HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — On a sound stage near Santa Monica
Boulevard, actress Valerie Novak flubs a line and director Ladd
Ehlinger Jr. asks her to repeat it. “And — action!”
Novak nails the line this time and continues with her
dramatic monologue when the director’s cell phone rings, forcing
another retake. Ehlinger mutters, “Can somebody fire the
director, please?”
Sunday’s daylong shoot was running slightly behind
schedule, as actors and actresses lounged around the studio
awaiting their turns in front of the camera for a series of
political advertisements. Three members of Ehlinger’s cast are
Republican candidates for Congress and, by Labor Day, these
videos could be bringing them YouTube fame.
Ehlinger has shown a knack this year for producing campaign
ads that go “viral” online, turning obscure candidates into
Internet superstars. Now the Alabama-based conservative filmmaker
has come to Hollywood, working with Republicans who hope to make
California a battleground in this fall’s congressional
elections.
Talk to conservatives in this state and you’ll get lots of
different viewpoints, but the one thing on which they all agree
is that the California Republican Party is a useless, hopeless
mess. The last time a Republican won a U.S. Senate election in
California was 1988, which was also the last time a GOP
presidential candidate carried the nation’s most populous state.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tenure in Sacramento has been like a
“good news, bad news” joke: The good news is that a Republican
got elected governor; the bad news is that he has become the
state’s
least popular governor in 50 years.
Exactly who or what is to blame for the state GOP’s
dysfunctional condition is a matter of heated discussion whenever
California conservatives gather. Many Republicans trace the
trouble back to the governorship of Pete Wilson in the 1990s,
while others point fingers at the influence of GOP financier
Gerald Parsky, a predictable booster of moderate Republican
candidates.
Meanwhile, some Republican operatives harbor deep doubts
about the loyalties of Meg Whitman, the former EBay CEO who has
invested
more than $100 million of her own money in her GOP
gubernatorial campaign. Forwarding an e-mail from a Whitman
campaign staffer about the state party’s “Victory 2010” program,
one Republican consultant added a sarcastic note: “Whitman
expects candidates not only to pay for their database, but to man
victory centers and funnel them data.”
Infighting and suspicion are commonplace in both parties
everywhere, but the situation in California is especially
discouraging to conservatives, who fear that key opportunities
may be lost in a mid-term election where all the omens portend a
banner year for the GOP nationwide.
“We’ve lost the brand,” says one Los Angeles-area
Republican. “The party in California doesn’t stand for anything
anymore.”
Trying to make the Republican Party stand for something
except political ineptitude is a perennial goal of California
conservatives. However, many complain that not only is the state
GOP apparatus decrepit, but that their problems are neglected by
the national party leadership, especially in this year’s
congressional elections. Democrats control 34 of the state’s 53
House seats, but only one California Republican challenger —
David Harmer, running against Democrat Rep. Jerry McNerney in the
11th District, east of San Francisco — has qualified for the
National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Young Guns”
program.
Other GOP House candidates in California find themselves
struggling to get attention for their campaigns, a situation that
isn’t helped by the state’s news media, which at times seem
reluctant even to acknowledge the existence of Republicans. A
consultant for Mattie
Fein, who is challenging Democrat Rep. Jane Harman in the
36th District, was shocked last week when a reporter for the
Torrance (Calif.) Daily Breeze answered an
e-mail query with a
blunt reply: “Don’t call or e-mail us — we’ll
call you if we’re interested. And if you haven’t got it yet,
we’re not interested.”
Trying to overcome that kind of media uninterest was part
of what inspired Fein’s campaign to bring Ehlinger to Hollywood
to produce video ads. Having previously directed two independent
feature
films (Flatland and Hive Mind), Ehlinger
garnered nationwide attention in May with a YouTube ad for Dale
Peterson, a Republican candidate for state agriculture
commissioner in Alabama. That video has since generated more than
1.7 million views online, and the Fein campaign team hopes to
get a similar viral boost in their effort to unseat Harman.
Ehlinger also shot ads yesterday for California GOP candidates
Mark Reed
(challenging Rep. Brad Sherman in the 27th District) and John Dennis, who is taking
on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the San Francisco-area 8th
District.
In a year when the Tea Party movement has kindled
grassroots insurgencies across the country, these campaigns in
California aren’t waiting around for the GOP Establishment to
ride to their rescue. As one local conservative operative said
yesterday, “The party’s failed us. The media’s failed us.
Sometimes, you have to take things into your own hands.”
