Primary Foe Takes Exception : Badham Breakfast Talk Offers Food for Debate

As his Republican opponent listened politely from the audience, Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach) described himself Friday as an activist congressman, whether fighting hard to block offshore drilling or visiting North African nations to hear their concerns about Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi

Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce officials introduced Badham’s challenger, Nathan Rosenberg, 33, to the audience but did not invite him to speak. Friday’s breakfast was planned some time ago as an educational forum, not a political one, they said.

But if Badham had the stage, with Rosenberg observing quietly and finishing his scrambled eggs, the two attacked one another afterward in separate comments to reporters.

First, Rosenberg angrily described as “a lie” a newspaper account that said Badham, a five-term representative, was supported by President Reagan and Vice President George Bush.

Told of Rosenberg’s comment, Badham just as angrily described the comment as “pure nonsense.”

Badham said he had a personal letter of support from Reagan and recently “had talked to George Bush, and I’ll be with George Bush all day Sunday. . . . My opponent, who has no public record doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Rosenberg, a former president of Young Republicans and a management consultant, also took issue with Badham’s claim that the congressman had strongly defended the Orange County coast against offshore oil drilling.

Badham had told the audience: “I told Alan (Sen. Alan Cranston) that my concern was from Long Beach to the Mexican border, and he told me, ‘Bob, we have a compromise that will take a little bit of the . . . water. Let me tell you, it was not Alan Cranston; it was Bob Badham that kept that moratorium in effect.”

Rosenberg countered that Badham had “missed the meeting with (Interior) Secretary (Donald P.) Hodel a year ago . . . and he’s not a member of the congressional delegation working to resolve this whole thing with oil drilling. . . . Where Bill Lowery (Rep. William Lowery (R-San Diego)) said no, so San Diego has big areas excluded; Orange County has no areas excluded” from offshore drilling tracts, Rosenberg said.

Badham responded: “That’s bull.” He said Rosenberg had never heard of offshore drilling when the congressman first began working on the issue. “I have kept a ban off Orange County from Huntington Beach to the border since 1963,” Badham said.

Badham said Rosenberg was right that he was not a member of the congressional committee on offshore oil drilling but “that’s because I’m too deeply involved in other issues.” Badham added that “it was I that got Hodel to come to Newport Beach” to discuss coastal drilling last year.