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A Moderate Twist on Assembly Fight

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Times Staff Writer

Republican voters in a coastal stretch of northwestern Orange County will face a crossroads in the June 6 state Assembly primary, when they choose either of the two conservative candidates or the wife of the more moderate incumbent.

In recent years, the area has had something of a split political personality. Its congressman, Dana Rohrabacher, is among the most conservative members in the House. But Tom Harman, a moderate Republican and onetime Huntington Beach mayor, has been elected to represent the area in the Assembly since 2000 and now has won the Republican nomination for the area’s state Senate seat.

Harman’s first Assembly victories came in open races, where he was able to draw crossover support from Democrats. But this race for the 67th Assembly District, which reaches from the county line down through Huntington Beach and sweeps inland to Cypress and La Palma, is open to Republicans only.

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Front-runner Jim Silva, an Orange County supervisor and former Huntington Beach councilman, has been endorsed by state and county Republican leaders and was leading the fundraising race with more than $193,000 as of mid-March. He is campaigning on his 20 years in elective office and says his efforts to lead Orange County out of bankruptcy make him qualified to clean up the state’s troubled finances.

“I have the experience,” Silva said.

“I have a very good record, and I think that clearly separates me from my two opponents.”

But Silva is facing a challenge for the conservative mantle from Mike McGill, a retired Marine and Cypress councilman who has endorsements of tax hawks including the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. and the California Club for Growth. McGill has raised illegal-immigration issues in the campaign and attacked Silva’s votes to enhance public employee pensions, saying Silva has drifted from his conservative roots.

In response, Silva said his record was being distorted and that employees themselves bore much of the financial burden of increased pensions.

Meanwhile, Dianne Harman, Tom Harman’s wife, is seeking her husband’s seat.

She is a yoga studio owner who has done extensive volunteer work and has raised $146,000 in campaign funds -- more than $26,000 of which came from Sacramento and out-of-state interests with business before the Legislature. She has received about the same amount from donors in her hometown of Huntington Beach.

While eschewing the “moderate” label, she notes her opponents are “two men going after the conservative vote” and says she will keep an open mind about issues. She said her experience as the wife of an assemblyman had prepared her for the role.

“I’ll know how to get things done from the moment I get up there,” she said.

“In this era of term limits, you can spend your first year like a deer in the headlights, trying to figure out where the bathroom is. I’ve already got that one down.”

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Allan Hoffenblum, a political analyst, said the dynamics of the race may favor the moderate choice, as the two conservatives draw votes from each other.

“This is the classic scenario for a moderate to win an Orange County coastal district such as this,” he said. “With McGill and Silva trying to run as ‘the official conservative candidate,’ ” Harman could win with a plurality, he said.

The winner of the primary will face Democrat Ray Roberts, a retired Huntington Beach businessman, in the November election.

The district is considered safely Republican.

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