ELECTIONS / 25TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT : In Year of the Outsider, Front-Runners Play Down Political Pasts

In most elections, candidates are quick to advertise their prior government service, wooing voters with their experience and grasp of the issues.

But 1992 is the Year of the Outsider, and none of the three major Republican candidates running in the new 25th Congressional District in northern Los Angeles County have been eager to highlight their long years in public office.

“Everyone’s trying to be an outsider. Everyone’s trying to repackage themselves to a certain degree,” said Frank Visco, a former state GOP chairman who lives in the 25th District, a conservative stronghold covering the northern half of the county.

Indeed, the two candidates generally considered the front-runners--Assemblyman Phillip Wyman (R-Tehachapi) and former Santa Clarita Mayor Howard P. (Buck) McKeon--have taken to splitting hairs over who has the least amount of public service.

“Buck McKeon has been an elected official since March, 1978,” Wyman said. “I was elected in November, 1978, and didn’t take office until December. So I’m not going to let him get away with painting himself as an outsider.”

Retorted McKeon’s campaign manager, Armando Azarloza: “If you look up career politician in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of Phil Wyman.”

The vast 25th District is among seven new California congressional seats created by the state Supreme Court to reflect population increases as measured by the 1990 census. Republicans outnumber Democrats 131,000 to 94,000 in the district, which stretches from the thickly populated suburbs of the northern San Fernando Valley to the high desert expanses of the Antelope Valley.

Conventional political wisdom says that given the heavy GOP registration edge, the winner of the Republican primary--which features six candidates in all--will win the seat in November over Democrat James Gilmartin, a Saugus attorney running unopposed for his party’s nomination.

But Gilmartin has poured $100,000 of his own money into the race, and may emerge as a serious challenger.

Besides Wyman and McKeon, the third major Republican in the primary is former Rep. John H. Rousselot, a onetime John Birch Society official who is trying for a political comeback. Also in the race is former Los Angeles County Assessor John J. Lynch.

Campaign strategists say the real battleground in the GOP primary is the San Fernando Valley, where neither Wyman nor McKeon is well known among voters. Wyman’s main base of support is the Antelope Valley, parts of which he has represented for years in the Assembly. McKeon’s bastion is the Santa Clarita Valley, where he served as Santa Clarita’s first mayor and is active in business affairs.

Azarloza, McKeon’s campaign director, said McKeon plans to spend almost two-thirds of his time on the stump in the San Fernando Valley, glad-handing voters at Rotary clubs and chamber of commerce meetings in an effort to boost his name identification.

Wyman and McKeon both describe themselves as conservatives, but the assemblyman is widely viewed as being further to the right than McKeon. A member of an ultraconservative Assembly GOP faction known as “the cavemen,” Wyman has backed such right-wing causes as a failed Assembly resolution claiming that the World War II internment of Japanese-Americans was justified for military reasons.

The candidates’ respective endorsements from Valley politicians also reflect their ideological differences.

Wyman, 47, has the backing of Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich and Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills)--both archconservatives. McKeon, 53, is supported by state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita), a maverick conservative who occasionally sides with liberals on such issues as gay rights and the environment.

McKeon hopes that Rousselot’s candidacy will benefit him by dividing the far-right vote with Wyman, allowing McKeon, with his more moderate Santa Clarita base, to take the nomination.

“I think they’re going to battle for the far-right wing,” said McKeon, referring to Rousselot and Wyman.

Wyman responds that he is the “best conservative candidate” and adds that he also is endorsed by the California Republican Assembly, a grass-roots GOP group that has been instrumental in electing many conservatives, including Ronald Reagan.

Although the campaign has been a relatively polite one so far, Wyman and McKeon could not resist a bit of mutual sniping in recent interviews.

Reflecting his staunch anti-Communism, Wyman criticized McKeon for inviting former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to visit Santa Clarita “to give them advice on how to run the city.”

“That invitation would never have come from this quarter,” Wyman said. “That man was a dictator and he was overthrown, as far as I’m concerned.”

McKeon replied that the invitation originated with Santa Clarita’s city manager and was extended to Gorbachev--who set in motion reforms that preceded the Soviet empire’s collapse--”so he could see how we run a democracy.”

For Wyman “to get upset over it is kind of a joke,” said McKeon, adding that Gorbachev never responded to the invitation anyway.

McKeon criticized Wyman’s sponsorship of a 1982 bill to require record companies to place warning labels on records or tapes that carry “subliminal messages” when played in reverse. Supporters at the time argued that such messages included chants praising Satan.

“That’s not something I’d get involved in . . . How are you going to play them backwards? It’s kind of ridiculous,” McKeon said.

Wyman defended the never-passed legislation, saying it was designed to protect consumers from subconscious propaganda urging them to buy things such as popcorn at movies.

According to many observers, the central issue in the district--home to many aerospace and defense workers--is how to revive the stagnant economy.

Both candidates forward standard conservative solutions for doing that, including cutting capital gains taxes. But they differ somewhat on the future of the B-2 Stealth bomber, which is assembled at a Northrop Corp. plant where 2,000 to 3,000 people are employed in Palmdale.

President Bush announced earlier this year that he wants to limit B-2 production to 20 planes--meaning only five more would be built. Originally, the Air Force had hoped to build more than 130 of the radar-evading planes, which have cost $2 billion apiece so far, including research and development costs.

But Wyman said the President was wrong and that at least 50 bombers are needed because of the possibility of nuclear attacks by Iraq, Libya and other Third World countries.

The world, Wyman said, has “ironically become more dangerous than it was during the Cold War.”

McKeon declined to say how many bombers should be built, saying that doing so would only be “election-year politics” aimed at getting votes from B-2 workers.

The U.S. “needs to look carefully” at likely threats to U.S. security and then redesign its armed forces to reflect them. The role of the B-2 should be considered in the context of that redesign, he said.

With the campaign beginning to creep into voters’ consciousness, the trickiest political problem Wyman and McKeon may face is portraying themselves as outsiders eager to reform a scandal-plagued Congress, given their long histories as political insiders.

Both men have substantial business experience, Wyman as executive vice president of the Antelope Valley Board of Trade and McKeon as part-owner of a chain of Western clothing stores and chairman of Valencia National Bank.

Nonetheless, both are known primarily for their political careers. Wyman has been in the Assembly for 14 years, and McKeon has served almost as long on a local school board and in Santa Clarita City Hall.

In his campaign posters, McKeon advertises himself as a “conservative businessman.” His campaign manager goes a step further and says his boss is “running as the Ross Perot of the 25th District,” a perhaps overblown comparison to the Texas billionaire who is considering a run for the White House as an independent.

Wyman said that despite his lengthy term in the Legislature, “I am an outsider. I’m not a member of Congress. And I’ve been at odds with my Democratic colleagues since the day I walked into the Legislature.”

The two remaining GOP candidates are both political unknowns: Larry Logsdon, a junior high school teacher from Palmdale, and Tom McVarish, a state highway cost estimator from Granada Hills.

* Q&A;: B10

Campaign Calendar

The Palmdale Community Assn. will hold a candidates forum at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Palmdale Senior Center, 1002 E. Avenue Q-12. Participants will be candidates in the 36th Assembly District and 25th Congressional District races. Admission is free; the event is open to the public. For information, call (805) 273-2997.

Lynne Plambeck, candidate for Los Angeles County supervisor, 5th District, will speak at the Santa Clarita Civic Assn. installation dinner Thursday. The dinner is planned for 7 p.m., with the program at 8 at Tony Roma’s restaurant, 24201 Magic Mountain Parkway, Valencia. Dinner is no-host; reservations are required. For information, call (805) 259-0306.

On May 9, Plambeck will lead a 21-mile run for the environment beginning at 8:30 a.m. on San Francisquito Canyon Road, one-fourth mile north of Seco Canyon Road. There will be stops at Bouquet, Elsmere, Sunshine and Towsley canyons, with aid stations at each stop. Runners may join Plambeck, who will be running for campaign pledges, for all or part of the route. Admission is free; the event is open to the public. For information, call (805) 296-2517.

Congressional District 25

Overview: Reapportionment brought into one district several communities in the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys that had been represented by different lawmakers. Because there is no incumbent, six candidates, several of whom are well-known. The winner of the GOP contest will face Democratic, Peace and Freedom, Green and Libertarian party opponents in November.

Where: The district includes the communities of Acton, Agua Dulce, Canyon Country, Castaic, Gorman, Lancaster, Leona Valley, Littlerock, Llano, Palmdale, Pearblossom, Quartz Hill, Santa Clarita and Saugus in the Antelope and Santa Clarita Valleys, and portions of Chatsworth, Granada Hills, Northridge and Sunland in the San Fernando Valley. To find out if you live in the district, call the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder’s office at (213) 721-1100.

Demographics Anglo: 72% Latino: 16% Black: 4% Asian: 6%

Party Registration Demo: 37% GOP: 52% Others: 11%

Candidates Democrat: James H. (Gil) Gilmartin, attorney Peace and Freedom: Nancy Lawrence, political organizer Libertarian: Peggy L. Christensen, cardiac care consultant Green Party: Charles Wilken, teacher Republican: Larry Logsdon, teacher / John J. Lynch, retired county assessor / Howard P. (Buck) McKeon, businessman, Santa Clarita council member / Tom McVarish, cost estimator / John H. Rousselot, management consultant / Phillip D. Wyman, assemblyman.