CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS : Shift in Mood of Voters Hurts Bates, Aids Rival

Having reaped the benefits of incumbency since 1982, Rep. Jim Bates fears that next week’s election against former Navy fighter pilot Randall (Duke) Cunningham may be one in which the downside to being in office outweighs the assets.

Beyond his distress over losing weeks of valuable campaign time by being stuck in Washington during the recent budget impasse, Bates (D-San Diego) also is worried about being caught up in a nationwide backlash against incumbents. Heightening those concerns, Bates--whose 1989 sanction by the House Ethics Committee on sexual-harassment charges makes him a target for voters’ wrath--has had some of his campaign brochures mailed back to him with pink slips attached.

“There’s so much public anger out there, and the budget mess just made it worse by making us all look like clowns,” Bates said. “These groups that talk about throwing out all incumbents have really whipped people up. When you start getting your mail sent back to you with things like, ‘You’re through, buddy!’ written on it, it’s time to worry.”

Indeed, though he is still a slim favorite in his bid for a fifth two-year term, Bates’ hold on his 44th District seat appears more tenuous than at any time in his career.

That makes Bates the exception among San Diego County’s four-member congressional delegation in the Nov. 6 election. Two GOP incumbents, Ron Packard of Carlsbad and Duncan Hunter of Coronado, have drawn only minor-party opposition, and a third Republican, Rep. Bill Lowery of San Diego, is a clear front-runner against a Democratic challenger whom he has defeated twice before.

Typically, elections in the Bates’ 44th District are races in name only. Specifically crafted to be “Republican-proof” by the state legislators who drew its boundaries, the southern San Diego district--where Democrats now hold a formidable 53%-35% edge among registered voters--is, under normal circumstances, safe political harbor for any Democrat.

But even Bates, who has never received less than 60% of the vote against previous GOP opponents, concedes that this is anything but a normal campaign for him--in part because he has had so little time to campaign.

Congress’ protracted haggling with the White House over the federal budget kept Bates in Washington until last weekend. As Congress’ lengthiest pre-election session since World War II dragged on, Bates--an indefatigable campaigner who spends endless hours politicking door to door even in non-election years--chafed as he watched his seemingly secure 18-point lead in one September poll dwindle to less than half that by mid-October.

“It’s tough when your most valuable asset is 2,000 miles away,” grumbled Rick Taylor, Bates’ campaign consultant.

Although Cunningham complained that Bates’ absence scuttled plans for debates, the first-time candidate also benefitted from having the district largely to himself at a critical stage of the race.

With national party figures aiding both major candidates, Bates and Cunningham are each expected to spend about $300,000 by Election Day.

“We’re going to get rid of this rascal,” Cunningham said. “My whole life has been a matter of overcoming a lot of tough odds. It’s looking like that record will remain intact.”

One of the most decorated Navy pilots in the Vietnam War--where he became an ace by shooting down five enemy planes--the 48-year-old Cunningham was also director of Miramar Naval Air Station’s “Top Gun” fighter pilot school, the inspiration for the popular film of the same name. Cunningham also achieved minor celebrity in the 1980s by accompanying an 11-year-old California pilot who duplicated Charles Lindbergh’s New York-to-London flight.

A staunch conservative who says he represents “the traditional values lacking in Jim Bates,” Cunningham drew the attention--and the strategic and financial support--of national Republican leaders by winning last June’s five-candidate GOP primary.

Coupled with Bates’ own strong primary challenge from lawyer Byron Georgiou, the size of the GOP field reinforced party leaders’ views about Bates’ vulnerability. As one also-ran’s campaign manager noted wryly, it is not often that five Republicans scramble for a nomination that “normally . . . is worth about as much as a case of smallpox.”

Beyond Cunningham’s name recognition and assiduously promoted “right stuff” image, the GOP’s hopes hinge largely on the prospect of a voter backlash over Bates’ ethical problems, a prospect that did not materialize in the two races since the charges surfaced late in his 1988 reelection campaign.

Last year, the House ethics panel sent a “letter of reproval”--the lightest possible sentence--to Bates over two female staffers’ complaints that he sexually harassed them by suggestive remarks and gestures, and expected aides in his Washington congressional office to solicit campaign contributions, a violation of House rules.

Wary of being accused of running a negative campaign, Cunningham frequently reminds voters of the episode, though not nearly to the extent that Georgiou or Bates’ 1988 Republican challenger, Rob Butterfield, did in their losing efforts.

“It’s obviously a factor, but we’re not dwelling on it,” Cunningham said. Even so, Cunningham’s slogan--”A Congressman We Can Be Proud Of”--is a variation of Georgiou’s theme from last spring. And one of his television ads features a woman who identifies herself as a Democrat, saying she “can’t support Jim Bates (because) he’s embarrassed us too many times,” a comment that only the most politically uninformed viewer would need explained.

Though Bates characterizes the ethics panel’s action as “old news” with rapidly declining political impact, he acknowledges that the lingering controversy leaves him in a weakened position to ward off what many political observers predict will be an especially strong anti-incumbent vote nationwide in next week’s election.

“This is a tough year to be an incumbent, and that doesn’t make it any easier,” said the 49-year-old former San Diego councilman and county supervisor. “Some people who say they aren’t that bothered about the ethics thing or don’t even have a particular gripe say they’re voting against me because they want to get rid of all incumbents. How do you fight that?”

Bates’ success in responding will figure prominently in deciding whether he remains the only Democratic congressman south of Los Angeles, a factor that he argues has paid significant dividends for San Diego, given his party’s control of Congress.

In choosing between Bates and Cunningham, voters can look to stark contrasts in the two men’s personal backgrounds, political philosophies and positions on major issues. Two minor candidates, Libertarian John Wallner and Peace and Freedom Party member Donna White, also will appear on the ballot in the 44th District, which covers downtown and southern San Diego, extending from Linda Vista south to Otay, and also includes Lemon Grove, National City and Chula Vista.

Most of Bates’ adult life has been spent in public office. Cunningham spent most of his in the military, although he was a high school coach and teacher before entering the Navy and now heads a small company that markets aviation products.

Fiscally conservative but a moderate to liberal on most social issues, particularly those of import to the lower middle class, Bates has compiled a strong environmental record and played a much-publicized role in exposing military procurement excesses during his nearly eight-year congressional tenure. In contrast, Cunningham hews to a rigidly conservative line on most major issues, as illustrated by his opposition to abortion and gun control, and support for a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning and anti-obscenity restrictions on the National Endowment for the Arts, four of many issues on which he differs with Bates.

Bates points to his sponsorship of key health and environmental legislation, his role in securing funding for expansion of the San Diego Trolley and to address the border sewage problem, and his heavy emphasis on constituent services. Hoping that his characteristic 12-hour work days will strike a responsive chord with his largely working-class constituents, Bates bills himself in his own TV ads as someone who is “working hard for you and America . . . from sunrise to sunset.”

In recognition of the district’s lopsided demographics, Bates’ past Republican challengers often tempered their speech and softened their policy positions in an attempt to attract needed Democratic votes. With his blunt rhetoric and doctrinaire conservatism, however, Cunningham sometimes seems intent on doing precisely the opposite--a tack that could backfire by aiding Bates’ efforts to cast him as a “far-right extremist.”

For example, Cunningham, a born-again Christian, says of his position on flag-burning: “My opponent may accuse me of trying to slip my arm around the flag. But there’s only one way to wrap the flag or Jesus Christ around you, and that’s around your entire body.” During the primary, Cunningham also was roundly denounced for a mailer that seemed to ridicule the Mideastern background of his major GOP opponent, an Egyptian-born Armenian.

In his public appearances, Cunningham stresses that he wants to be known as “the education congressman,” a line borrowed from President Bush’s 1988 campaign, and also cites drug control as a major objective. A frequent speaker in schools in the “Say No to Drugs” program, Cunningham also helped Hunter draft legislation authorizing the use of military forces in controlling drug trafficking.

Sensitive to Bates’ charge that he would write a blank check for the military, Cunningham goes to lengths to demonstrate that his Navy background would not give him financial blinders on military spending. “I don’t think the (Berlin) Wall would have fallen if we hadn’t been in a position of strength, but that doesn’t mean we need a Cadillac system,” said Cunningham, who has called for cutbacks of U.S. troops in Europe.

With both Bates and Cunningham predicting a close election, the two minor-party candidates--Wallner, an engineer, and bookstore manager White--could play the role of spoilers. In one poll last week, each drew about 4% support--widely seen primarily as anti-incumbent protest votes that, absent the minor candidates, probably will go to Cunningham.

Of San Diego County’s three other congressional races, the only one seriously contested is in the 41st District, where Lowery is seeking a sixth term against Democrat Dan Kripke, the candidate whom he trounced by 2-to-1 margins in his past two reelection campaigns.

For the third time to be the charm for Kripke, the UCSD psychiatrist must hope that Lowery, too, becomes a victim of anti-incumbent sentiment in the comfortably Republican northern San Diego district, where the GOP holds a 49%-37% registration edge. Hopeful that Lowery will be “swept out by a wave of rightful discontent,” Kripke invariably calls him “Incumbent Lowery.”

Kripke’s campaign is a virtual carbon copy of his 1988 race, in which the 49-year-old La Jollan lambasted Lowery for his ties to savings and loans.

This spring, Lowery was among a handful of public officials named by the Justice Department as unknowing recipients of thousands of dollars in illegal corporate donations from Don Dixon, the former owner of Vernon Savings & Loan, a failed Texas thrift. Vernon collapsed and was later seized by the Federal Savings & Loan Insurance Corp. at a cost of about $1.3 billion--one of the most notorious thrift failures in U.S. history.

In the mid-1980s, Lowery received jet trips, yacht parties and a Del Mar fund-raiser valued at about $18,000 from the Vernon executive. From the outset, however, Lowery has insisted that he believed that Dixon was spending his personal money, not corporate funds--a position bolstered by the Justice Department’s declaration that none of the recipients of the funds “engaged in any illegal or improper activity.”

Kripke, who dismisses that as “a political statement by a Republican attorney general,” hopes that Dixon’s trial in Texas will produce an eleventh-hour bombshell to validate his longstanding charge that Lowery “associated with crooks and took filthy money.”

Beyond pointing to the Justice Department report in his defense, Lowery also contends that his campaign paid the plane and yacht expenses, except for the latter’s chartering cost. In 1988, Lowery also paid $4,000 to the FSLIC to cover costs related to the Del Mar fund-raiser.

The other issue being emphasized by Kripke is the volatile of abortion, which Lowery opposes except in cases of rape, incest or threat to the life of the mother. His own advocacy of abortion rights, Kripke argues, could enable him to attract votes from Republican women.

Lowery, meanwhile, has done little more than go through the motions in his low-key campaign, reminding voters of his work on military and environmental issues--notably, his opposition to offshore oil drilling--throughout his decade in Congress. A 43-year-old former San Diego City Councilman, Lowery also has helped secure federal funding to address the border sewage problem.

Peace and Freedom Party candidate Karen Works also is on the 41st District ballot.

The county’s two other congressional races are electoral formalities in which incumbents Packard and Hunter face only token opposition in their campaigns for fifth and sixth terms, respectively.

With the Democratic Party having failed to field a candidate in either heavily Republican district, Hunter’s only opposition in the 45th District is Libertarian Joe Shea, while Packard faces Libertarian Richard Arnold and Peace and Freedom candidate Doug Hansen in the 43rd District.