Gallegly Boosted by Low Turnout, Loyal Following

Although Elton Gallegly’s stunning victory over congressional opponent Tony Hope caught everyone by surprise, political experts and the Simi Valley mayor’s own strategists Wednesday contended that there are logical explanations for the runaway.

Gallegly benefited, they suggested, from a low voter turnout. They said this was coupled with the mayor’s cultivation of a large core of fiercely loyal supporters who would have trekked to the polls in a blizzard, or, in this case, even after a dull primary season.

Ben Key, Gallegly’s campaign consultant, suggested that Gallegly also received a lot of inadvertent help from Hope.

The electorate, Key said, apparently perceived Hope, son of entertainer Bob Hope, as an opportunist from Washington who tried to capitalize on the All-American reputation of his father, who is probably the San Fernando Valley’s most famous resident. Tony Hope, 45, an attorney and successful businessman who had spent the past 10 years in Washington, returned to the Valley this year to run for the GOP nomination in the 21st Congressional District.

Longtime Ties Stressed

By contrast, Gallegly, 42, had emphasized his longtime ties to the district, where he has served for the last six years as mayor of a growing city.

In a race that many thought might end in a photo finish, Gallegly captured 50% of the vote to Hope’s 34%. The third candidate, Tom La Porte, 38, a Thousand Oaks stockbroker, received 16%.

The contest, one of the most exciting congressional races in the state, was triggered by the ill-fated decision of incumbent Rep. Bobbi Fiedler (R-Northridge) to run for the GOP Senate nomination. Fiedler was among six candidates who lost to Ed Zschau.

It is likely that Gallegly will be the next congressman from the district because its boundaries, which stretch from eastern Ventura County through parts of the West Valley to Sunland and Tujunga, take in an area that is overwhelmingly Republican. Gallegly’s Democratic opponent will be Gilbert R. Saldana, 27, vice mayor of Avalon on Catalina Island.

Gallegly’s best showing was in Ventura County, his backyard, where he crushed Hope by nearly a 2-to-1 margin. Hope knew he needed the vast majority of voters in the Valley in order to win; instead, Gallegly narrowly won in the Los Angeles County part of the district as well.

Asked to play Monday-morning quarterback, Gallegly speculated that voters favored him because of his knowledge of the district’s needs and his proven commitment to the area.

“Tony didn’t have that,” Gallegly said. “I have to believe that played a major role.”

McClintock’s Views

Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), who endorsed Hope at the last minute, contended that Gallegly won because Hope’s campaign staff bungled the election.

“If there was such a thing as political malpractice, I think they would have grounds to sue,” McClintock said of Hope and his supporters.

Gallegly’s victory was a bitter pill for McClintock. The popular assemblyman was the front-runner in the congressional race when he pulled out in early March after predicting that Hope, a late entry, had the Washington experience and the big bucks to win.

McClintock faulted Hope’s staff for failing to devise a strategy to deflect the bad publicity Hope received when Gallegly revealed that his opponent had not voted in almost 10 years. McClintock also said Hope’s advisers did not try to encourage McClintock’s former congressional supporters to jump on their candidate’s bandwagon.

McClintock said the Hope campaign should have capitalized from the start on the candidate’s extensive Washington experience and his big-name endorsements from such people as former President Gerald R. Ford. He said he suspects that Hope, a presidential appointee in two administrations, at first hesitated to flaunt his connections for fear of triggering carpetbagger allegations, but they materialized anyway.

George Young, Hope’s veteran campaign consultant, disagreed strongly with McClintock’s criticisms.

“The principal dynamic in that race apparently was the desire on the part of Ventura County voters to have a Ventura County congressman,” Young said.

Effect of Mailings

However, Gallegly’s staff agreed with McClintock’s contention that the mayor with a high-school education outsmarted the businessman with a Harvard law degree in one basic yet critical campaign area: direct mailings.

Ben Key planned a slick, effective direct-mail campaign for Gallegly, directed at voters of every stripe. Senior citizens, Jews, women over 35, longtime McClintock boosters and other groups received campaign literature in their mailboxes that were tailored for them.

Through his mailers, Gallegly was able to boast of his near monopoly of endorsements by local elected officials. Whereas Hope’s national endorsements certainly were sexier and drew more attention from the press, in the end it was apparently the local ones that counted.

Those endorsements allowed Gallegly to capture the vote of the die-hard Republican activist who “was not swayed” by Hope’s Washington connections, suggested Assemblywoman Marian La Follette (R-Northridge), who endorsed Gallegly.

Hope sent out almost no mail until the final two weeks of the campaign, when voters across the district received two mailings in the form of a newspaper called the “Conservative Southlander.” The publication, which resembled the National Enquirer in appearance, contained snapshots of the extended Hope family and glowing stories about the candidate. Other articles viciously attacked Gallegly for such things as his heavy reliance on developers for campaign contributions. One article branded the mayor as a “volatile sorehead.”

Negative Tactic Defended

Hope said he resorted to the negative mailer because he had ignored for too long what he contended was Gallegly’s mudslinging. And Young insists that voter phone responses indicated the mailer was effective.

Gallegly now concedes that, during the final days of the campaign, he was most worried about La Porte, a political newcomer who ran a low-budget campaign. La Porte, an excellent public speaker, ran circles around his two GOP opponents during debates and candidate forums, and in so doing impressed many GOP party activists in Ventura County. The mayor had feared La Porte would cut so deeply into his Ventura County base that the election might be thrown to Hope.

Everyone, including Hope, seemed to have his own theories about what motivated voters. Hope, who said he will fully support Gallegly’s candidacy, suggested that voter apathy was “devastating” to his campaign, given Gallegly’s loyal band of supporters.

Hope also said McClintock’s departure from the congressional contest hurt his own chances. Hope said he had expected McClintock and Gallegly to split the Ventura County vote, leaving him with most of the support in Los Angeles.

Asked about his political future, Hope said the only firm plan he had made by Wednesday was to spend the afternoon at the beach. But he did not rule out running for Congress again, especially if the state’s reapportionment several years from now opens up more friendly districts for Republicans.

“I don’t think it would make sense to run against a Republican incumbent in this district,” Hope said.

Democratic Outcome

On the Democratic side, election tallies provided the answer to the biggest question of the campaign: “Is George Margolis, a perennial candidate and political oddball, invincible?”

Saldana proved that is not the case, and won the nomination with 29% of the vote, against Margolis’ 24%.

In an odd footnote, a deputy sheriff reported seeing Margolis tearing down his Democratic opponent’s signs on Sunday, according to a spokesman for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department. The incident was referred to the district attorney’s office, which will decide if Margolis should be charged with a misdemeanor.

In the 23rd District Democratic race, incumbent Anthony C. Beilenson of Los Angles easily turned aside challengers Eric C. Jacobsen and William J. Kurdi.

And, in the 26th District, represented by Democrat Howard L. Berman of Panorama City, businessman Robert M. Kerns beat Kenneth Frazier, president of a nonprofit minority foundation, for the Republican nomination.