Cunningham and Lowery in a Dogfight Over ‘Safe’ District

When he ran for Congress in 1990, Randall (Duke) Cunningham occasionally mused about how the steely nerved skills he had developed as one of the nation’s most decorated fighter pilots in Vietnam would transfer to his new career in politics.

In both aerial and political battles, Cunningham said, it is absolutely essential to decide on a proper course of action and stick to it. “Never, never ,” he said, give an opponent a hint of indecisiveness or lack of will.

“If someone’s going to blink, you want it to be the other guy,” he said weeks before his upset victory over then-Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego).

Now, however, the “right stuff” mentality that helped Cunningham become a Navy ace by shooting down five enemy planes during the Vietnam War is facing its most severe political test as he and a fellow San Diego Republican congressman, Bill Lowery, battle over which one will run next year in a newly drawn North County district.

That political dogfight as yet has no clear victor and, in fact, may never advance beyond the preliminary skirmishing seen between the two GOP incumbents in recent weeks.

Last Friday, Cunningham abruptly canceled a scheduled television debate with Lowery only hours before it was to be taped, then released a brief statement saying the two men “intend to talk further” in an effort to avoid a showdown in next June’s primary.

Although that gesture gave local, state and national Republican leaders renewed hope that the potentially divisive and, many think, senseless dispute can still be resolved peacefully--by Cunningham seeking reelection in another district--it also surprised some of them nearly as much as it pleased them.

“It looks to me like Top Gun blinked,” one potential San Diego mayoral candidate said of Cunningham. “Who’d have bet that Lowery could stare down Duke?”

If Cunningham does veer off his political collision course with Lowery, it will be because he has been staring at far more sets of eyes than Lowery’s in recent weeks. Indeed, Gov. Pete Wilson and other party leaders here, in Sacramento and in Washington have tried to mediate the dispute, most of them encouraging the congressional freshman to defer to Lowery, a six-term incumbent.

Such pressure--diplomatically framed via appeals to party loyalty and harmony--would be difficult for any politician to withstand, much less one who has been in office less than a year.

“Unless Duke’s a Tomcat fighter in this battle, he’s about to get the governor’s cruise missile,” one San Diego political consultant said. “That’s enough to make anyone gulp and rethink things.”

The Cunningham-Lowery dispute has its origins in the reapportionment plan unveiled early this month by a special state Supreme Court panel that redrew California’s congressional and state legislative districts to conform to population shifts over the past decade.

When the proposed new boundaries, which will give San Diego County a new, fifth congressional seat, were revealed, both Lowery and Cunningham covetously eyed the 51st District, a 56% Republican district that covers San Diego communities north of Clairemont and straddles North County from Del Mar to Escondido.

Staking their respective claims to the politically secure haven, Lowery noted that his current district includes about 40% of the 51st District’s constituents, while Cunningham emphasized that it includes his home, the schools attended by his children and the one where his wife is a principal, and the Miramar Naval Air Station, where he was director of the “Top Gun” fighter-pilot school, the inspiration for the popular movie of the same name.

But, although they built their cases around their roots in the district and what they could offer it, both were also motivated by less lofty concerns--notably, questions of political survival.

Cunningham’s upset 1990 victory in the heavily Democratic 44th District owed much to Bates’ vulnerability following his reproach by the House Ethics Committee on sexual harassment charges. The new 50th District, which most closely resembles Cunningham’s existing one, has an 18-percentage point Democratic registration edge that looms as a daunting obstacle for any Republican.

Lowery, meanwhile, barely survived his 1990 race in the 41st District, failing to draw a majority of the vote while gaining a narrow 49%-44% victory over a candidate whom he had trounced by 2-1 margins in his two previous reelections.

Weakened by his links to since-convicted Texas savings and loan executive Donald Dixon and his anti-abortion stance, Lowery ran particularly poorly in northern coastal communities, areas included in the new overlapping 49th District.

In the first days after the new districts were disclosed, Cunningham and Lowery tried to quietly nudge the other into the 49th District, where Republicans’ 46%-40% edge among registered voters is comfortable but considerably less politically comforting than the wider gap in the 51st District.

Cunningham pointed out that Lowery was already representing a major chunk of the 49th District, while Lowery stressed that Cunningham would be “a perfect fit” for it because it includes most of the county’s major military installations, excluding Miramar and Camp Pendleton.

Versions of how the two came to be staring at each other in the 51st District vary, and include mutual accusations of betrayal and premature candidacy announcements designed to muscle the other out of the race.

Lowery insists that, from the start, he made it clear to Cunningham that he intended to run in the 51st District, saying there was “never an ounce of uncertainty about my plans.” Cunningham, he said, gave him the “clear impression” that he planned to run in the 49th, where Lowery assured him he could count on his and other GOP officials’ help.

For his part, Cunningham recalls their discussions being “less concrete,” adding that he believed that the issue of who would run in which district remained an “open question” awaiting further private discussion.

Both, however, announced plans to run in the 51st District two weeks ago, and, after professing shocked chagrin at the other’s decision, quickly went on the offensive with rhetoric as harsh as either has drawn from past Democratic opponents.

Cunningham called Lowery a back-stabber who had done “such a lousy job” that he needed to “run away from his record and constituents” to remain in Congress. Describing himself as “much more conservative” than Lowery, Cunningham also strongly attacked his GOP colleague for voting for the tax-increasing 1990 budget.

Counterattacking, Lowery noted that “not one” of the voters who elected Cunningham last year in his southern San Diego district resides in the new northern 51st District, and also resurrected a controversy from Cunningham’s last race: the fact that he was not registered to vote between 1966 and 1988.

“Was he being more conservative when he didn’t even bother to register and didn’t vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984?” Lowery said. “That’s not a conservative record. That’s no record.”

As the sniping became more acrimonious, worried GOP leaders, who saw an opportunity to pick up an extra congressional seat in San Diego quickly slipping away, tried to soothe passions on both sides.

Most encouraged Cunningham to reconsider running in the 49th District, advice tantamount to admitting they see the freshman as more electable in a competitive district than Lowery, whose political baggage grew heavier this year when his name showed up among legislators who bounced checks at the congressional bank.

Cunningham was unmoved, however, by implicit suggestions that he should defer to Lowery’s seniority or be thankful that the 49th District--while clearly not, as campaign strategist Jack Orr puts it, “a gimme” to the extent that the 51st is--still represents considerably friendlier political terrain than his current district.

“Normally, you’d think the senior person would be the one who’s more secure if he had done a decent job,” Cunningham said. “If I were still in the military, I’d go along with this seniority argument. But on the (Capitol) Hill, these guys don’t even open doors for one another. There’s no such thing as seniority in cases like this.”

In addition to being asked by Wilson--who, as San Diego mayor, served with then-City Councilman Lowery in the 1970s--to consider running in the 49th District, Cunningham had the same message delivered in another fashion last week by the executive committee of the Golden Eagle Club, a San Diego group of major local Republican campaign donors.

“If Randy Cunningham runs in the 49th, he’ll get tremendous support and win,” Golden Eagle chairman Tim Haidinger said.

And what if Cunningham insists on running in the 51st?

“That would obviously be something that would concern us very much, because it would create a better chance for a Democrat in the 49th,” Haidinger said. “Plus, (Cunningham) would be moving pretty far away from his current base. We’d have to look seriously at that.”

The message within that message, some GOP leaders say, is that Cunningham’s local financial support could dry up if he opposes Lowery, who, because of his longer, closer ties to the Republican and Washington establishments, also has easier access to funds from political action committees.

Whether that factor or others contributed to Cunningham’s last-minute pullout from last week’s TV debate is unclear, because he has refused to comment on it. His office, however, released a brief statement saying that Cunningham and Lowery “are discussing the forthcoming campaign and believe that a debate at this time does not serve the process.”

KNSD-TV (Channel 39) offered Lowery the opportunity to appear on his own, but he, too, declined, interpreting Cunningham’s decision as a softening of his position.

“I’m hopeful that we can get this worked out in everyone’s best interest,” Lowery said. “If Duke runs in the 49th, all of us will break our picks to make sure he gets back.”

One of Cunningham’s likely conditions for shifting to the 49th District would be a slight adjustment in its boundaries, which now exclude his Del Mar Heights home by only several blocks.

Though congressional candidates are not legally required to reside in their districts, most do because of political considerations. (Cunningham now lives in a Mission Valley condominium in his current district.)

Some top Republican leaders seem amenable to the needed boundary line shift, but caution that, given the volatile nature of redistricting, any change could be both politically and numerically difficult.

Nevertheless, the temporary cease-fire between Cunningham and Lowery has lifted Republican hopes--including those of the principals themselves--that it can become permanent.

“I’d prefer to run against Democrats, not Republicans,” Cunningham said. “Bill and I are still friends. Believe me, nobody wants to keep the team we have together now more than me.”

Lowery, meanwhile, said that even if a mutually agreeable solution is worked out, the episode has already yielded a valuable political lesson.

“I don’t know what it is in the Republican mind that makes us want to commit fratricide and cannibalism,” Lowery sighed. “And we wonder why we’re the minority party! The Democrats probably are laughing all the way to the polls over this.”