His white shirt pressed, the chef glides through the crowd like a ship in full sail, checking tables, nodding to waiters. His world is full of hurry but he is not rushed. He sits down in the shade, wiping his brow amid a lunchtime crowd of gunrunners, clan elders, beggars and bankers.

They drift down unnamed roads toward his tables, the air sweet with meat, crushed vegetables, sprigs of spearmint. Scores of diners at a time cram elbow to elbow slurping and scooping at the edge of town, where big trucks haul white stone down from the mountains.

They know Abdulkarim Harazi has three wives, 18 children, a worn dagger and the humor of a man not done in by adversity. When he speaks, his customers, sopping broth with soft bread, listen, knowing that no matter how circuitous or embellished the tale, there’ll be wisdom waiting at the end.

“You handle a big family with justice,” says Harazi, pausing the way he does, eyes bright with mischief. “Justice means sleeping with one wife one night and another wife the next. This brings balance. Justice can’t control some things, though, like the passion of the heart.”

Harazi’s fires spit blue flames and hum like storms, searing blackened bowls filled with a traditional meat dish called fasha and a stew known as saltah. Thick with chilies, herbs, onions, potatoes, coriander and maybe a speck of cilantro, the meals bubble and cool beneath conversations of impatient men.

“Quality and cleanliness are the keys” to a fine meal, Harazi says.

His waiters have blistered fingers and gold-trimmed caps. From sunrise to just before dusk, they serve 1,300 pounds of beef and 660 pounds of vegetables to 4,000 diners at the Fakhi restaurant. Nobody rests, not the ladle men, nor the dicers, knives chopping, oil hissing at the culinary crossroads of the capital, where, for a brief moment and a few dollars, businessmen sit with junkmen for a taste that’s the same to everyone.

The main floor is shaded and dim, the tables long. Finding a seat requires cunning and swiftness and dodging men with quick hands. Some have guns, most have daggers. Outside, down steps faded by sunlight, more tables are lined beneath narrow shelters and there’s a feeling of an army encamped beneath the hills circling the city. From the road, amid clatter and the glow of fires, the word is that eating lunch anywhere else would be a pitiful miscalculation.

The men — not a woman in sight — speak of private misfortunes and national troubles. A land of deserts, rock ridges and sea coves, Yemen is both beautiful and tormented. Rebellions rattle north and south, Al Qaeda fighters roam the outlands and the Americans are talking about missile strikes and the cost of terror. Poorest country in Arab world, that’s what they keep saying, a place of thin wallets and drought. Here, though, you polish your spoon, stay away from the flame and eat.

“It’s simple,” says Harazi. “The cost of living is too high and the country is too unstable. It’s all about food and worry these days. There’s no hope because you can’t see anyone improving around you. I try to do the best for my children. Education, they must have that.”

He’s a solid man with thick hands and black stubble, settling into his chair like a priest hearing confessions. He knows that life needs places like this restaurant, reliable and intimate as home but without home’s predictability. You never know who might pull up on a motorcycle or amble in from the fringes. Harazi’s eyes gather them all, watching, ever watching.

By midafternoon the men are restless, waiting to dip into crinkly bags of shiny narcotic khat leaves that will mellow them out until way past sunset. It’s a ritual as common as sleeping or waking. Nearly everyone at the restaurant finishes lunch and chews khat, cheeks bulging, eyes calm, the world suddenly fixable.

“Khat makes you forget about things,” says Harazi. “Khat gives you many ideas, but behind them is no planning.”

He laughs.

Wheels spin through gravel; a tribal leader in an SUV arrives in the parking lot, draped by dust and a well-armed entourage. Diners pause. No shots fired. Spoons resume. The leader, kissing cheeks, slapping backs, finds a seat.

“Look at that,” Harazi says, “Barack Obama doesn’t have as many bodyguards.”

“How many employees do you have?” someone asks.

Harazi looks around and whispers.

“One hundred, but if the taxman comes, only 20.”

Food for thought at one culinary crossroads in Yemen

The leaders of the world’s 20 major economies on Friday ended a frequently rancorous two-day summit in this northeast Asian capital without reaching agreement on specific steps to avert damaging currency and trade wars.

There were far more setbacks than gains, but President Obama suffered the biggest disappointment, falling short in his attempt to forge a unified approach to boosting the global economy.

In one blow, G-20 members refused to endorse a U.S. effort to force China to raise the value of its currency, prolonging a bitter dispute that many say could eventually lead to a global trade war. Before world leaders left the city, they issued a watered-down statement agreeing merely to refrain from “competitive devaluation” of currencies.

The joint statement described their intent to promote growth while balancing trade and exchange rates and avoiding protectionist policies in general. U.S. officials described it as a substantial deal that will help relieve some of the pressure on countries suffering big trade deficits. But nations are under no binding obligation to follow the agreements.

The previous day, the U.S. and South Korea acknowledged that they remained in a stalemate over a free-trade agreement that has languished in the national legislatures of both nations.

In his final speech, Obama put a positive spin on a disappointing summit, saying that the world’s developed and developing economies have been successful in putting the global economy back on a path toward recovery.

Yet he acknowledged that the summit nations risk slipping back into the old imbalances that contributed to the global economic crisis.

Still, he would not admit defeat in back-door meetings that often seemed on the verge of breaking into hostility.

“The work that we do here is not going to seem dramatic. It is not always going to be world-changing. But step to step, what we’re doing is building stronger international mechanisms and institutions” and reducing tensions among nations, Obama said.

He also blamed the media, saying that the reporting on the G-20 summit has been “all about conflict,” while ignoring that what was accomplished.

He stressed that G-20 leaders made strides, including the development of a system to give the international community a mechanism to determine whether countries are engaging in unfair practices with their trading partners.

“Sometimes I think naturally there’s an instinct to focus on the disagreements,” the president said, when in fact “in each of these successive summits we’ve actually made progress.”

But time and again in Seoul, world leaders showed that they were in no mood to compromise and instead were headed toward broad, general pledges that did little to mask their inability to find common ground for immediate action.

At times, that failure to find consensus raised the specter of countries pursuing their own interests at the expense of coordinated and balanced global growth.

British Prime Minister David Cameron warned of the risks of that route at the summit opening, saying failure by the G-20 to accomplish some sort of global accommodation could lead to “a return to what happened in the 1930s: protectionism, trade barriers, currency wars, countries pursuing beggar-thy-neighbor policies; trying to do well for themselves but not caring about the rest of the world.”

Many countries, however, appeared to be doing just that. In particular, they took aim at the Federal Reserve’s recent decision to pump $600 billion into the U.S. financial system, a move that critics saw as an attempt to lower the value of the dollar and therefore make U.S. exports more competitive.

As the leaders gathered in Seoul, Bank of China Chairman Xiao Gang called the Fed’s move “dangerous,” writing in the semiofficial China Daily newspaper that it had driven the dollar down in value, raised expectations of inflation and hurt other economies. That position was backed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who said the U.S. was “pursuing a policy of currency weakening.”

U.S. officials declared they were doing no such thing. And, in fact, the U.S. dollar has been rising in value in recent days.

“We will never seek to weaken our currency as a tool to gain competitive advantage or to grow the economy,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told CNBC from Seoul. “It’s not an effective strategy for any country, and it’s not for the U.S. We’ll never do that.”

G-20 summit ends with watered-down agreement

After a survey of U.S. troops and their families, a Pentagon study group has concluded that the military can lift the ban on gays serving openly in uniform with only minimal and isolated incidents of risk to current war efforts, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The newspaper quoted two people familiar with a draft of the study, which is to be completed for Defense Secretary Robert Gates by Dec. 1., but with an uncertain public release date.

More than 70% of respondents to a survey sent to active-duty and reserve troops over the summer said the effect of repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays and lesbians in uniform would be positive, mixed or nonexistent, the sources told the newspaper.

The newspaper said the survey results have led the report’s authors to conclude that objections to openly gay colleagues would drop once troops were able to live and serve alongside them.

The long, detailed and nuanced report will almost certainly be used by opponents and supporters of repeal legislation to bolster their positions in what is likely to be a heated and partisan congressional debate. And it is expected to reveal challenges the services could face in overturning the long-held policy, including overcoming fierce opposition in some parts of the force — primarily in the Army and Marine Corps — even if they represent a minority.

The Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James Amos, last week said that with forces fighting in Afghanistan and still deployed in Iraq, now was the wrong time to lift the ban.

“This is not a social thing. This is combat effectiveness,” Amos said.

That brought a mild rebuke from Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, who said he was surprised that Amos had spoken publicly. He said the heads of the military services had committed to “look at the data and then make our recommendations privately.”

The Post said Gates, Mullen and uniformed and civilian leaders of the four military branches received copies of the draft report late last week.

The document totaled about 370 pages and is divided into two sections, the newspaper said. The first section explores whether repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” would harm unit readiness or morale. The second part of the report presents a plan for ending enforcement of the ban. It is not meant to serve as the military’s official instruction manual on the issue but could be used if military leaders agreed, one of the sources told the newspaper.

Among other questions, the survey asked whether having an openly gay person in a unit would have an effect in an intense combat situation. Although a majority of respondents signaled no strong objections, a significant minority is opposed to serving alongside openly gay troops. About 40% of the Marine Corps is concerned about lifting the ban, according to one of the people familiar with the report, the Post said.

Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said that of the 400,000 surveys sent randomly to troops, 115,052 responded. An additional 150,000 surveys were sent to spouses with 44,266 completed. Defense officials have said they were pleased with the response rate and believed it was enough to get an accurate sampling of the force.

President Obama has vowed to end the policy. A Democratic proposal to repeal the 1993 law already has passed the House as part of a broader defense policy bill that includes such popular provisions as a pay raise for the troops. But that same legislation sank in the Senate under Republican objections just weeks before the Nov. 2 elections.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has promised another vote by year’s end, although the political dynamics in this lame-duck session haven’t changed much. Gates has asked Congress to act before January, but Senate Democrats still hold a shaky majority and they are unlikely to give in to Republican demands for a protracted debate.

A Republican gay rights group, the Log Cabin Republicans, has challenged the constitutionality of the policy in court. The Obama administration on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to keep the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in place while a federal appeals court considers the issue.

The administration filed court papers in defense of an appeals court order that allowed “don’t ask, don’t tell” to go back into effect after a federal judge declared it unconstitutional and barred its enforcement. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco is reviewing the administration’s appeal.

The Log Cabin Republicans asked the Supreme Court to step into the case to reverse the appeals court decision that has allowed “don’t ask, don’t tell” to remain in effect despite the order by U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips.

Among several recommendations, the Pentagon report urges an end to the military ban on sodomy between consenting adults, regardless of what Congress or the federal courts might do about “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the source told the Post.

The report also concludes that gay troops should not be put into a special class for equal employment or discrimination purposes, that person said. The recommendation is based on feedback the study group obtained from gay troops and same-sex partners who said they do not want a special classification, according to the source.

The report recommends few, if any, changes to policy covering military housing and benefits because the military must abide by the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which does not recognize same-sex marriage.
Pentagon draft study shows low risk to ending ‘don’t ask’ policy

A dispute among influential Republican lawmakers over a ban on “earmark” spending threatens an area of potential bipartisan agreement between the GOP and White House in the aftermath of last week’s midterm election.

The incoming House Republican majority has proposed extending a moratorium on earmarks, which are funds requested by individual lawmakers for specific projects back home. On Tuesday, conservative Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina said that he would press his GOP colleagues in the Senate to adopt a similar moratorium when lawmakers returned to Washington next week.

But several senior Republican lawmakers consider earmarks part of their constitutional obligation to determine how federal money is spent. They disagree with election-year rhetoric that government spending can be reined in with a strict earmark ban. A ban is an idea that “doesn’t save any money,” said Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader.

The disagreement is surfacing at a crucial point. Republicans, fresh from winning control of the House and gaining seats in the Senate, will make their first attempt next week to convert ideas from successful political campaigns into governing policy.

Earmark spending is a favorite campaign symbol of government excess. Examples of pork projects go back years — among the most well-known is the “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska.

Yet attempts to limit lawmakers’ ability to steer funding to their home states regularly runs into dissent. Popular Capitol wisdom holds that one lawmaker’s pork is another’s vital infrastructure project, representing a road or hospital that would not get built without federal government funds.

The House GOP this year imposed a moratorium on earmarks within its own ranks as a way to burnish its conservative credentials heading into campaign season, particularly among “tea party” voters. Earmarks soared to unprecedented levels prior to 2006, the last time the GOP had been in the majority.

Senate Republicans, though, did not agree to such a ban. DeMint proposed a halt on earmarks this spring, but senators voted it down.

Now, in a first test of their newly bolstered numbers in Congress, Republicans in both chambers are returning to the issue. The GOP is intent on showing voters it understood the lesson of the election and the message of tea party conservatives who helped propel the party to power.

President Obama identified the earmark ban as an issue “we can work on together.” Rep. Eric Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, said he would like to take Obama up on the offer.

Yet old spending habits are hard to break among Congress members who see the power of the purse as one of their greatest strengths. Although earmarks make up a tiny fraction of the federal budget, they are an enormous source of power for lawmakers to provide resources to constituents.

The Republican leaders of the main House and Senate spending committees are divided on the question. Rep. Jerry Lewis of Redlands supports an earmark moratorium, while Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi does not.

In recent days, Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) has appeared on 10 conservative radio talk shows across the country with an appeal about the importance of such spending.

“People now realize you can’t have a ban on earmarks,” Inhofe said.

If Congress chooses not to direct spending, Inhofe argues, the responsibility will fall to the administration, which already exerts influence over its own pet projects in the president’s annual budget. Inhofe said his aim was to reform the earmarking process, not eliminate it.

The conservative Oklahoman, who is perhaps most widely known for calling global warming a hoax, is intent on branding earmark foes as “goguers” — those who demagogue the issue to score political points.

“It’s the most demagogued thing I’ve run into in the years I’ve been in politics,” Inhofe said. “Many of the big-spending Republicans demagogue earmarks so people think they’re conservative.”

Inhofe will argue for new Senate rules to make the earmarking process more transparent, without an outright ban.

But he will face a challenge from fellow conservative DeMint, who will be seeking an unqualified ban next week from his peers.

The South Carolina senator counts support from several newly elected colleagues — including Rand Paul in Kentucky, Marco Rubio in Florida and Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania — and other tea-party-backed candidates he supported in the election.

“Many Republicans are still addicted to earmarks and won’t give them up without a fight,” DeMint wrote in a letter to supporters Tuesday. “I know it’s difficult to quit this habit.”

He should know. DeMint confided to supporters, “I used to request earmarks too.”

lmascaro@tribune.com
‘Earmark’ ban proves an early obstacle to GOP unity

President Obama said Monday that India should rise to the status of holding a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, a dramatic show of respect to the powerful nation he hopes will play a key role in support of U.S. interests around the world.

But the stature would come with a price, Obama told members of parliament, exhorting them to join with the international community in difficult fights ahead.

“Let me suggest that with increased power comes increased responsibility,” Obama said in an evening address here. The U.N. exists to preserve peace and security and advance human rights, he said, which the responsibilities of all nations “but especially those that seek to lead in the 21st century.”

The pledge is only a step in direction of new international stature for India. The nation likely won’t attain permanent council status anytime soon, and the U.S. is backing its addition only as part of a series of council reforms that could be years in the making.

Still, the promise fulfills India’s top priority on the agenda of Obama’s visit, a three-day series of meetings to build what the White House is now calling an “indispensable partnership.”

In his final scheduled day in the country, Obama met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to craft the broad outlines of that partnership, agreeing to collaborate anew in the effort to root out terrorists, reform export controls and combat hunger.
The talks touched on sensitive subjects, as Obama unveiled for Singh the findings of a new report on the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks and what the U.S. knew in advance about the American collaborator David Headley.

The report, due to be released publicly as early as Monday, shows that American intelligence community had picked up general suspicions about Headley but that the information didn’t point to a specific plot in the works, administration officials said.
Obama supports U.N. Security Council seat for India

President Obama, challenged by Indian students Sunday to explain why the United States had not labeled Pakistan a terrorist state, defended his administration’s efforts to help the Pakistani government root out extremism and urged Indians to remember their own stake in promoting their longtime rival’s stability.

Obama’s call to India for a gradual rapprochement with Pakistan, made during a sometimes lively town hall-style meeting at St. Xavier’s College in the Indian city of Mumbai, is likely to be repeated at a speech Monday to the Parliament in New Delhi.

Despite the pointed exchange over Pakistan, Obama’s day with students included a session of impromptu dancing by the president and the first lady that offered personal images to balance the generally serious and carefully scripted elements in the Obamas’ first visit to this nation.

A day earlier, Obama met with survivors of the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai by Pakistani extremists, but he was careful to avoid mentioning Pakistan.

On the second day of a 10-day Asia trip, Obama was clearly ready for more direct engagement on the matter. “I must admit I was expecting it,” he said, eliciting laughter from the college audience assembled outdoors on a sunny afternoon.

Obama said the U.S. approach toward Pakistan on the issue of terrorism has been “to be honest and forthright … to say we are your friend, this is a problem and we will help you with it, but the problem has to be addressed.”

He said he was “absolutely convinced that the country that has the biggest stake in Pakistan’s success is India.”

“So my hope is, is that over time trust develops between the two countries,” he said, “that dialogue begins — perhaps on less controversial issues, building up to more controversial issues — and that over time there’s a recognition that India and Pakistan can live side by side in peace and that both countries can prosper.”

India was partitioned to create Pakistan at the time of independence from Britain in 1947, and the two neighbors have fought three major wars since.

Although Indian students also grilled him about his views on jihad and Afghanistan policy, as well as his take on the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Obama kept at least a part of his message focused on the main aim of his second extended trip to Asia: opening up markets to create job opportunities for Americans.

Over the weekend, he spoke about the “enormous untapped potential” in trade, calling on India to lower barriers in everything from retail imports to telecommunications. On Sunday, he told students that Americans were frustrated with the U.S. economy and how the midterm election results had forced him to make “some midcourse corrections and adjustments.”

“So I want to make sure that we’re here because this will create jobs in the United States and it can create jobs in India,” Obama said. “But that means that we’ve got to negotiate this changing relationship.”

Some listeners were skeptical, aware that Obama and other Democrats often speak disapprovingly of U.S. companies that “ship jobs overseas.” India has long been a favored destination for American outsourcing of data processing, call centers and back office functions.

“It is offensive,” said Lopa Mullick, an owner of an events-management company who attended Obama’s session at St. Xavier’s College. “It hurts us…. You’re not looking at all the opportunities that India has created for the U.S., at the economic benefits both sides get.”

Still, the young entrepreneur said she came to listen to Obama because she believes he can “shift the focus” and that he may actually want to do so.

During an earlier visit with schoolchildren, Michelle Obama broke out into a lengthy dance that dominated TV and inspired local newspaper headlines such as “When Michelle Got Into the Groove.”

The president himself showed off his footwork as schoolchildren enticed him to join the first lady in a traditional Indian dance during a Diwali celebration. It inspired some low-key moves, though mostly unrelated to the elaborate steps everyone else was doing.

cparsons@latimes.com

don.lee@latimes.com

Parsons reported from Mumbai and Lee from Washington.
Obama fields tough questions from Indian students

President Obama visited the site of the 2008 terrorist attacks here Saturday, making it the first stop of his two-week trip to Asia in order to convey a message to plotters of that attack and others.

“In our determination to give our people a future of security and prosperity,” he said, “the United States and India stand united.”

Obama spoke with a group of hotel employees and other survivors gathered in a hotel courtyard shortly after checking into the hotel. He is the first foreign head of state to stay at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel since the attacks, an event known in India by the shorthand 26/11.

In a scene some local newscasters compare to President Bush’s bullhorn declaration from the rubble of the World Trade Center, Obama then stood in a hotel plaza overlooking the Arabian Sea to issue his own defiant message.

“By striking the places where our countries and people come together,” he said, “those who perpetrated these horrific attacks hoped to drive us apart . . . (but) today the United States and India are working together more closely than ever to keep our people safe.”

Later the president visited a museum devoted to the life of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi. He also plans to meet with some 200 American business leaders who have traveled to India to join Obama at a business roundtable promoting trade between the two nations.

First and foremost, said Obama’s economic point man, the trip is about improving trade relations and creating new opportunities for American jobs.

Nevertheless, as the first event of his four-day stay in India, Obama chose to highlight the terrorist attacks and what he said was a shared commitment to fighting extremists around the world.

During the attacks two years ago, millions watched horrific and vivid images of smoke pouring from the windows of this hotel, in a coordinated attack by a terrorist organization based in Pakistan. More than 170 people died.

Fully renovated since then, the Taj hotel now stands as a symbol of India’s resilience, administration officials say. Obama wanted to recognize India’s rejection of terrorism, according to close advisers.

One of those who met with Obama today was Karambir Singh Kang, the hotel manager. He lost his wife, Niti, and their two sons in the attacks, but then went on to help save others.

“Mumbai is a symbol of the incredible energy and optimism that defines India in the 21st century,” Obama said. “And ever since those horrific days two years ago, the Taj has been the symbol of the strength and the resilience of the Indian people.”
Obama visits site of Mumbai attacks, praises India’s resilience

Shaken by Tuesday’s Republican landslide, Democratic fundraisers who felt hobbled by President Obama’s hard-line opposition to outside campaign spending are now planning to do what many groups did for the GOP — funnel millions of dollars into independent political advertising and voter mobilization campaigns.

Republican-aligned

Driving much of the success — and distancing the state from the national GOP tide, according to exit polls — was a surge in Latino voters. They made up 22% of the California voter pool, a record tally that mortally wounded many Republicans.

Latinos were more likely than other voters to say it was the governor’s race that impelled them to vote, and they sided more than 2 to 1 with Democrat Jerry Brown over Meg Whitman, the Republican whose campaign had been embroiled in a controversy over illegal immigration. Once at the polls, they voted for other Democrats as well.

California Republicans had multiple reasons for head-shaking on Wednesday. For decades, the state party has squabbled over whether success would come more easily to candidates running as conservatives or those who presented a more moderate face to the state’s sizeable bloc of independent, centrist voters. This year they tried both. Senate candidate Carly Fiorina ran a firmly conservative race and Whitman took a more moderate road.

Holding their coastal strength, Democrats ran away with their big counties. Brown carried Los Angeles County, home to 25% of the state’s voters, by 31 points, giving him almost 60% of his lead. Republican candidates, including Whitman, did better than Democrats in their traditional interior California strongholds. But the strong Republican counties tend to be heavier on acreage than voters.

On Tuesday each hit a double-digit dead end, as Fiorina lost to Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and Whitman came in a distant second to Brown.

Democratic successes in the midst of 2010’s national Republican renaissance marked a sharp turnabout from how the state behaved during the last major Republican year, in 1994. That year, as Republicans took back Congress, they won in California as well, picking up five of seven statewide offices, including the governorship, and adding legislative seats. This time, Democrats picked up a legislative seat despite Republican gains nationally, and were waiting for uncounted ballots to see whether they lost a congressional seat or two.

The difference between then and now rests on the changes in the California electorate. Those changes also explain the gulf that now exists between California and the nation. California in 1994 was more white and proportionately less Democratic than it is today, thus more similar to the country today. Nationally, non-whites made up only 22% of the Tuesday electorate; in California they made up 38%. Latinos nationally represented 8% of the national electorate, just shy of a third of their power in California. The California and national exit polls were conducted by Edison Research for a consortium of news organizations, including television news networks and the Associated Press.

Tellingly, Latinos in California had a far more negative view of the GOP than other voters — almost 3 in 4 had an unfavorable impression, to 22% favorable. Among all California voters the view of Republicans was negative, but at a closer 61% negative and 32% positive. Latinos had a strongly positive view of Democrats, 58% to 37%, whereas all voters were closely split, 49% to 45%.

“The brand name is still a tremendous liability,” said Allan Hoffenblum, a former Republican consultant who runs a nonpartisan election-tracking publication. “People of color are just turned off by the Republican Party.”

Despite their efforts to appeal to Latinos, Whitman and Fiorina came under fire throughout the campaign for their views on illegal immigration. Fiorina supported Arizona’s anti-illegal immigrant law. Whitman, while opposing that measure, was pressed in her primary into talking about how she would be “tough as nails” toward illegal immigrants. The closing month of the campaign featured a controversy over Whitman’s firing of her illegal immigrant housekeeper; shortly before the election she said she favored the woman’s deportation.

Not surprisingly, Latino voters drawn to the polls because of the governor’s race went lopsidedly for Brown, 73% to 18%.

State Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring said the election results confirmed that party leaders and candidates needed to build stronger relationships with non-whites, and not just before an election.

“The reality is that Democrats have strong relationships with urban and immigration communities that Republicans have not had, and that must change,” he said. “It is not only a matter of politics; it is a matter of mathematics.”

But Nehring stressed that he was not advocating a change in Republican policy. “Republicans have stressed for decades that we support legal immigration and oppose illegal immigration,” he said. “Despite saying that, that message has not resonated. It is not only a matter of how we talk about this issue, but how other people hear us.”

Views of the parties appeared strongly entrenched in California, however. Tellingly, the biggest vote-getter among Republicans was attorney general nominee Steve Cooley, who came into the race from a nonpartisan post as Los Angeles County’s district attorney and took pains Tuesday night to de-emphasize his party membership. Even with that, he was narrowly trailing Democrat Kamala Harris in a race so close it may not be decided for many days.

As election day dawned, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in California by 2.3 million voters, a gap that has been growing. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was able to pull significantly from Democratic-leaning groups, including independent voters and women, but Tuesday’s candidates were not able to replicate that success.

Brown, for example, drew 600,000 more votes than the 2006 Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Phil Angelides. But Whitman drew 1.8 million fewer votes than Schwarzenegger had in 2006.

A persistent problem for Republicans in California, but an accelerant for them nationally, were views about Obama. Nationally he had a negative job-approval rating; in California, that flipped to a positive rating by 10 points. The results suggest that while Obama may not throw as large a shadow as he did with his record victory in California in 2008, he remains a formidable candidate in the state for 2012.

Asked whether Tuesday’s results suggested that Republicans would simply cede the state in 2012, Nehring demurred. “I think it is premature to make that determination,” he said.

But other Republicans suggested that their best chance for relevance in two years would be a continuation of the unsettled national environment that did not quite reach the California state line.

“You never say never,” said Hoffenblum. “Who would have predicted two years ago that Barack Obama and the Democrats would have crashed as quickly as they did? The temperature of the times is not normal.”

cathleen.decker@latimes.com
California went its own way

Democrats have a slight edge over Republicans going into the midterm elections, but GOP officials have said they expect to pick up at least six governors’ chairs to bring their total to more than 30. The Republican count could go higher since the latest polls have several races too close to call, including in the pivotal state of Florida.

According to a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday, Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink holds a statistically insignificant 1-point lead over former healthcare executive Rick Scott. But the key will be the 9% of the electorate still undecided, said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of polling.

Sink, the Democrat, was further ahead in previous polls, so the current survey shows Scott, the Republican, with some momentum. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 points.

The final Ohio Poll is more optimistic for the GOP, showing Republicans capturing both the governor’s race and the Senate seat. Top Democrats, including President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and former President Clinton, campaigned in Ohio throughout the weekend, hoping to reverse those predictions.

According to the poll, former Republican Congressman John Kasich has 52% of the vote while Gov. Ted Strickland is at 47.7%. On the Senate side, former Congressman Rob Portman was at 60% to Democratic Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher’s 39.2%.

The Ohio Poll is conducted by the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2%.

The gubernatorial races are important because congressional and local legislative districts will be redrawn this year after the census. Traditionally, the party in power has more sway in determining the composition of the districts for the next decade.

In addition, Ohio and Florida are considered pivotal to President Obama’s reelection chances in 2012.

Obama moved both Ohio and Florida into the Democratic column in 2008 after former President George Bush carried them in 2004.

michael.muskal@latimes.com
twitter.com/LATimesmuskal
Polls give GOP the edge in governors’ races