October 27, 2004

Back to the table of Contents Page

Classifieds

Palo Alto Online

The sure bet versus the wild card

by Bill D'Agostino

Few California Assembly races have attracted such diverse -- and unexpected -- dramatis personae as the one for the 21st district.

Such luminaries as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, U.S. counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and Caesar Chavez's daughter have played notable roles. Both Planned Parenthood and the NAACP have issued strong statements of support -- for the Republican candidate.

Kris Kobach, a pro-life Congressional candidate from Kansas, has even popped up.

The reason for the hubbub? Republican Steve Poizner, a Silicon Valley executive who has created a stir marketing himself as an Arnold Schwarzenegger-style moderate who cannot be bought by special interests. The strategy, along with the $5 million Poizner personally invested in the campaign, has forced Democrat Ira Ruskin to fight tooth-and-nail for a district that has traditionally shunned the GOP.

After all, Ruskin -- a longtime City Councilman from Redwood City -- is a classic Silicon Valley politician whose views should appeal to an area where Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans. His stand on such hot-button issues as education, workers' rights and the environment strongly -- and predictably -- follow the party line.

Poizner, however, is a wild card who criticizes the state's partisan-based gridlock, often breaking with the Republican party line and espousing reformist ideas mirroring the governor's promise to "blow up" Sacramento's boxes. Poizner has even drawn support from lifelong liberals.

"My goal is to start a political revolution that will take on the problems of government ... one that changes the focus in Sacramento from partisanship to problem solving," he modestly noted on his campaign Web site.

Fearing the appeal of those ideas and Poizner's astonishing war chest, heavyweight Democrats have poured money and prestige into the race in an attempt to throw the Republican candidate's beliefs into doubt -- a task made easier by Poizner's lack of a public record.

Poizner never showed much interest in politics, until recently. In fact, longtime friends were initially astonished to discover his desire to win a seat in the Assembly.

"It did come as a surprise, because he wasn't active in any kind of student politics," said Bob Kagle, a fellow scholar at Stanford University's business school in the late 1970s. "His purpose was to get a good education and do well. ... He was never frivolous. He was not the kind to joke around, he was just business."

Poizner, a 47-year-old Texas native, received his MBA in 1980. A couple of years later, he led the Palo Alto Jaycees as the national organization sued the local chapter for admitting female members. The case eventually made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, with Poizner a strong equal rights advocate.

The Palo Alto chapter, along with its fellow groups in other communities, won the suit and struck a blow against gender discrimination in service clubs.

"A lot of other people might not have rallied the troops," recalled Palo Altan Sylvie Way, a lifelong Democrat who worked with Poizner on the case. "They might have said, 'Oh this isn't worth it.' He said, 'This isn't right -- women should be members.'"

Poizner's greatest success in the business realm came from founding SnapTrack, a company that created GPS technology allowing cell phones to be located, an especially useful advance during an emergency.

"I got the sense that it was important for Steve to do good while he was doing well," said Kagle, a partner at Benchmark Capital, which funded some of Poizner's companies. "I've never, ever seen Steve as a power-seeking kind of an animal, like many politicians. He's doing this because he wants to help."

Qualcomm bought SnapTrack for $1 billion, giving Poizner the financial freedom to pursue politics. In 2001, he was picked to be a White House Fellow, an intense program where a handful of people from different backgrounds get an inside peek at the Washington beltway. It was made all the more intense by Poizner's timing -- he was picked to work under terrorism chief Richard Clarke a few days before the Sept. 11 attacks.

After returning from Washington, Poizner volunteered for a year as a teacher in San Jose's Mount Pleasant High School. He spent the first semester watching, getting accredited and lecturing a few lessons. During the second semester, he taught one class about American government, under the guidance of a full-time teacher. "Since he worked with one class, he understands the demands of five... he understands what teachers have to deal with," said Art Darin, who was the school's principal last year.

Poizner said education drives him in the race, and he constantly notes his role in creating various groups to support reform.

In October, Poizner and others announced a new group aiming to reduce the threshold for voter approval of education-related parcel taxes from two-thirds to 55 percent.

"Steve really represents -- above all the labels, the 'D' and the 'R' labels -- he's a problem-solver," said Natalie Lui, the campaign's community relation's manager.

Another of the new group's leaders was Assemblyman Joe Simitian, the Democrat who vacated the 21st Assembly seat to run for state Senate. Simitian raised eyebrows by working with Poizner, and garnered criticism from such Democratic leaders as Congresswoman Anna Eshoo.

In an 80-page pamphlet sent to voters, Poizner drew on numerous sources to create a guidebook for reforming the state's budget and political system while protecting women's rights and the environment.

In his own 60-page booklet for voters, Ruskin, 60, is portrayed as a man who rose from a quite different set of circumstances to create an impressive political resume.

Growing up in the Bronx, Ruskin suffered from a rare chronic illness that kept him isolated for much of his youth. Although successfully treated in his early teens, the experience left him with a unique view of the world.

"Growing up -- until I was cured -- I was always outside the mainstream of life," Ruskin wrote in his pamphlet. "It gave me an understanding of the difficulties faced by those who confront physical, mental and other adversities, especially children who can't enjoy the things in life normal people take for granted."

During his junior year of college, Ruskin transferred to UC Berkeley where he protested against the Vietnam War and led a march against university officials seeking to squelch debate. Earlier in this campaign race, Caesar Chavez's daughter penned a letter endorsing Ruskin, citing his support for the United Farm Workers during that early period in his life.

After getting a master's degree from Stanford's Communications Department, Ruskin formed a media company that primarily creates training videos for corporate clients.

After a failed campaign a year earlier, he was elected to the Redwood City Council in 1995. Ruskin's accomplishments during his nine-and-a-half year tenure on Redwood City's City Council are vast. He's promotes his own work on education, helping schools build media centers; on elder abuse, requiring that police offices have access to senior homes; and on fiscal reform, creating the city's first budget-reserve policy.

"There's not an area of public policy that I have not worked with people in this district to create substantive change for the people in this district," Ruskin said during a recent debate.

His most notable regional accomplishment was working to pass legislation to give local cities more heft to make San Francisco fix the region's unstable Hetch Hetchy water supply.

"He was quite effective in working with the legislators that we had to deal with," said Palo Alto Mayor Bern Beecham, who worked with Ruskin on the effort and is one of the rare Republicans supporting him. Ruskin is now the chair of a board of city officials overseeing the project, which stalled this year after initial momentum.

On the council, Ruskin has a reputation as a careful thinker. When the community was embroiled in a controversy about the best place to build a skateboard park, he and Redwood City Vice Mayor Barbara Pierce visited other communities with similar facilities.

"It's that kind of effort he puts into things," Pierce said. "He doesn't come to things lightly."

Environmental groups say Ruskin has got a strong record, working to protect open space and conserve water.

"He's the only City Council in our jurisdiction who has (consistently) sought out our club's help and thoughts on a variety of issues," said Melissa Hippard, the director for the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club, which endorsed Ruskin.

Although Ruskin's philosophy and record are easy to pin down, Poizner has proved much more slippery. For one thing, most of his campaign ads and literature have downplayed -- or outright ignored -- his status as a Republican candidate.

He has also donated to the campaigns of a few Republican candidates, including $2,000 to President George W. Bush earlier this year.

Ruskin argues those donations demonstrate how Poizner's views differ from the district's voters. He is also using them to fuel partisan fires already rampant in the Bay Area due to national politics. The day after Ruskin ran his first TV advertisement noting the Bush contribution, a woman immediately walked into his campaign office and donated $200.

Ruskin's campaign also notes that Poizner sent additional donations to pro-life, GOP candidates Kris Kobach, a candidate for Congress in Kansas who served with Poizner as a White House Fellow, and Guy Houston, a Republican assemblyman in the East Bay.

"They're not going to buy candy with this money," Ruskin said. "He's enabling their policy. He's enabling them to put assault weapons on the street. ... He's enabling them to move closer to eliminating a woman's right to choose. He's enabling them to spoil the environment."

Poizner immediately struck back with a series of advertisements condemning Ruskin's tactics as dirty politics, and noted the truth of his campaign contributions are more complex than the Democrat has portrayed.

"My opponent would love to nationalize this race and make this a contest between him and the President," Poizner said. "If he does that, he'll win."

Federal Election Commission records show Poizner has given to more Democrats than Republicans, including $2,000 to Sen. John Kerry in 2001 and $10,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 2000.

"If I had to do all over again, I wouldn't do it," Poizner said of the various donations. He has refused to say which Presidential candidate he supports.

"If Senator McCain was running, if Mayor Giuliani was running, I wouldn't be ambivalent about it at all," Poizner said. "I huge qualms about both (Bush and Kerry).

"... The last thing I want to do is get involved in any other race at this point."

The attacks eventually ignited a surprising backlash against Ruskin, especially after the California Democratic Party sent a letter signed by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. Soon after, a TV crew caught the mayor claiming he never approved the letter. Newsom later reportedly partially recanted, saying he authorized support for Ruskin but not the specific letter's wording.

Afterward, both the NAACP and Planned Parenthood unpredictably came to Poizner's support. The NAACP criticized the Newsom letter (which noted that "African-Americans were once defined in the Constitution as only 3/5 of a person.") as "race-baiting," while Planned Parenthood confirmed Poizner's pro-choice views.

For undecided voters, the race may come down to the kind of person they want in the Assembly.

Do they want a lifelong Democrat who has the traditional experience for a Silicon Valley politician?

"I think the issue of experience is really critical," Ruskin said. "I have the experience of getting things done, of actually balancing budgets for people in public funds, of actually creating fiscal reform, of actually protecting the environment, of actually improving public schools with a political solution.

"I think that people know where I stand. They can look at my record. They can look at and it say, 'I understand where he's at and what he's done and that he's been able to do these things.' I think that's of enormous importance because politics is not a science, it's an art form more than it is anything else."

Or do they want someone more symbolic of a Silicon Valley resident -- rich, entrepreneurial, socially liberal and fiscally conservative?

"It's time to really change the whole tenor and mix of the people in the Legislature," Poizner said at a recent debate. "The fact is the Legislature is full of people that are extreme from one party or the other. It's time to send a different type of person to the Legislature who will work with people across party lines and focus on problem solving to get this great state back on track."

Staff Writer Bill D'Agostino can be e-mailed at bdagostino@paweekly.com.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.