ELECTIONS ’88 : 4 Candidates Fighting to Escape Obscurity : In 42nd District, Favorites Tend to Eclipse GOP Field

The spotlight is shining on other Republican candidates but that has not stopped two Palos Verdes Peninsula lawyers, Robert Welbourn and Don Davis, from quietly waging campaigns for the GOP nomination in the 42nd Congressional District.

While attention has been focused on the four leading contenders in the Republican race to fill the seat being given up by Rep. Daniel E. Lungren (R-Long Beach), Welbourn and Davis have continued to promote their own candidacies.

Their campaign signs can be found at intersections from Torrance to Huntington Beach, alongside those of Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, former Cal State Long Beach President Stephen Horn, ex-White House advance man Andrew J. Littlefair and former presidential speech-writer Dana Rohrabacher.

Although they have raised and spent less money than their more prominent rivals, Welbourn has sent two mailers to voters and Davis plans a last-minute newspaper advertising campaign before Tuesday’s primary.

Rounding out the eight-way Republican field are Torrance aerospace scientist Tom Bauer and Huntington Beach carpenter Jeffrey R. Burns.

WELBOURN

Welbourn, 50, a former mayor and councilman in Palos Verdes Estates, is making his second bid for Congress. He lost another crowded Republican primary contest in 1976.

The 27-year South Bay lawyer tells audiences that, along with Wieder, he is the only candidate who has held elective office.

One of the more moderate Republicans in the race, Welbourn parts company with Littlefair and Rohrabacher, the two former aides to President Reagan.

“I’m not a Reagan clone,” he told Republican women in Torrance. “I’m my own person.”

Welbourn expresses concern about the amount of foreign investment taking place in the district, which includes the Los Angeles-Long Beach harbor, the largest port complex on the West Coast. He noted that the Japanese are playing a leading role in construction of the high-rise World Trade Center in Long Beach and purchase of office buildings in downtown Los Angeles.

“Ultimately, we’re going to have to say to these people that we’re not going to allow you to do this unless you allow American ownership” in projects in this country, Welbourn said in an interview. If it continues unchecked, he added, “I think we are going to lose control of our own destiny.”

Welbourn said he favors free trade but that the United States must get tough with its trading partners and demand fair trade, including access to foreign markets and opportunities to bid on foreign construction projects.

“If the Japanese are going to be permitted to come in and invest, if the British, the Netherlands, the Saudis are going to be able to do it, we must be able to do it,” he said.

On environmental issues, Welbourn is opposed to offshore oil drilling except in extreme national emergencies. He favors imposing a tax on imported oil to cut the nation’s trade deficit and to promote domestic production. He objects to using federal funds to develop the Bolsa Chica wetlands in Huntington Beach.

A former deputy district attorney and vice chairman of the Los Angeles County Judicial Procedures Commission, Welbourn would take a hard line against drug smugglers, including the death penalty for international drug traffickers. He favors a combined local, state and federal attack to stop drugs from moving through the harbor.

Welbourn reported that he had raised $49,759 for his campaign, including a $10,000 personal loan, by the close of the last reporting period May 18.

DAVIS

Davis, 43, gave his campaign a major financial boost last month when he loaned himself $150,000. Altogether, he had raised $163,785 by the end of the latest reporting period but does not expect to spend all of it.

The Palos Verdes Estates resident offers campaign audiences a litany of professional activities as a securities and tax attorney, an accountant, a law school instructor and a businessman with interests in health care, pharmacies and farming.

In a newspaper advertisement, Davis, a political newcomer, said the most important issue facing the congressional district is gridlock, though he does not offer answers to the area’s traffic problems.

Like Welbourn, Davis frequently says that “America is at war--an economic war--a war for the economic security of this country.”

He raises the specter of foreign investors taking advantage of the depressed value of the dollar, buying a major stake in American real estate and businesses. He also favors free trade if it is fair trade.

Like Welbourn, he supports a strong defense but wants American allies to pay their share of defense costs. He also supports a balanced budget amendment and line-item veto power for the President.

Davis favors a national program to educate Americans about AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, and says that a lack of facts is “a far greater danger than any concerns about the delivery of explicit sexual information.”

He also opposes oil drilling in Santa Monica Bay and favors a better balance between residential and commercial development.

BAUER

Bauer, 33, is basing his low-budget campaign on an appeal to the engineers and scientists who work in the district’s defense and aerospace industries.

An aerospace scientist with a doctorate from Caltech in aeronautics, Bauer wants to see the United States launch an unmanned probe to the stars by 2020.

He said the $20-billion interstellar probe would be a worth the money. He said the only question is, “Will the United States be leading the effort or following the Japanese, the Europeans or the Soviets?”

Bauer, who has spent his professional career working in the space program and development of the “Star Wars” space-based weapons program, said he ventured into the political arena because he is “sort of frustrated with what goes on in Washington.”

“The politicians have not done a good job,” Bauer said in an interview. “The political system is creaking and groaning under the strain of intra-party bickering, incompetence, power struggles and disdain for the future of America.”

Bauer proposes a constitutional amendment to establish a flat 10% income tax with no deductions or exemptions.

He favors a balanced-budget constitutional amendment and, expanding on an idea offered by Lungren, would confiscate the salaries of the President and Congress if the budget was not balanced.

He strongly supports education, believing it to be “the key to the future,” and would provide low-interest government loans for college students.

BURNS

Burns, 33, a carpenter by trade, tells audiences that he attended the “school of hard knocks.”

He warns that American society is suffering from moral decay and complains that acceptance of “alternative life styles” is leading to the spread of AIDS.

Burns said he would apply “extreme pressure at sources” of illegal drugs and would cut off all American aid to countries that produce them. “Are we not truly in a war?” he asks.

However, Burns has reservations about involving the military in the anti-drug efforts unless it is specifically trained for that duty.

A lifelong surfer, Burns said he wants to see more federal money spent on sewage treatment and favors preserving the Bolsa Chica State Beach and nearby wetlands.

Neither Bauer nor Burns have raised or spent more than $5,000, the threshold for filing a campaign finance report.