Election Illustrates the Power of Incumbency : Politics: In light of a long list of controversies this year, some observers are wondering just what it takes to unseat an officeholder.

The day after several embattled San Diego legislators carrying especially heavy political baggage easily survived bruising primaries, a plaintive and somewhat sobering question was being asked Wednesday in local political circles:

If sexual harassment charges, criticism over living out of town, questions about alleged bribes or payoffs, acceptance of huge self-approved pay raises, using state-paid employees as a kind of private chauffeur service and sub-mediocre records are not enough for a challenger to dislodge an officeholder, then what exactly does it take to beat an incumbent?

“You can’t do it,” political consultant Jim Johnston said emphatically. “Forget it--you’re wasting your time.”

“Obviously, that’s a question that I don’t know the answer to,” said consultant Tom Shepard, wryly referring to his efforts in Celia Ballesteros’ unsuccessful campaign against Assemblyman Peter Chacon (D-San Diego). “I’d say it’s close to impossible.”

Many consultants, political activists and candidates themselves drew the same message from Tuesday’s primary, in which a handful of San Diego congressional and state legislative incumbents mired in ethics-related controversies easily turned back challenges from within their own party.

Even as the primary results were analyzed, attention shifted to November--in particular, to what lessons or impact Tuesday holds for the general election.

With many predicting that the fall’s campaigns will be lackluster by comparison to what was the most competitive primary season in recent San Diego political history, one of the few contests that may be a race in more than name only is the 78th District rematch between GOP Assemblyman-elect Jeff Marston and former Democratic San Diego City Councilman Mike Gotch.

Marston’s narrow three-percentage-point victory in their special runoff to fill the vacancy created by Democrat Lucy Killea’s election to the state Senate, combined with the district’s relative partisan parity, presage a potentially compelling showdown for the two-year term at stake in November.

Republican Randall (Duke) Cunningham also is expected to run an aggressive, well-financed campaign against Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego) in their 44th Congressional District contest, a race likely to focus on the by now well-known sexual harassment charges lodged against Bates by two former female staff members.

“Bates is just another MiG, and an unethical one,” Cunningham, a much-decorated Navy fighter pilot who served in Vietnam, said on Election Night. The Democrats’ 54%-34% registration edge in the district, however, significantly lessens Cunningham’s chances of shooting down the four-term congressman.

Indeed, though several incumbents were kept on the defensive by a barrage of criticism from their primary opponents, the consensus is that Tuesday’s winners will be even more politically secure in November, in large measure because of their lopsided voter registration advantages in their districts. Primary challengers, while still having to overcome incumbents’ name-recognition and fund-raising advantages, at least do not have those problems exacerbated by the demographic hurdle that confronts opponents from the opposite party.

A vivid illustration of how the dynamics of the campaigns change dramatically from June to November can be seen in the 76th Assembly District, where Assemblywoman Tricia Hunter (R-Bonita) survived by the narrowest margin--52% to 48%, with some absentee ballots remaining to be counted--of any state legislator from San Diego County.

As she prepares for her November race against Democratic nominee Stephen Thorne, however, Hunter can take comfort in the knowledge that the GOP holds an intimidating 55%-32% registration advantage in her North San Diego County-Riverside County district. (Hunter’s primary opponent, anti-abortion activist Connie Youngkin, still clung to hope Wednesday that the uncounted absentee ballots could change the primary’s outcome. In order to offset her 2,500-vote deficit, however, Youngkin would have to receive an overwhelmingly large percentage of the remaining absentees.)

“If there were going to be any upsets, they would have come in the primary,” said lawyer Byron Georgiou, who heavily outspent U.S. Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego) but still lost by a more than 3-2 margin in their 44th District Democratic primary. “General elections usually are pretty much foregone conclusions.”

With statistics showing that, historically, more than 95% of incumbents are reelected, the difficulties inherent in trying to unseat an officeholder hardly rank as a new or startling conclusion. Between 1984 and 1988, for example, incumbents lost only five of the 495 congressional and state legislative races in California. Before Tuesday, the only congressman defeated this year was Rep. Donald (Buzz) Lukens (R-Ohio), who was convicted on morals charges involving a 16-year-old girl.

On Tuesday, several incumbents’ victories came amid the kind of debilitating controversies that often end political careers.

Bates, Chacon and Assemblywoman Sunny Mojonnier (R-Encinitas), for example, have faced official investigations into their conduct. In Bates’ case, the probe ended with a reprimand from the House Ethics Committee on the sexual harassment charges, while Mojonnier paid a $13,200 fine for double-billing the state and her campaign committee for business trips.

Mojonnier and Chacon also faced questions over their acceptance of large honorariums--$10,000 and $7,500, respectively--from groups with a direct interest in legislation before them. Both also ranked very low in the California Journal’s evaluation of state legislators’ overall effectiveness--in Chacon’s case, next-to-last. The incumbents’ other liabilities include Bates’ vote to increase congressional salaries from $89,500 to $120,750, Mojonnier’s use of state-paid sergeants-at-arms for private tasks and the fact that Chacon’s primary residence is in Northern California.

Any one of those factors, consultants argue, would represent a major “negative” in any campaign. The fact that Bates, Chacon and Mojonnier handily won renomination while having to deflect criticism over multiple negatives--Mojonnier’s 11 percentage points was the closest victory margin in the three races--offers sobering evidence, strategists add, of incumbents’ virtual political invincibility.

“If this stuff wasn’t enough to take out at least one of those guys, then I don’t know how much more it takes,” said consultant Johnston, who observed those races from the sidelines. “What it tells challengers it that they’re taking up a lost cause, and the message it sends to incumbents is that they can pretty much do anything they damn well please and not have to worry about it.”

“The picture is not an encouraging one for challengers,” said consultant Bill Wachob, who worked on Bates’ campaign. “We were outspent about 2 to 1 by a strong opponent who ran a technically good campaign, and that still wasn’t nearly enough.”

Explanations for Tuesday’s results go beyond the visibility, fund-raising edge and other traditional advantages of incumbency. In most races, a strong case can be made that factors peculiar to that contest also figured prominently in the outcome.

Mojonnier, for example, clearly benefited from having the anti-incumbent vote in the 75th District splintered among three challengers, allowing her to win the primary with only 39% of the vote. In a one-on-one race against her major opponent, former Del Mar Mayor Ronnie Delaney, Mojonnier might easily have lost, many consultants say.

Ballesteros’ challenge to Chacon, meanwhile, proceeded haltingly until a change in campaign management with only about three weeks remaining in the race. And Bates was able to chip away at Georgiou’s own credibility by emphasizing the challenger’s decision to move into the district after dropping out of the special 78th Assembly District contest.

In addition, with so many competitive primaries vying for attention, none of the races attracted the kind of saturation news coverage that can help a challenger effectively compete with a better-known, usually better-financed incumbent.

Despite the controversies swirling around them, the incumbents’ popularity--or at least longtime familiarity--among their constituents also cannot be underestimated.

“Jim Bates has put to rest the notion that he can ever-- ever --be challenged on his home turf,” said Larry Remer, another of Bates’ consultants. “People have heard Jim Bates called every name imaginable, but that didn’t cause them to forget that he’s represented the district well for a long time. This was a real vote of confidence.”

Others suggested that the sharply negative campaigns waged by many of the challengers provoked a backlash among voters. Though the incumbents’ woes all but dictated such an approach, voters’ growing disenchantment with “hit” pieces may have neutralized the anti-incumbent sentiment that many had predicted would be seen this year in reaction to recent scandals in Sacramento and Washington.

“It’s not enough anymore to just tell voters, ‘He’s a dirt bag and I’m not, so vote for me,’ ” said Marston consultant Sara Katz. “The mistake some of these people made was in spending too much time telling people why not to vote for their opponent and not enough about why they should vote for them.”

To bring the issue into focus, however, one must ask one other question: If all of this hindsight advice had been available and acted upon before the primary, would the outcome have been different?

“Hell no!” consultant Johnston said. “Incumbents are lifers.”

He paused, then added: “Well, maybe a felony arrest the week before the election would help. But I doubt even that would change things.”