Complacency by McColl Played a Key Role in Her Downfall, Bentley Believes

State legislative aide Carol Bentley pointed Wednesday to a strong grass-roots campaign and an aggressive get-out-the-vote effort as key reasons behind her upset win over San Diego City Councilwoman Gloria McColl in the 77th Assembly District Republican primary.

And not to be overlooked, she said, was one more important factor: complacency on the part of her opponent.

“My opponent was so complacent from the beginning . . . she felt she just had to raise money and that’s all,” Bentley said.

A member of her professional campaign consulting team, David Lewis, was even more emphatic. He said McColl “took the election for granted. She ran a front-runner, or an incumbent’s type of campaign . . . she kept swatting at Carol like she was a fly and would go away.”

Margin of Victory

Go away she didn’t as Bentley, the top aide to retiring state Sen. Jim Ellis (R-San Diego), beat McColl soundly by about 10 percentage points, garnering 19,240 votes (55%) to McColl’s 15,662 votes (45%).

Her main opponent in November will be Democrat Sam Hornreich, a lawyer. Also on the ballot will be Libertarian Party candidate Reene Deutsch. But, if historical trends hold, November’s election will be anticlimactic.

That is because Republicans hold such an overwhelming edge over Democrats in district registration--50% to 38%--that, for practical purposes, the real election was between Bentley and McColl.

Bentley said Wednesday, though, that she is not taking any chances and will campaign and work as hard to defeat Hornreich, a political newcomer, as she did to topple McColl. If that’s the case, she may need to buy several new pairs of shoes.

The hallmark of Bentley’s campaign against McColl was work. Bentley, 43, a staunch conservative who has been involved in partisan politics for 16 years, spent up to six hours a day walking precincts and knocking on doors in the sprawling district, which ranges from Tierrasanta and parts of northern San Diego to East County, including La Mesa, El Cajon and Santee.

She covered 111 precincts. Because of her long work in local Republican circles, Bentley was able to draw on a core group of party loyalists who formed the backbone of her grass-roots campaign. These activists became zealous “foot soldiers” in the district but provided the key to an aggressive election-day get-out-the-vote effort, which, because of a low voter turnout of about 45%, proved crucial.

The turning point of the campaign, said Bentley, was her victory over McColl in late April at the Republican countywide convention at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, where, in a straw poll, she received 65% of the vote, contrasted with McColl’s 35%. “The ball seemed to really start rolling after that,” she said.

Not to be overlooked, both she and Lewis said, is that Bentley had the endorsement of both her boss, Ellis, and current 77th District incumbent Larry Stirling (R-San Diego), who is vacating the seat for a try at Ellis’ state Senate district.

In the absence of major philosophical differences between her and McColl, Bentley made a central theme of her campaign the assertion that she is the only “real” Republican in the GOP primary. That theme and others were followed up in a hefty 11 mailers sent out to registered Republicans in the district, according to Lewis.

Although a detailed analysis of voting patterns is not yet available, Lewis believes Bentley did particularly well with East County voters, where Bentley campaign polls showed she was strongest and where there was an aversion “against people from downtown running things.”

Low Turnout Blamed

McColl, 57, was not available for comment Wednesday, but her campaign consultant, Sacramento-based Gary Huckaby, denied that McColl took the primary for granted and speculated that the low voter turnout--which heightened the impact of Bentley’s core of supporters--had more to do with her defeat.

“There were other things taking her time, the City Council and important things. A lot of available time for campaigning was diverted” to other issues such as McColl’s role in San Diego’s recent selection as a U.S. Olympic training center, explained Huckaby.

He acknowledged, though, that Bentley’s avalanche of mailers caught the McColl campaign by surprise because there was no indication that Bentley had the money for such a massive effort.

As for complacency, Huckaby said it indeed was prevalent but not from him or McColl. Rather, he explained, it seemed campaign contributors were so certain of a McColl victory that they either didn’t give at all or gave less than was anticipated.

Also, the big campaign contributors in Sacramento, represented by wealthy political action committees created by special interest groups at the capital, stayed on the sidelines because they were “neutralized” by Ellis.

“Would-be contributors weren’t giving, or those who would usually give $3,500 gave only $250,” he said.

At first, it seemed that McColl’s high name recognition plus her potential money-raising ability and Establishment support--illustrated by endorsements from Home Federal Savings Chairman Kim Fletcher and former San Diego City Councilman Bill Cleator--would provide her with the Yellow Brick Road to the Assembly.

As recently as two weeks ago, said Huckaby, internal campaign surveys showed McColl in a commanding lead, 46% to 16%, over Bentley.

“We had a fairly ambitious get-out-the-vote effort . . . we were doing phone banking and walking precincts,” Huckaby said. “But, obviously, Bentley did a better job.”