ELECTIONS ASSEMBLY : McClintock Uses High-Tech Offense in Reelection Bid

Republican Assemblyman Tom McClintock considers his new, $35,000 computer the centerpiece of his reelection campaign. He pays college students $5 an hour to telephone Republican supporters identified by the computer and urge them to vote on Nov. 6.

Democratic challenger Ginny Connell puts her election hopes in a mushrooming group of volunteers who hand-carry brochures to voters’ doors, hand-address envelopes destined for absentee voters and work the phones.

The divergent campaigns--one high-tech and well financed, the other grass-roots and cash poor--reflect the striking differences between the two candidates themselves.

McClintock is an eight-year incumbent from Thousand Oaks who relishes criticizing Democrats and even Republicans for failing his conservative cause to slash government spending and taxes.

Connell, a former nun, is a soft-spoken family therapist in Thousand Oaks who said she is astounded at McClintock’s attacks on those who don’t share his conservative views. Moreover, she said, she is appalled at his opposition to state-financed abortions and virtually every Democratic plan to protect the environment or improve education.

Initially written off as the Democrats’ sacrificial lamb, Connell has impressed many party leaders with a spirited campaign that has attracted more than 100 volunteers. But her campaign is still a long shot in the 36th Assembly District, where 51% of voters are registered as Republicans.

“I’ve had some luck with these campaigns called, ‘A snowball’s chance in hell,’ ” said Mary Rose, a political consultant to Connell’s campaign. Rose said she still thinks Connell has a chance at an upset victory.

Connell, chairwoman of the Ventura County Democratic Party, said her decision to run against McClintock was galvanized by McClintock’s refusal to reconsider voting for state-financed family planning clinics that provide abortions.

“He’s anti-abortion and has a very poor record of supporting the schools, clean air and the environment,” said Connell, who has won the support of most women’s and environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club and the National Organization for Women. “He’s out of touch with the voters.”

McClintock said he does not seek to ban abortions, but he strongly opposes public financing of the procedure. He suggests that Connell has the wrong issue in the Republican-majority district.

“Her position that taxpayers’ funds should be used to support and finance abortion is out of step with the vast majority of constituents in the district,” McClintock said.

Connell, who acknowledges that her campaign got off to a slow start, has had difficulty raising significant political contributions. Through September, Connell had raised about $22,000 but was left with $6,660 in cash available for printing brochures and a planned mass mailing to voters.

But Rose, a veteran Democratic strategist in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, said the number and quality of Connell’s volunteers has compensated for her campaign’s lack of cash. Upon Rose’s advice, Connell has taken the campaign to the streets, walking precincts with volunteers every weekend and most evenings.

Marlene Head, Connell’s volunteer coordinator, calculates that the campaign has between 100 and 130 volunteers, many of them elderly residents of Leisure Village in Camarillo. Others come from the Democratic Party, area chapters of the National Organization for Women and other women’s groups. “It’s been amazing the outpouring of support,” Head said.

By contrast, McClintock’s campaign raised about $140,000 through September, not including some contributions that trickled in from a fund-raising luncheon in Ventura that featured Oliver North as the guest speaker.

McClintock said he has not walked any precincts, nor does he plan to. Instead, he said, hired college students and a handful of volunteers have kept a close watch on the electorate by calling voters randomly selected by computer. He said the results of his random survey show him doing “very well.”

Furthermore, he said, he has about $55,000 available to spend on any effort needed to secure his position in the district that stretches across the county from Thousand Oaks to Ventura.

McClintock declines to say if he will send a mass mailing to voters. But he said his campaign is equipped with a state-of-the-art computer that gives it tremendous flexibility to respond to mailers from his opponent. In June, he decided to dispatch a brochure to Republican voters in the final days of the primary campaign. “That computer allowed us to general a piece within 48 hours,” McClintock said.

David A. Harner, a technologist at Damon Reference Laboratory in Newbury Park, is also on the ballot as a candidate for the Libertarian Party. “I realize I have no chance of winning. I just hope to introduce the public to some ideas,” he said, such as dramatically scaling back the role of government.

Harner said he agrees with McClintock on most issues. “He is more Libertarian-esque than most Republicans, but he is still a Republican.”