Write-In Bid Threatened in 52nd District Race

The disgruntled runner-up in the 52nd Assembly District Republican primary is threatening to wage a write-in campaign in November, buoying the hopes of the underdog Democratic nominee and raising the specter of a divided Republican Party.

Kenneth Manning, who lost by 72 votes in the final primary count, said he is considering a write-in campaign because the Republican winner, Diamond Bar Councilman Paul V. Horcher, is not conservative enough to satisfy voters in the predominantly GOP district.

He also accused Horcher of running a dirty campaign. Horcher denied that charge and said his political views are nearly as conservative as Manning’s.

The chief beneficiary of a write-in effort could be Democratic nominee Gary Neely, a 40-year-old marketing consultant from Diamond Bar.

Neely, who labels himself a conservative Democrat, said his candidacy is picking up support from Republican voters dissatisfied with the primary outcome for the vacant Assembly seat. In an unusually fractured eight-candidate race, Horcher won the primary with slightly less than 18% of the vote.

Neely said he thinks he has a chance to upset Horcher whether or not Manning runs.

Neely and Horcher, a 38-year-old attorney, are stressing their conservative credentials. Manning disagrees. “From my perspective, we have two candidates who are moderates. The conservatives don’t have anybody to vote for,” he said.

If he runs, Manning will be the only anti-abortion candidate. Neely and Horcher favor abortion rights, although Horcher is opposed to government funding of abortions.

Manning, who lives in Hacienda Heights, said he will decide on a write-in campaign in the next few weeks. He says he would have plenty of support from local Republicans but is not sure he could raise enough money--$100,000 or more, by his estimation--to run a successful campaign.

Manning said he also may ask for a recount. The county registrar-recorder last week reported a final but still unofficial count that showed Horcher defeating Manning by 72 votes, 5,041 to 4,969. The county will certify the results Tuesday, and Manning will have until July 2 to ask for a recount at his own expense, with the cost refunded if the result is changed in his favor.

The unofficial returns on election night had Horcher 64 votes ahead of Wil Baca, a Hacienda Heights environmentalist, and 166 ahead of Manning. In the final unofficial tally, Manning surged past Baca, who wound up third with 4,956 votes.

Horcher said he doubts that Manning, 37, a construction contractor and member of the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District board, will carry out his threat to run as a write-in candidate. Such a campaign would be futile and would damage Manning’s standing in the Republican Party, Horcher said. “It would create more difficulties for him (than me),” he said.

Horcher pointed out that Manning in April had signed a fair campaign pledge that included this statement: “I will support the Republican nominee after the primary election.”

“It’s a solemn oath,” Horcher said.

But Manning said his promise is not binding because most of the other candidates, including Horcher, refused to sign the pledge.

Baca said Manning will be making a mistake if he undertakes a write-in campaign. “I think supporting the party is more important than playing a spoiled brat,” he said. During the campaign, Baca said, Manning stressed his loyalty to the party and his long service to the Republican cause. It is odd, Baca said, for a candidate who “claimed he was a Republican since he was in diapers to be putting his own ambitions before the interests of the party.”

Neely ran unopposed in the Democratic primary and tallied 18,010 votes, almost 13,000 more than Horcher in the splintered GOP race.

But the 52nd Assembly District, which stretches from La Mirada and Whittier to the San Gabriel Valley, taking in Hacienda Heights, Rowland Heights, Walnut, Diamond Bar and part of West Covina, is decidedly Republican. There are 74,029 registered Republicans, 65,722 Democrats and 15,450 who are unaffiliated or belong to minor parties.

If he does not undertake a write-in campaign, Manning said, he believes that some of his supporters will vote Democratic. He said Neely is “as conservative as Paul Horcher and he’s a much more likeable guy.”

Manning added: “Paul Horcher is in trouble in this district. He has some real work to do to convince people that he has ethics.”

Manning attributed his primary loss to a smear campaign. He said Horcher unfairly attacked his record as a school trustee in mailers by distorting his school district’s dropout rate. In addition, he said, someone ran a telephone campaign telling residents that Manning was the subject of a corruption investigation and had used drugs, both of which Manning denies.

Horcher said he did not run a telephone campaign smearing Manning and is not convinced that there was such a campaign. He said his mailers attacked Manning’s record in office, using information from published reports. “I ran a hard campaign,” he said. “I ran the campaign to win. I didn’t do anything unethical or shady.”

Phil Mautino, a Whittier attorney who finished sixth in the primary with 3,846 votes, said he was repelled by Horcher’s campaign. He said Horcher “was the only one who engaged in negative campaigning” and he is uncertain whether he will support him in November. “I’m hesitant to endorse a candidate who would use those tactics,” Mautino said.

But Baca said: “I didn’t think it was a particularly dirty campaign. The hit pieces (Horcher) put out were what you would normally expect.”

Baca said he has not yet endorsed Horcher, but added, “I don’t see any impediment to helping him as long as he recognizes the message that my campaign sent.”

Running as a moderate and an urban environmentalist, Baca promised to deal with traffic congestion, smog, water pollution and toxic waste. Baca said Horcher’s victory and his own strong showing were a defeat for ultraconservatives. “If the Republican Party is going to be the majority party in California, it’s going to have to move away from the right and toward the middle,” Baca said.

But Horcher, whose primary campaign stressed his moderate stance--in favor of abortion rights and sensitive to women’s and minority issues--said in a telephone interview last week: “I’m as conservative as Ken Manning.” Later in the interview, he modified that to say that his political views were somewhere between Baca’s and Manning’s but probably closer to Manning’s.

“I’m not a liberal Republican,” he emphasized.

Horcher said his Assembly votes probably would not differ much from those of conservative Whittier Republican Frank Hill, who gave up the Assembly seat after winning election to the state Senate earlier this year. Hill endorsed Horcher a week before the election.