Konnyu Beaten After One Term; GOP Picks Two for House Seats

There was no drama for U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) and his top Democratic challenger, Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy, but California GOP voters Tuesday ousted first-term Rep. Ernest Konnyu (R-Saratoga) while also anointing two new Republicans who appear sure to be elected to Congress in the fall.

Konnyu was defeated in his party primary by Tom Campbell, a 35-year-old Stanford University law professor and economist.

A clearly bitter Konnyu, speaking with his two crying daughters at his side, said he would “absolutely not” support Campbell in November: “This guy has all the power in the world behind him. He doesn’t need Ernie Konnyu.”

All other California members of Congress who stood for reelection were leading in bids to retain their party’s nominations.

The probable new members of the House were leading in races to win GOP nominations in the 42nd and 40th districts in Southern California, both resolutely Republican districts where Democrats have conceded little chance of winning in November.

In the 42nd, former White House speech writer Dana Rohrabacher appeared headed for an upset of the woman many Republicans considered the front-runner, Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, for the nomination to replace Rep. Daniel E. Lungren, who is leaving Congress in January to pursue his legal battle to be seated as California state treasurer.

Leaders in House Races

Rohrabacher was well ahead of Wieder and former Cal State Long Beach President Stephen Horn.

In the 40th, C. Christopher Cox, a virtual unknown in Orange County until he left the White House staff to run, held a commanding lead after a bitterly contested campaign to inherit the safe GOP seat of Rep. Robert E. Badham, who is retiring from Congress.

Cox, 35, of Newport Beach, was out-polling the two other major candidates in the field of nine--Irvine Councilman C. David Baker and Newport Beach businessman Nathan Rosenberg.

In the 30th District, on the east side of Los Angeles County, Rep. Matthew G. Martinez (D-Monterey Park) won easily over former Monterey Park mayor Lily Chen. But Martinez could face a tough November challenge from the winner between Republicans Ralph Ramirez and Mike Radlovic, who were in a close race in late returns.

Konnyu has been a vocal conservative since his election to the House in 1986, but he has also proved to be controversial both in Washington and at home--a fact that Campbell exploited in the campaign.

Campbell was running strong even though he has lived in the area less than five years, supported Democrat George McGovern when he first voted in 1972, and ran this year on a platform that includes raising some taxes. But he also worked in the Reagan White House and apparently was conservative enough for the 12th district voters.

In the November election, Campbell will face San Mateo County Supervisor Anna Eshoo, who won the Democratic nomination in a field of five candidates.

For Wilson and McCarthy, the primary Tuesday in which they won party nominations was a perfunctory step required before they can square off in November. The race begins with Wilson holding a solid lead of 12 to 20 points in the polls and with $2.4 million in the bank, compared to $706,000 for McCarthy.

At his victory party Tuesday night in Los Angeles, McCarthy pledged to put money problems behind him by raising $9 million for the race, and also said he expects to benefit from running on the same ballot as Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, the probable Democratic candidate for president.

“The Dukakis candidacy is exciting Democrats all over the state. . . . I think it is a plus, a strong plus,” said McCarthy, who faced only token opposition in the Democratic primary.

At Republican headquarters in Orange County, Wilson predicted victory in his attempt for a second term. “The people appear to know not only the differences I have made for California in the last 5 1/2 years, but also the very fundamental differences between Leo McCarthy and me.”

The 42nd District, where Rohrabacher was leading, covers Torrance and the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County, then passes through Long Beach. It also reaches south into Orange County to encompass Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Cypress and Westminster.

Wieder was the best-known candidate in Orange County from her years on the Board of Supervisors there. Horn possibly was the best-known in the Los Angeles County slice of the district from his tenure as Cal State Long Beach president.

But both Rohrabacher and a rival, Andrew J. Littlefair, spent the campaign trying to inform voters of their experience in Washington with the Reagan Administration. Rohrabacher was a speech writer in the White House and Littlefair an advance assistant who later worked for corporate takeover expert T. Boone Pickens.

A Role for North

Rohrabacher gave the campaign its only splash of national glamour by inviting Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, who retired from the Marine Corps after losing his White House job in the Iran-Contra scandal, to campaign for him in Southern California.

Much of the campaign focused on Wieder and her admission that she has lied for 25 years about her education. Wieder had always claimed that she held a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Wayne State University in Detroit, and she repeated the lie again in a court deposition last October.

Rohrabacher revealed that the claim was untrue, and Wieder finally admitted publicly that she had never attended college.

Another issue in the race was her support for growth in Orange County, which has prompted some political rebellion in parts of the county.

In the 40th District race to replace Badham, Cox came to be regarded the front-runner by virtue of his fund-raising expertise. By raising more than $500,000, Cox was able to send his literature to the homes of Republicans throughout the district, which stretches from Laguna Beach and Newport Beach inland through Irvine and Costa Mesa to Santa Ana.

Field Down to Three

A field of 12 Republicans began the race, but by Tuesday the campaign had settled into a three-man contest. Baker, the first-term Irvine councilman, was the favorite of Badham, and the third leader--Rosenberg--was Badham’s opponent in the 1986 primary.

In the last days of the campaign, voters received mailings that attacked Cox for starting a business to translate the Soviet newspaper Pravda into English and raised questions about Baker’s marital fidelity. The mailings bore the name American Council for a Conservative Consensus, but they turned out to be the work of an Arizona man who is a friend of Rosenberg.

Rosenberg acknowledged that the man is a friend and contributor, but denied that his campaign was aware of the mailings.

Earlier in the race, Cox’s claim to the purest conservative credentials was challenged by the disclosure that he had not voted in the 1984 elections, when Reagan won his landslide reelection, or again in the 1986 Republican primaries in California.

Party Wings at Odds

In Santa Clara County and along the San Francisco Peninsula, the campaign between Konnyu and Campbell had turned into a battle between wings of the California Republican Party that do not always agree.

Konnyu had the backing of Gov. George Deukmejian and of his local Republican committees, which are run by strong conservatives. Campbell, on the other hand, enjoyed the support of the district’s more moderate Republican leaders, including former Reps. Ed Zschau and Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey.

Campbell also had unusually strong support from the top business leaders and venture capitalists of the Silicon Valley region, who had charged Konnyu with not understanding foreign trade issues and being insulting to women.