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Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel Weintraub

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August 23, 2003

Simon: 'It's somebody else's turn'

Republican Bill Simon dropped out of the race for governor for what he said was an "obvious" reason: there were too many Republicans and his campaign wasn't going anywhere.

"For a couple of days I really had been thinking it over," Simon said in an interview with me this morning. "As the race started to crystalize, in my mind it just became evident there were too many Republicans in. I just thought it’s somebody else’s turn."

Simon made the decision to quit the race for governor Friday night after consulting with campaign aides and supporters and his wife, Cindy, and brother Peter, he said.

He announced the decision to his staff at 8:00 this morning and then called volunteers to break the news. After that, he said, spoke with Arnold Schwarzenneger and left a message for Tom McClintock. (And the Ueberroth campaign reports he also left a message for Peter.) But he didn't endorse any candidate in the race.

"I just wished him luck," Simon said of his call to Arnold. "I said I have decided to step out of the race. I wish you good luck. He was very nice. It was a very friendly, cordial conversation."

Simon added: "I think there are people in the race who are going to carry the torch as far as some of the ideas we had…I was trying to do the noble thing."

Simon won 42 percent of the vote in last year’s election, losing to Gray Davis by about 360,000 votes. While he accurately warned that the state’s budget woes were worse than Davis was willing to acknowledge, he was hurt by the governor’s allegations of ethnical lapses in his business career – most of which were later shown to be untrue or exaggerated – and his own campaign’s self-inflicted wounds. The low point for Simon came when he accused Davis of breaking the law by accepting a campaign donation in a government building, and provided what he said was photographic evidence to back up the charge, only to find that the picture was taken in a private home in Santa Monica.

Simon was preparing to release a detailed plan for balancing the state budget on Monday. His campaign had provided an advance copy to me for a column to be published Sunday comparing the plans of the major candidates. His proposal, had he delivered it, would have been the most detailed of any candidate, listing billions of dollars in specific spending cuts while calling for a fundamental restructuring of the way the state does business. Much of that material was borrowed from recent studies by the Performance Institute and the Reason Foundation and might now find its way into the Schwarzenegger policy shop.

"We will publish our budget plan," Simon said. "I hope people will pick and choose from it."

Simon said he will consider running again for public office in California or "serving in some capacity."

I wouldn't be shocked to see him heading up a commission on government reform in a Schwarzenegger Administration, if there ever is one.

NOTE: Should have said this earlier....Simon's name will still appear on the ballot. But with 134 others there, it's hard to believe that very many people are going to be hunting down a guy who says he doesn't want you to vote for him.

UPDATE: Tom McClintock says he is in the race to the finish:

I am genuinely sorry that Bill Simon is dropping out of the race. He offered a perspective to the debate that will be missed. But his decision to withdraw intensifies my resolve to stay and fight.

At stake in this campaign, is the future of California - and that decision belongs to the people of California and must not be left to the country club back rooms. If the most qualified candidate must defer every time a celebrity or a millionaire casts a longing eye on public office, we’ve lost something very important in our democracy, and it’s called merit.

They said that War Admiral couldn’t be beat and shouldn't have to run a race against the likes of Seabiscuit. Let me assure everyone that I am one horse that is in this race to the finish line.

McClintock is now at about 12 percent (according to LA Times and at least one private poll) and probably believes that much of the Simon vote will flow his way. If it does, he would pull nearly even with where Arnold is reported to be in the Times poll. Then he might start calling for Arnold's withdrawal!