Election ‘Wake Up’ Call Energizes Lowery : Politics: Congressman who barely survived in a supposedly safe district gets message, acts to polish his image with constituents.

Before last November, Rep. Bill Lowery was widely regarded in state and national political circles as a “lifer”--someone who, if he so chose, could reasonably expect to spend the rest of his career as a congressman, with little fear of being retired by the voters.

However, after getting the scare of his political life by narrowly surviving his reelection campaign against a lightly regarded opponent whom he had trounced twice before, the San Diego Republican concedes that “some perceptions--including my own--may have changed.”

“We got a wake-up call in November, and believe me, we’re paying attention,” Lowery said in an interview in his congressional office. “There was a message, and it’s been heard.”

Two months into his sixth two-year term, the 43-year-old Lowery has begun acting upon that “message” in an effort to shore up his position before 1992, when redistricting and vulnerabilities exposed by last year’s race could attract his most serious opposition since he won the seat in 1980.

Saying that his 1992 race “began the morning after” last November’s unexpectedly thin 6-percentage point win over Democrat Dan Kripke, Lowery plans to return to San Diego more frequently over the next two years, as well as change how he spends time in his 41st District. He also has shuffled some staff assignments, says he will pursue publicity more aggressively and, after running several consecutive low-key campaigns, envisions a high-budget, highly visible 1992 campaign.

“When something like November happens to you, change not only is advisable, but probably necessary,” said Karl Higgins, Lowery’s chief of staff. “It would be dangerous--and maybe fatal--to dismiss it as a fluke. Our job is to use it as a lesson and learn from it.”

Since November, Lowery has conducted extensive polling aimed at interpreting the reasons behind the sizable drop-off from the 2-to-1 victory margins of his previous two races against Kripke in 1988 and 1986. Before last year, Lowery’s reelection campaigns in his northern San Diego District had consistently resulted in landslides, with no opponent coming any closer than 30 percentage points of him.

Based on the polling and follow-up interviews with “focus groups,” Lowery has concluded that his precipitous slide last year stemmed more from what he terms “external political events”--notably, an especially strong anti-incumbency sentiment among voters--than from specific displeasure with his own performance.

Although heartened somewhat by that analysis, the former San Diego city councilman also was sobered by findings showing that many voters disagree with his positions on high-profile issues such as abortion and the budget. In addition, the poll showed that Lowery was damaged by a peripheral link to the nation’s savings-and-loan scandal--a controversy that Kripke persistently hammered away at during the campaign.

Although he concedes that such volatile issues inevitably cost elected officials some votes--since any position angers one side--Lowery argues that he has been damaged more by his habitual willingness to let his votes speak for themselves. By so doing, he allowed Kripke and other opponents to interpret his record--in political jargon, to put their “spin” on it.

Conventional political wisdom holds that responding to an opponents’ charges often does more harm than good by simply focusing more attention on the issue. After four consecutive easy reelections in which that tenet had served him well, Lowery saw no reason to change last year--a strategy that he now concedes backfired.

“We allowed (Kripke) to define me in the most extreme and dishonest fashion possible, and by not responding to it, that was the only picture some people got,” Lowery said.

“On abortion, for example, he totally misrepresented my position--his (brochure) portrayed me as a skull and crossbones. What that showed me is that we need to do a better job getting out the word on these hot issues, and, in a larger sense, about what I’ve done here over the last 10 years. We haven’t done a very good job telling my story. Next time, we will.”

Kripke, however, dismisses that explanation as mere wishful thinking.

“Bill Lowery’s main problem is Bill Lowery,” said Kripke, whose decision on a possible fourth consecutive challenge to Lowery in 1992 hinges heavily on how reapportionment changes the district’s lines. “He’s on the wrong side of a lot of important issues, and he’s up to his neck in the S&L; scandal. He’s lucky more people haven’t heard the Bill Lowery story.”

After a decade in Congress, however, Lowery feels that his image among voters is still a bit vague and ill-defined, despite a sizable list of accomplishments that includes helping block offshore oil drilling along San Diego’s coast, securing funding for expansion of the San Diego trolley and sewage treatment, and helping to push through more than $2.5 billion in local military projects.

Lowery also prodded the Navy to sweep canyons in Tierrasanta, developed on the site of a former artillery range, for unexploded ordnance after two boys were killed by a World War II vintage bomb in the early 1980s, and his seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee has often enabled him to help guide legislation vital to San Diego through Congress.

“I used to say that the best campaign was to do a good job,” Lowery said. “But, with the public as frustrated as it is, that’s not enough, especially when your district is a couple thousand miles from Washington. You can’t count on people knowing you’re doing a good job.”

Lowery has never been reluctant about trumpeting his own accomplishments; his press releases and newsletters are at least as numerous as those originating with other local congressmen. Nevertheless, Lowery and his staff have concluded that much of that self-promotion was ineffective.

During his past visits to San Diego, for example, Lowery frequently scheduled “town meetings” in different communities throughout his district. Often held on weekends, the meetings drew audiences ranging from several dozen to several hundred.

Even so, Lowery has decided to largely scrap those sessions--which, his staff decided, were seen by some as mere self-aggrandizement--in favor of attending community groups’ own regularly scheduled meetings in the hope of tapping into larger, better informed audiences.

During his last term, Lowery returned to San Diego about every three weeks. This year, he plans to return at least every other week, and his staff’s long-range schedule calls for him to be in each of the 34 communities within his district by year’s end.

Lowery’s occasional taxpayer-financed newsletters to constituents also will undergo changes. His past efforts, top aide Higgins admitted, too often featured “pictures of smiling congressmen shaking hands with VIPs”--the type of fluff that inspired resentment among voters who realized that they were underwriting “newsletters” that sometimes were indistinguishable from campaign brochures.

Future mailed communications with voters, Higgins explained, will generally take the form of legislative updates sent to carefully targeted voters interested in particular issues. Though the sophisticated computer software programs that make such targeting possible have long been available, Lowery has been slower than most in Congress to use them to maximum advantage.

“Until last November, there was no reason to question whether what we were doing was working,” Higgins explained. “Since then, we’ve reevaluated everything.”

The result, Lowery argues, will enhance his performance both as a congressman and as a candidate.

“Not that people weren’t getting it before, but I think the level of service and representation will be raised a notch,” Lowery said. “And, yes, we’re going to be paying more attention to getting out our message.” Toward that end, Lowery’s press secretary, who previously handled other office duties as well, will focus exclusively on that task.

With an eye on 1992, Lowery acknowledges that the upcoming decennial reapportionment process holds even greater interest for him than it did before last fall’s race. Although Republicans now hold a 49%-37% edge among registered voters in the 41st District, that margin is less one-sided than registration figures in most other local legislative districts.

Moreover, the district’s demographics could change dramatically when its boundary lines are redrawn to reflect the past decade’s population shifts, which could result in San Diego’s four-seat congressional delegation growing by one.

Kripke’s strong showing already has piqued Democratic leaders’ interest in the 41st District, a race they largely ignored in the past because of Lowery’s seemingly secure hold on it.

A spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said, for example, that the 1992 contest will “get a much closer look” when financial contributions and other forms of assistance are dispensed next year. Already there is talk among party leaders of trying to lure a “name” candidate such as Assemblyman Mike Gotch (D-San Diego) into next year’s race.

“People realize that a well-financed candidate could pop this guy off,” Kripke added.

Lowery, though, hopes to dissuade Democrats of that notion long before Election Day, using his recent polling as a strategic blueprint.

The poll showed that Lowery’s incumbency negatively influenced nearly half of the voters. In that regard, he was not alone, for an especially strong anti-incumbency mood in San Diego’s electorate resulted in the defeat of one congressman, two state Assembly members and closer-than-usual contests for a handful of other longtime incumbents.

Another 20% of those polled said they differed with Lowery’s position on abortion--which he opposes except in cases of rape, incest or where the mother’s life is endangered--and 11% disliked his vote for the controversial budget package approved by Congress only weeks before the election.

Displeasure with President Bush’s tax increases, which Lowery believes made him “a vehicle for a protest vote,” and the fact that the U.S. Justice Department identified Lowery as the unknowing recipient of thousands of dollars in illegal corporate aid from a since-convicted Texas savings-and-loan executive also cost him votes, the poll showed.

Beyond justifying his position on some of those issues--”I haven’t spent enough time explaining the whys ,” Lowery concedes--he also hopes to chip away at any lingering anti-incumbency sentiment by reminding voters that his growing seniority on the Appropriations Committee is a valuable asset for San Diego.

The city’s Washington lobbyists, for example, said recently that they will look to him to be the point man in shepherding $143 million in proposed federal aid through Congress to solve the longstanding Mexican sewage problem.

After years of relatively low-key fund raising, an outgrowth of his easy races, Lowery plans to be more aggressive in that area. Given the ease with which incumbents can attract large donations, he should have no difficulty handily out-raising any opponent.

That fact, combined with what he terms “California’s full political plate” next year--two U.S. senatorial contests, races for seven new House seats statewide and a full slate of congressional and state legislative elections--could, Lowery hopes, persuade Democrats to look elsewhere when they target races for special attention.

“With everything else going on, I think they’ll decide that taking on an incumbent who’s going to be very, very prepared might not be the best way to spend their time or money,” Lowery said. “My ear is going to be very close to home.”