CAMPAIGNS : Mud Flies in Final Days of Campaigns : Politicians: Truth is buried under avalanche of personal attacks tainted by falsehoods.

Blending vitriol with distortion, candidates in some of San Diego’s congressional and state legislative primaries have unleashed unusually harsh and, on occasion, inaccurate attacks on their opponents in the campaigns’ closing days.

Though politicians typically reserve their most potent salvos for a race’s final days, the acidity of the attacks and the manner in which some local candidates play fast and loose with the facts in their final appeals to voters is uncommon even by normal campaign standards.

In the 44th Congressional District, for example, Republican Joseph Ghougassian has accused opponent Randall (Duke) Cunningham of injecting anti-Arab racism into the race via a mailer charging that Ghougassian’s campaign is being “bankrolled by Arab oil interests.” Cunningham denies that and says that Ghougassian started their recent flurry of charges and countercharges by ridiculing him for his failure to vote between 1966 and 1988.

On the Democratic side of the 44th District race, a brochure for challenger Byron Georgiou states that Rep. Jim Bates “votes against the death penalty, even for cop killers and drug kingpins.” Though Bates opposed death penalty measures several times, he also voted for a drug bill that included a capital punishment provision--prompting the congressman to call his opponent “a lying lawyer.”

The rancor has been equally loud in the 79th Assembly District race, where a deluge of recent mailers on behalf of Assemblyman Peter Chacon (D-San Diego) sharply criticizes his primary opponent, former San Diego City Councilwoman Celia Ballesteros.

“Celia Ballesteros isn’t just a liberal--she’s a liberal lawyer whose supporters include a group that favors legalizing street prostitution,” one mailer says. That charge refers to Ballesteros’ endorsement by the National Organization for Women, which favors decriminalizing prostitution.

Amid all the late “hit pieces” cluttering mailboxes and the airwaves, perhaps none has been so roundly denounced as Cunningham’s mailer attacking Ghougassian, an Egyptian-born Armenian who served as U.S. ambassador to Qatar from 1985 through 1989. Beneath sketches of Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, a Saudi Arabian prince and an oil barrel dripping dollars, the mailer says: “Remember long lines at gas stations following the Arab Embargo of 1973? We don’t need a congressman bought and paid for by these special interests. DO WE?”

“This is blatant racism, pure and simple,” Ghougassian said. “It’s a disgusting slur against not only me, but also all naturalized Americans.”

Others were quick to second Ghougassian’s sentiments. Another contender in the five-candidate GOP primary in the 44th District, government lobbyist Jim Lantry, called Cunningham’s mailer a “racist, KKK-type attack,” and the head of the Arab American Leadership Council wrote to the co-chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Edward J. Rollins, urging him to condemn “this racist attack.”

In a letter sent to Ghougassian Saturday, Rollins wrote that he was “appalled” by Cunningham’s mailer, adding: “Having spent nearly 30 years in politics, there is little that shocks me about this game, but many things still sicken me. Campaign smears that attack someone because of their racial, ethnic or religious background are outrageous, unacceptable and have no place in the (Republican) party.”

Defending the brochure, Cunningham argues that it was not an attack on Ghougassian’s ethnicity or intended to “denigrate or malign Arab-Americans,” but rather simply emphasized the campaign contributions that Ghouggassian has received from “Arab oil interests.” In the brochure, Cunningham points out that Ghougassian has received donations from several Mideast businessmen and oil company representatives.

“The source of funds in a congressional campaign (is) a legitimate issue,” Cunningham said. “Unfortunately, some people have interpreted this mail piece as anti-Arab-American.”

In seeking to clarify his position, however, Cunningham may have worsened matters through some ill-chosen words. At a downtown debate last week, he told the Lions Club: “I have on my campaign staff an Arab. My daughter’s best friend is Arab.”

“This is how this man shows he’s not prejudiced?” Ghougassian asks.

Hoping to shift blame for the negative tone of the campaign, Cunningham argues that it was Ghougassian’s criticism of his voting record--or, more properly, non-voting record--that started the sniping. On that point, candidate Lantry, who sided with Ghougassian on the Arab mailer, concurs with Cunningham.

“If you play with matches, you can’t complain about getting burned,” Lantry said. The two other Republicans in the race are business consultant Eric Epifano and retired firefighter Kenny Harrell.

One of Ghougassian’s mailers points out that when Cunningham registered to vote in 1988, he indicated that he had never voted before. Cunningham has since said that he registered and voted in Illinois in 1966, but did not vote for the next 22 years, part of which he spent in Vietnam as a highly decorated Navy fighter pilot. During that time, Cunningham--whose aides saw the issue as an attack on his patriotism--”voted for all of us with his blood,” his own brochure says.

Portraying Cunningham as a carpetbagger, the same Ghougassian mailer notes that Cunningham recently moved into an apartment in the 44th District but still owns a house outside the district in Del Mar. By printing photos of his homes, addresses and a telephone number, Cunningham charges, Ghougassian has jeopardized his family--an allegation Ghougassian calls “less than ridiculous.”

As the Republicans’ infighting built to a crescendo, the already considerable acrimony between Bates and Georgiou heightened in their bitter battle for the Democratic nomination in the 44th District.

While Bates’ reprimand by the House Ethics Committee last year on sexual harassment charges dominated the early stages of the campaign to the virtual exclusion of all other issues, the candidates’ differing positions on the death penalty have taken center stage recently.

Georgiou, the one-time legal affairs adviser to former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., is a strong advocate of the death penalty, while Bates opposes it in most cases except for, in his words, “particularly heinous crimes.”

The problem, Bates charges, is that Georgiou’s mailers and television ads say that the incumbent “always votes” against the death penalty. One major point of dispute between the two involves the 1986 Omnibus Drug Bill. While Georgiou emphasizes that Bates voted against amendments creating the death penalty for so-called “drug kingpins,” Bates stresses that he voted for the bill’s final version.

“He says I’ve never voted for the death penalty, and that’s a lie,” said Bates, who is being outspent in the race, in large part because Georgiou has invested about $200,000 of his own money in the campaign. “He’s trying to buy this race with his money and his lies.”

The “only lying going on,” Georgiou says in response, “is Jim Bates trying to run from his record. The critical vote, the litmus test, was on the amendment, whether to put the death penalty in the bill. By his reasoning . . . Bates can say he’s against the death penalty because he voted against the amendment and that he’s for it because he voted for the bill.”

In the 79th Assembly District, meanwhile, most voters have received at least a half dozen letters in the past several days from groups and individuals supporting Chacon. While the letters lavish praise on Chacon’s 20-year record, they also are accompanied by small cards that attack Ballesteros.

“Worried about politicians squandering your money?” one says. “As a former public official, Celia Ballesteros unethically spent thousands of dollars of tax money on a ‘party’ for her supporters.”

The event in question, Ballesteros said, was a “community recognition awards ceremony” costing about $3,000. “There’s a big difference between saying I threw a party for my friends and giving a recognition dinner for community leaders,” she said. Chacon’s aides, though, dismiss Ballesteros’ complaints as semantical hair-splitting.

Another of the pro-Chacon letters was signed by his administrative assistant, Irma Munoz, who recently resigned as chairman of the local Democratic Party. Because the letter features a letterhead saying “San Diego County Democratic Party,” Ballesteros calls it a “distortion, if not a lie” implying the party’s endorsement. Local Democratic leaders apparently agreed, because they issued a statement Friday reiterating the party’s neutrality.