There has never been a more self-destructive Republican political campaign than the 1994 reelection drive of former California Gov. Pete Wilson.
But this year’s campaign might even surpass those levels of GOP self immolation.
Wilson’s commercials featured grainy black-and-white film of the San Ysidro border crossing, with illegal immigrants running into California unimpeded by Border Patrol agents or anyone else, and a menacing voice intoning, “They keep coming.”
There is no question that commercial favoring passage of the anti-illegal immigrant Proposition 187 helped reelect Wilson. By arousing extreme nativist emotions, he overcame a previously large lead held by his reelection opponent, Kathleen Brown, daughter of one former governor and sister of another.
So there was instant gratification from the campaign for Republicans. But the GOP has never recovered from it.
Aside from movie star muscleman Arnold Schwarzenegger, Wilson was the last Republican candidate elected to a top-of-the-ticket job in California. For immediately after that campaign, which also featured wide passage of 187, more than 2.5 million Latinos began the process of acquiring American citizenship. They feared they might be deported if they remained non-citizens, whether they were legal or illegal immigrants.
Almost all of them registered to vote Democratic, taking California from its previous swing state status into the safely Democratic category.