California Crucible. Jonathan Bell

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СКАЧАТЬ original) He argued that the key issues of public power, economic development, and individual civil rights were interconnected, linked by the central nexus of the state. His statement was not a restatement of the underlying principles of the New Deal, as California had missed out on the political upheavals of the 1930s. It was more a new statement of purpose for the forces of the left in postwar California: “Party responsibility must be restored in California…. Non-partisanship…has come more and more to mean non-activity, non-responsibility, and non-leadership…. The rapid and continuing growth of our State means that our pressing problems can wait no longer for solution. Only leadership not tied down by the ever clinging ties of reactionary and special privilege forces can get the job done.”⁴³

      The clear left turn in California Democratic politics signaled by Roosevelt's announcement was reinforced when he gave a series of campaign speeches to different audiences on the subject of the welfare state. In terms similar to those employed by Girvetz in his extension of the ideas of John Dewey, or Richard Titmuss or Tony Crosland in their reinterpretation of socialism in Britain in the 1950s, Roosevelt attempted to associate individual rights with collective action. Those who shared these values believed that the individual possessed intrinsic value that meant no individual could be neglected: the state “should foster those economic and social conditions in which the individual can be really free. Its aim, in a word, is justice—not justice in a narrow, legalistic sense, but real, substantive justice.” Roosevelt used the example of a dynamic, growing state like California to argue for a vibrant public sector through which to manage the state's economic growth: “Perhaps the problems of a small and simple pastoral society or a frontier community can be dealt with through the individual exercise of uprightness and charity. But amid the incredible complexity of our highly industrialized state this cannot be sufficient.” At points his increasingly righteous tone became reminiscent of his father in his 1936 election campaign, as he proclaimed himself “weary of the pious cant of those reactionaries who have arrogated to themselves the custody of all the traditional virtues (except charity perhaps) and who somehow confuse freedom with the practices of the more predatory industrialists.” But the underlying philosophical current at work was more reminiscent of FDR's 1944 Economic Bill of Rights message that set the tone for California liberals far more than the less specific relief, recovery, and reform message of the 1930s.⁴⁴ In a telling attempt to pull his listeners' attention away from past battles and onto the present he argued that the “real issue before us is not whether in fact we shall have the welfare state. The American people have already decided that. They want more than freedom in the abstract. They have already decided that a society as fabulously wealthy and productive as our own can and must make provision for all of its members…. The achievement of a genuine welfare society, whose government chosen by the people acts in the interest of all of them, may be delayed and hindered. But it cannot be averted.” This “welfare society” included a shared commitment to civil rights, nondiscrimination, and universal access to health care, issues that framed political debate in California for the 1950s.⁴⁵

      Given the unfavorable national political climate and the overwhelming advantage incumbent Governor Warren enjoyed, Roosevelt's campaign seemed an unlikely prospect from the start. Warren barely mentioned Roosevelt in his own reelection campaign, and Roosevelt's increasingly desperate attempts in his speeches and broadcasts to cast Warren as a far right-wing Republican in sheep's clothing and to create as much political space between the two candidates as possible in part represented an attempt simply to get noticed and create some relevancy and purpose for his faltering campaign.⁴⁶ The strongly left-of-center tenor of Roosevelt's campaign also represented a calculated strategy based on the findings of polls taken before and during the 1950 race. In the summer of 1949 Jimmy hired a polling firm to establish whether a run for office would be feasible, and the results bear close investigation. The question that mattered—would Roosevelt win—did not look promising: 52 percent of those polled said that if an election were held tomorrow they would vote for Warren, as opposed to 23 percent who preferred Roosevelt. But the election was still eighteen months away. Roosevelt was swayed by the polling data dealing with the depth of feeling of those surveyed: 96 percent of Roosevelt supporters supported his politics and candidacy strongly, compared to 72 percent of Warren supporters; 24 percent of Warren supporters were classed as “weak” in their commitment to Warren. In addition, 15 percent of those asked how they would vote if an election were held tomorrow were undecided. The polling suggested that Roosevelt had to campaign on themes that differentiated himself from Warren: “Those voting for a candidate other than Warren or who are undecided have for the most part a well-formulated negative attitude toward Warren,” the poll revealed. “On the other hand, those voting for a candidate other than Roosevelt or who are undecided display merely a lack of knowledge about Roosevelt.” A full third of those polled thought that Warren was a Democrat, or a candidate of both parties, helped by the cross-filing system in California elections and overwhelming media coverage of his governorship; 43 percent of registered Democrats planned to vote for Warren in the Democratic primary, as opposed to just 5 percent of Republicans who thought they would cast their Republican primary ballot for Roosevelt.⁴⁷ The only hope for Roosevelt's campaign was to convince voters that Warren was an enemy of the Democratic Party and Roosevelt an heir to his father's legacy in a state where registered Democrats still outnumbered Republicans by a near two to one margin.

      This fact was reinforced in the wake of the primary elections in July 1950. Warren was the overwhelming winner of his own primary and had gained an alarming number of votes in the Democratic primary, but a deeper probing of voting attitudes among the 2,241 adults surveyed across the state revealed a potentially significant weakness in people's commitment to the Republicans. For one thing, the overwhelming registration bias to the Democrats—53 percent Democratic to 26 percent Republican, and 21 percent unaffiliated— at least suggested a serious disjuncture between the political complexion of California and election results. More significantly, 48 percent of respondents said that the Democrats were doing the most good for the country compared to 30 percent who answered Republican, but many did not know Warren was a Republican. “The survey shows that the majority of the voters are registered or will register as Democrats because they believe that party has done more for them. The majority of those who consider themselves Independent voters are either ‘weak' Warren votes or ‘Don't know' Senatorial votes at this time, despite the fact that in the main they lean toward Democratic party thinking. A strong united front of the Democratic candidates would be a psychological factor towards crystallizing their Democratic voting behavior.” Though the poll warned that ideology was a difficult concept that could send mixed messages in the rough and tumble of a campaign, and terms such as “Fair Dealer,” “Reactionary,” “Liberal,” and “Radical” had multiple meanings and were “newspaper terms and not part of the average person's vocabulary,” there was a clear message that some sort of left-wing platform was the only way of creating a serious challenge to bipartisan Warren. “There should be a clear understanding in the voter's mind that James Roosevelt has developed and stands on his own platform—a platform that has meaning for the problems of the State of California. Roosevelt should be identified as a Progressive Democrat…. The lower middle and lower economic groups, pro-Roosevelt, did not vote in their true number as did the pro-Warren economic groups, particularly the upper income group. The need for planning and organizing the ‘get out the vote' committee is obvious. It should be one vast correlated organization under the Democratic Party, with all the various pro-Roosevelt units working together.”⁴⁸

      The polling companies could not factor in the bitterly factionalized nature of the California Democrats that made such a coordinated campaign impossible, nor could they rationalize the highly personalized nature of California politics that made party-line voting difficult to organize. Even the Roosevelt and Douglas campaigns, both running for statewide office and both sharing the same political principles as well as the same party label, were wary of working together. Indeed, Earl Warren was genuinely angry when Helen Douglas came out and asked her supporters to vote for Roosevelt as well, as Warren had never openly backed Richard Nixon, Douglas's opponent, and such open party loyalty was often seen as unsavory in California.⁴⁹ The Roosevelt campaign did, however, expose the fact that there existed in California, underneath the ongoing imbroglio about communism СКАЧАТЬ