Moments of Truth

ByABC News
March 4, 2002, 2:50 PM

W A S H I N G T O N, March 4 -- Today brings some big moments of political truth for Rep. Gary Condit, for former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan's seemingly certain boom-to-bust gubernatorial effort, for the White House's attempt to unilaterally change the GOP's image in the Golden State, and for term limits.

The embattled/beleagured/scandal-plagued/choose-your-term Rep. Condit faces his voters for the first time since Chandra Levy, a Washington intern, disappeared last spring.

Here's Condit's first hitch: they're not all his longtime constituents. The decennial redistricting has thrown Condit into a new 18th district with about 200,000 new voters, many of whom appear predisposed not to vote for him.

Here's the second hitch: he faces a tough primary challenge from a former protege and now a state assemblyman named Dennis Cardoza, who has led Condit in the polls by hefty margins all winter.

The GOP is ready to pounce should Condit somehow win the primary, but the betting is on Cardoza, and with the newly redistricted seat now a bit more Democratic-leaning, if Cardoza wins the primary, it's possible that the national Republican party may opt out entirely.

The Right to Fight Gray Davis

The Republican primary for the right to take on Democratic Gov. Gray Davis is the story about which politicos on both coasts are buzzing.

After all, governor of California is arguably the second-biggest job in U.S. politics with an economy the size of France's. Also, this is the first big contested primary of the midterm election year, in which both parties are facing their share of intra-party battles in key statewide races, so the outcome may offer some lessons for other family fights going forward.

After allowing the White House to draft him into running, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan has turned a race that was his to lose into a race he could well lose.

Karl Rove and Company that's the White House political operation persuaded Riordan to run in the belief that his candidacy, as a politically successful, moderate pro-choicer, would help change the image of the Republican party in California and nationally, giving Bush a 2004 beachhead in the Golden State.