to let us be competitive,” Charles Moran, chair of the LGBTQ group Log Cabin Republicans, told Politico. “They want to fight about battles that the Supreme Court and the Legislature have already fought.”
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Indeed, despite his reluctance to embrace the GOP, Garvey is well aligned with it. He voted for President Trump twice (and might in 2024 as well). He opposes abortion (though he says he won't vote for federal laws that restrict abortion rights) and he won't assign blame for who is responsible for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He also fits in with the GOP's record of running people with no experience in government who somehow believe they can solve all of its ills. Garvey also has a fair amount of baggage — financial mismanagement and cringy interpersonal relationships — that will certainly be unpacked during the campaign.
Garvey might have been a beloved Dodger and San Diego Padre, but he's no Schwarzenegger and this isn't 2006. Remember Caitlyn Jenner, another former sports star who thought celebrity would be enough to win? Even notoriety as a member of the extended Kardashian clan could not save her disastrous run for governor in the 2021 recall race.
As far as attracting voters from across party lines, good luck. It will take more than a Trump-supporting baseball star from the last century to make the party relevant in California again.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
