Anti-Incumbent Mood Blamed in Wake of Upsets

An unexpectedly strong tide of resentment against incumbents, claims of strategic brilliance and admissions of fatal gaffes dominated the day-after explanations behind the unseating of one San Diego congressman and two state Assembly members in Tuesday’s elections.

As campaign consultants, party activists and the candidates themselves struggled Wednesday to make sense of the most dramatic political housecleaning in San Diego in years, most explanations for the apparent defeat of Democratic Rep. Jim Bates and Republican Assembly members Sunny Mojonnier and Jeff Marston originated from the belief that the three were victims of a much-predicted anti-incumbent mood among the electorate.

“We knew there was a sea of discontent--we just didn’t know it was a tidal wave,” said Karl Higgins, administrative assistant to Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego), who narrowly escaped with a 5-percentage-point victory over a Democratic challenger whom he had trounced by 2-1 margins in his past two reelections.

That sentiment was exacerbated in some of the races, consultants argued, by the officeholders’ own ethical transgressions, which made them more likely targets for voters’ wrath against Washington and Sacramento.

For example, Bates and Mojonnier, both tainted by recent disclosures, lost in districts where their respective parties hold voter registration advantages so overwhelming that partisan elections there normally are races in name only. Noting that both had easily triumphed in bruising primaries last June, some political consultants argued that their party’s failure to nominate an alternative to a wounded incumbent produced one of the overriding lessons in Tuesday’s election.

“The message here is that, if one party doesn’t take out its own garbage, the other party will,” longtime San Diego political consultant Jack Orr said.

With about 43,000 absentee ballots countywide remaining to be counted next Tuesday, there is an outside chance that Bates or Marston could reverse their 982-vote and 1,858-vote deficits, respectively, while Mojonnier’s prospects of wiping out her 5,821-vote shortfall are dimmer. Officials at the San Diego County registrar of voters office said Tuesday it is not known how many uncounted absentee ballots remain in each of those districts.

Final unofficial vote totals showed that Republican Randall (Duke) Cunningham edged Bates by a razor-thin margin in their 44th Congressional District race, 46,171 votes (46.1%) to 45,189 votes (45.1%). Two minor-party candidates--Peace and Freedom Party member Donna White and Libertarian John Wallner--drew the remaining 8.8% of the vote.

In the 75th Assembly District, Democrat Deirdre (Dede) Alpert blocked Mojonnier’s try for a fifth two-year term, outpolling the Encinitas Republican 52,102 votes (45.9%) to 46,281 votes (40.8%), with the other 13.3% of the vote going to two minor candidates.

Republican Marston, meanwhile, lost his bid to retain the 78th Assembly District seat that he won in a special election last June to the same candidate whom he defeated in that race--former Democratic San Diego City Councilman Mike Gotch. Gotch received 37,727 votes (45.7%), Marston drew 35,869 votes (43.5%), and two minor candidates attracted a combined 10.8%.

Those losses represent a rarity in San Diego politics. Before Tuesday, the last San Diego congressman to be defeated was Democrat Lionel Van Deerlin, who was upset by Republican Duncan Hunter in the 1980 Reagan landslide. It had been even longer since an incumbent assemblyman from San Diego was unseated, the most recent example being Republican E. Richard Barnes’ loss to now-Judge Larry Kapiloff in 1972.

“This election was the beginning of a revolution that will restore competitive democracy to San Diego,” said former San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock. “What we had was a rubber-stamp democracy with ‘safe’ seats and non-races, and the people are finally fed up with it.”

Within political circles, the three incumbents’ losses, Lowery’s scare and the surprising results in several other races were widely seen as clear evidence that the backlash against incumbents struck with a vengeance here.

Even in several races where incumbents won handily, minor-party candidates, who historically draw only several percentage points of the vote, polled double-digit totals Tuesday, ranging up to the 28% (38,819 votes) received by Libertarian Joe Shea in his 45th Congressional District race against Hunter.

“You’ve got to read those strictly as anti-incumbent votes, because most of those (minor-party candidates) don’t spend a dime or campaign,” said Bates consultant Rick Taylor. “For whatever reason, voters in San Diego decided it was time to tell incumbents, ‘Don’t take us for granted.’ ”

Although Marston’s 4 1/2-month tenure in Sacramento was dwarfed by Gotch’s own former eight-year council record, the Democratic challenger went to lengths in his mailers to clearly identify Marston as the incumbent.

“He kept hammering away at the word incumbent , and that made it very difficult for us to get across that I’d been one for only a few months,” Marston conceded. “When a lot of people heard the word incumbent , that was it.”

Similarly, Bates blames his narrow apparent loss more on “generic anti-incumbency” than on voters’ specific displeasure with his 1989 sanction by the House Ethics Committee on sexual harassment charges lodged by two female staff members. Even some of his own supporters, however, acknowledge that the controversy weakened Bates’ political immunity system, even in a district where Democrats hold a 53%-35% registration edge.

Moreover, in Cunningham, a highly decorated former Navy fighter pilot who entered the race with relatively high name recognition and solid financial backing from national GOP leaders, Bates faced his most formidable challenger since winning the then-newly created seat in 1982. In addition, Bates, an indefatigable campaigner noted for door-to-door politicking even in non-election years, was severely hampered by being stuck in Washington until late October during the budget impasse.

“All of those things . . . offset the tremendous advantages of incumbency,” said Cunningham, whose upset came in a supposedly “Republican-proof” district.

Alpert overcame similar numerical obstacles in defeating Mojonnier in the 75th Assembly District, where the Democratic challenger faced a 52%-33% registration disadvantage. But, like Cunningham, Alpert, a Solana Beach school board member, was perfectly positioned to capitalize on the embarrassing headlines that chronicled Mojonnier’s recent years in Sacramento.

Last February, Mojonnier agreed to pay $13,200 in fines and restitution for double-billing the state and her campaign committee for business trips, as well as for using political donations to pay for fashion and beauty treatments for her staff. Along with other state legislators, she also has been faulted for routinely using state-paid sergeants-at-arms for personal tasks, such as chauffeuring her children and escorting her home after evening parties.

Despite that heavy political baggage, Mojonnier easily survived a three-candidate challenge in last June’s GOP primary. Alpert believes the June victory gave Mojonnier false confidence.

“I think she believed that her real competition was in the primary, and that a Democrat just didn’t have a chance in this district,” said Alpert, who waged a vigorous campaign but was heavily outspent by Mojonnier. “Sunny had a lot of liabilities, and they finally caught up with her.”

Gotch, meanwhile, argues that he might have fooled Marston into underestimating him.

Criticized even by some fellow Democrats for his virtual invisibility during most of the race, Gotch claimed Wednesday that his so-called “stealth campaign” actually was a matter of strategic design--not, as many thought, reflective of his loss of heart after his earlier losses in last spring’s special primary and runoff.

Gotch said his campaign advisers decided that, if they waged a full-blown, nonstop campaign, it would simply prompt Marston to mount a similarly high-profile race, thereby raising his name identification.

“We decided to take the hits for the so-called ‘stealth campaign,’ hoping that the other side would take the bait,” Gotch said. “And they did.”

Marston said he was not deceived by Gotch’s low-profile stance, which lasted until the final several weeks of the campaign.

“I saw this very clever strategy for what it was from day one, but couldn’t get anyone to listen,” Marston lamented. “I never believed all this talk about Gotch practically throwing in the towel. The problem was, where before people had been telling me, ‘Jeff, I don’t think you have a chance’ when I asked for contributions, now they were saying, ‘Jeff, we don’t think you need it because you don’t have a race.’ ”

In the closing days of the race, the Republican Assembly caucus in Sacramento even withdrew a previous commitment to finance a mailer for Marston--a decision that Marston admitted he was “very, very, very bitter about.” When he protested, Marston said, Assembly Minority Leader Ross Johnson told him, “We’re not in the business of financing landslides.”

“That was the brilliant decision of the best political minds in Sacramento--just ask them, and they’ll tell you,” Marston said angrily. “Like they say, with allies like that, you don’t have to worry about your enemies.”