Editor’s Note: A following correction to this story appeared in the Jan. 28 print edition. “The Q&A should have said that Dan Schnur’s cousin, not his sister, is a member of the Green Party. Also, the Q&A said he was on the advertising team for the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1984. It should have said he worked for the team. Schnur worked as communications director for the California Republican Party in the late 1980s but not as a “tryout.” The Q&A might have implied that Schnur did not complete a fellowship before joining the 2000 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain. He did complete it. Also, in a section about smear campaigns, Schnur was speaking in general terms and not about specific tactics that were used against McCain. In regards to Peter Ueberroth’s 2003 campaign for governor, Schnur said he told Ueberroth the only way to beat Arnold Schwarzenegger was to go negative. However, he told him that after Ueberroth had dropped out of the race. Also, when Schnur discussed Supreme Court decisions that equated money with free speech, he was not referring to the Citizens United case.”
Dan Schnur is one of the most recognizable local political pundits. His career in Republican political campaigns – chief spokesman for former California Gov. Pete Wilson and for Sen. John McCain’s 2000 presidential run – has made him one of the media’s go-to people for analysis. Schnur, 49, now runs the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, named after the legendary late speaker of the California Assembly. Schnur’s long association with the Republican Party has put him at odds with his overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning family; he jokingly calls himself the “family piñata.” Schnur recently took time to discuss his early political experiences, why he chose to campaign for GOP candidates and his diagnosis of what’s wrong with American politics today.
Question: How did you get your first exposure to politics?
Answer: I’d say it was when I was in third grade. We lived in a left-leaning suburb of Milwaukee. During a mock election in advance of the 1972 primary election, I gave a speech in support of George McGovern.
How did that turn out for you?
Not so good. The boys split their vote between President Nixon and the Democratic candidates, with the Republicans voting for Nixon. All the girls voted for Shirley Chisholm (D-New York and the first black congresswoman). So McGovern finished third in that election, behind Nixon and Chisholm. We probably were not the most accurate forecasters, though I must say it was an early display of gender politics.
When you were growing up, was your family as passionate about politics?
Yes, and they still are. My father was – and remains – a proud, staunch Democrat. He was a tax lawyer and still teaches law at the University of Wisconsin. My younger brother has worked in both the Clinton and Obama administrations. In fact, in my dad’s family, there are something like 68 Democrats, a sister of mine who is a Green Party member and then there’s me, the family piñata.
That must have made for some interesting discussions around the dinner table.
Yes. I often tell people that one of the challenges of coming from a mixed political family is that Election Day and Thanksgiving dinner are always too close together. By the time we get together for Thanksgiving, nobody has had a chance to calm down yet.
You haven’t mentioned much about your mother.
My mother had started the first multicultural children’s museum in Milwaukee and helped welcome Russian Jewish immigrants to the neighborhood. She passed away when I was 16. But by that time, my parents had already divorced. I was fortunate to have a very close-knit extended family; my mother’s parents helped raise me.
You knew from an early age you wanted to be in politics. How did you get actively involved?
I was attending Carlton College in Minnesota and was trying to decide between being a journalist and going into politics. I took a class from the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, who at that time was teaching political science. I learned a lot from him, and though I did not agree with him on everything, he helped instill in me the importance of public service. So, during the summer of 1984, I drove to Washington, D.C., to join the Reagan-Bush campaign as a volunteer. I wanted to see what politics was like on the ground level.
But why join the Republican campaign, given your family upbringing?
Like many young people of that era, I favored a more conservative approach to the economy and national security but was more liberal on social issues. So the Republican ticket at that time was more appealing to me. My father was convinced it was an act of teenage rebellion.
What did you do for the Reagan-Bush campaign?
I started out clipping articles. Then this book came out about Geraldine Ferraro, the vice presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket. I took it upon myself to write a memo summarizing the book and gave it to my boss, who then gave it to his boss. The next thing I knew, I was transferred to the media division and was on the advertising team. This gave me an opportunity to take things I had learned as a student journalist and put them to work on a political campaign.
You also joined the 1988 Republican presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush. What did you do there?
I worked full time in the press office, helping reporters get all the information they needed for their questions.
How did you end up working for Republicans in California?
During the 1988 campaign, one of my contacts was the press secretary for the presidential campaign in California. He recommended me for a job as communications director for the California Republican Party. I was initially hired for a six-month tryout; that six-month stay in California has turned into 22 years and counting.
How did you then join the administration of former Gov. Pete Wilson?
In my post with the California Republican Party, I got to know some of the people on Wilson’s campaign, especially communications director Otto Bos. He asked me if I wanted to be an assistant communications secretary. Then he passed away suddenly (in 1991 at age 47 of a heart attack). I was picked to replace him.
That must have been difficult.
Yes, it was. Both Wilson and (Chief of Staff) Bob White gave me a very helpful piece of advice. They told me, “Don’t try to be Otto. Do the job the way you think it should be done.” I have taken that advice to heart throughout my career and passed it on to others.
Those early years of the Wilson administration were not easy ones, were they?
No. Besides the recession that hit California very hard and the huge budget deficit that had to be reckoned with, we had to deal with fires, floods, earthquakes and riots. You know those 10 plagues that hit the Egyptians in the Bible? Well we even had a real plague of locusts in the Central Valley. The most important lesson I learned from this, and from Gov. Wilson, was the value of perseverance. The only way to overcome a challenge is to keep at it, even when people tell you that you shouldn’t continue or they criticize you.
You left the Wilson administration after his first term. What did you do?
I moved to the Bay Area and began teaching at UC Berkeley. I also did some consulting and was on talk radio at KGO in San Francisco. Then I helped start TechNet for Silicon Valley CEOs interested in getting involved in politics. They were looking for political guidance.
But then you went national again, joining the 2000 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain. How did that come about?
I had received a fellowship to study at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University when I received the offer to join the McCain campaign as national communications director.
That must have been quite different from your efforts on previous presidential campaigns.
It was the first time I realized and used what I learned over my years in politics and in my teaching experience. But beyond the broad strategic goals that I had to develop, the most important thing I took from this experience was the understanding that the political system was broken.
How so?
I believed previously that the ends justified the means. But after 2000, I understood that if you run a scorched earth campaign, you have performed a disservice and the candidate who runs such a campaign will have trouble governing.
You must be referring to the campaign George W. Bush ran in South Carolina that effectively knocked McCain out of the primary race.
Yes. I learned that a candidate has two choices: They can run a campaign to win that encourages participation and increases voter turnout or they can run a campaign to win that is full of attacks and smears. Of course, losing was hard. But this lesson helped me deal with the defeat a little better.
You didn’t give up on campaigning though. Three years later, you were running Peter Ueberroth’s campaign for governor during California’s 2003 recall election.
Yes, that was my briefest campaign – all of two months. What I learned in those two months was the importance of working directly with the candidate. Peter was very much open to that approach. But, as you know, everything turned on whether Arnold Schwarzenegger was going to get into the race. Once he got in, I told Peter that he could not get elected without going negative on Arnold (Schwarzenegger). He told me to file the papers to close the campaign.
What did you do then?
I joined a bipartisan statewide group called Voices of Reform. I learned you could find common ground with people with whom you disagree politically. The group made recommendations to reform state government, including a redistricting reform that was eventually put on the ballot and approved by voters.
So that laid the groundwork for you to be appointed to head the state Fair Political Practices Commission. What were your main accomplishments there?
I was only there for nine months, until the end of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s term. We only had time to make a few changes in campaign disclosure rules, particularly for online campaign contributions.
Now that you’re the director of the Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics, what are your main goals?
First and foremost, get more students interested in politics and the political process. That interest level had long been declining; when I took over, only nine students were signed up for placements through our internship program. Now, we’ve had more than 100.
How did you boost student interest?
By making politics more relevant. We focused on raising our profile and getting major speakers to participate in our conferences. One thing the students have realized: If they take the time to prepare for these conferences, they can hold their own against the political experts. Then they see that politics is something that they can do and excel in.
Any other goals?
We’ve also focused on raising the profile of the USC Dornsife-Los Angeles Times public opinion poll. We’re now doing online polling as well as traditional phone polling.
You’ve also kept your own name in the news, appearing on talk shows and on local television stations on election nights, and writing opinion pieces. How do you manage all this while running an institute?
All of my media appearances and op-eds are in the same spirit as what we do here at the institute: checking partisan politics at the door; trying to offer an overview and analysis of the political landscape so people understand it better. It’s not my job to tell people which side to take, but rather to give them the tools so they can decide intelligently which side to take.
But checking partisan politics at the door is rather hard to do these days, isn’t it? We seem to be a more politically polarized society than ever.
Yes, especially with the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case that basically said money equals speech. I have a fundamental problem with that. You have a right to say your piece. But I do not believe you have a right to drown out other people’s speech. That’s why we must change the rules.
How do you begin?
One simple thing we can do here in California: eliminate the spectacle of legislators walking off the floor and going to receptions to pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign cash and then returning to cast their votes.
What book are you reading now?
I’m reading Bob Woodward’s book “The Price of Politics” on last year’s failed budget negotiations. If (House Speaker John) Boehner and President Obama had been left to their own devices, they would have reached an agreement. The biggest challenge is to repopulate the center of the political spectrum. We need more raging moderates.
Do you consider yourself a raging
moderate?
Yes. Most definitely.
How do you balance your career in politics and education with a social life?
Well, I guess you can say I really don’t balance the two, or at least I haven’t done so effectively. When there is a candidate or cause I believe in, I don’t hold anything back; I plunge in full time. That can be very challenging to any relationship.
How did you meet your fiancée?
Cecile (Ablack) and I met at the recommendation of a friend who thought we should meet for professional reasons. But that brunch lasted five hours.
Tell me about your love of sports.
One of my few passions outside politics is watching sports, especially football. I always try to support the local teams where I’m living. So while I grew up a fan of the Milwaukee Brewers, I now root for the Dodgers. But I’m a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan. And I have to thank the NFL for being so slow to place a team here in Los Angeles
How about traveling? Any favorite places?
Yes. I now travel quite a bit to the West Indies, because that’s where Cecile grew up. We go there often to visit her family. And I especially love the old U.S. Army fort above the Golden Gate Bridge, on the north side of the bay. I love to stand there and look across the bay at the city and the bridge itself. That to me is what America is all about.
