CONGRESSIONAL RACES / 51ST DISTRICT : Bid to Revive Lowery Another Twist in an Odd Campaign : Politics: The 14-candidate race in the heavily Republican district has been jolted by plot changes since the start.

As if a 14-candidate race were not complex enough, the 51st Congressional District primary is drawing to a close amid the further intrigue of an attempt to win the Republican nomination for an embattled congressman who withdrew from the contest last month.

For a race jolted by abrupt plot twists from its inception, the seemingly quixotic effort by supporters of Rep. Bill Lowery to resuscitate his suspended campaign against Rep. Randall (Duke) Cunningham and three other Republicans is simply the latest revision in a constantly changing political story.

Although the newly drawn northern San Diego district is the most heavily Republican of the county’s five congressional districts, six Democrats--one of whom, like Lowery, withdrew too late for his name to be removed from the ballot--and three minor-party candidates are also competing in the June 2 contest.

Initially one of only two congressional primaries in the nation pitting Republican incumbents against each other, the 51st District’s drama faded when Lowery, politically scarred by his involvement in the House check-writing scandal, abandoned his reelection bid in mid-April.

Lowery’s decision transformed Cunningham into a prohibitive favorite in the 51st District, where a 54%-30% GOP registration edge--which lured both incumbents into a showdown that party leaders tried unsuccessfully to avert--could make the November general election little more than an electoral formality.

Among Lowery backers, however, dogged support for the six-term congressman and disdain for Cunningham have spawned a telephone and letter-writing campaign aimed at trying to push Lowery across the finish line first in a race he had stopped running.

Several thousand Republicans have signed a petition saying they intend to vote for Lowery, and hundreds more are telephoning friends encouraging them to do the same, according to Diana Rinner, a political consultant helping to organize the admittedly uphill effort.

“If we pull this off, it probably would be the biggest political miracle in the world,” said San Marcos City Councilman Corky Smith, another leader of Citizens to Draft Bill Lowery.

Stressing that “I am not a candidate,” Lowery emphasizes he is “neither encouraging nor orchestrating” the group, which Smith contends has “purposely kept Bill in the dark” about its activities. But Smith acknowledges that the draft movement had its genesis in Lowery’s persistently declining to issue a Shermanesque refusal to accept the nomination, should he win it via an electoral fluke.

Though Cunningham is taking the draft effort seriously, he dismisses the challenge as “not a major threat”--an analysis with which even some prominent Lowery supporters concur.

“I think they’ve lost their flipping minds,” political consultant Jack Orr said of the draft leaders. “It’s very unlikely this will end up providing anything but a little comic relief.”

Trying to douse the political brush fire before it spreads, Cunningham notes that the “same reasons why (Lowery) got out of the race are still there”--a reference to Lowery’s admission that he and his wife had written 300 overdrafts on his House banking account, totaling nearly $104,000.

“If Bill tries to get back in, he’d just hurt himself and the Republican Party,” Cunningham said. “The problems haven’t gone away.”

Cunningham himself, however, also faces political problems, not all of which “went away” with Lowery’s withdrawal in the 51st District, which stretches along the coast from Del Mar to Oceanside, covering most of northern San Diego and extending east to Ramona.

Even if the Lowery draft effort falls short, Cunningham still faces a possible backlash from Lowery supporters, the more bitter of whom have adopted what one termed an “ABC attitude--Anybody but Cunningham.”

Moreover, in a political year dominated by a growing anti-Washington fervor, Cunningham must face voters as an incumbent--one who, because he is a freshman, has not yet fully developed his office’s name-recognition and fund-raising advantages.

That liability is worsened for Cunningham by his decision to abandon his current seat, won in a 1990 upset over then-Rep. Jim Bates in a heavily Democratic southern San Diego district, in favor of the more politically secure haven in the 51st District--opening himself up to carpetbagger charges. Lowery also moved into the district, which includes a sizable portion of his current constituency.

Cunningham’s “loyalty to the constituents who elected him certainly didn’t last very long,” said GOP candidate William Davis, a Rohr Industries cost analyst. “There’s a lot of resentment over this ‘I’ll run wherever I want’ attitude.”

Although he has much less to explain than San Diego’s other congressmen in regard to the banking scandal, Cunningham did write a single $15,000 overdraft--the result of a misunderstanding with an auto dealer who cashed a check before Cunningham deposited money to cover it.

“The real issue isn’t the number of checks written,” said lawyer Michael Perdue, another of the Republican candidates. “The real issue is that all of them, Randy Cunningham included, were . . . doing things that would have landed an ordinary citizen in jail.”

Cunningham, though, believes his brief tenure in Congress could help distance him from voters’ anti-incumbent sentiment, as could his leading role in a House freshmen’s caucus pushing for congressional and campaign reforms. Among other things, the group advocates term limits, curbs on political action committee donations, regular rotation of House committee chairmanships and elimination of many current congressional perks.

“I never planned to do this for a long time,” said Cunningham, a 50-year-old former Navy fighter pilot. “Believe me, if it continues like the last year, when politics got in the way of doing anything, I doubt that I’d run next time. My goal has always been to do as much as I can here for a while and then get out of Dodge.”

Like most minority-party freshmen, Cunningham can point to only modest legislative accomplishments, underlined by his emphasis of constituent casework and lack of turnover on his staff as highlights of his first term.

But he argues that bipartisan relationships forged during his heady first days in Congress in 1991--when his Vietnam combat experience caused senior Democrats and Republicans alike to seek him out for advice during the Persian Gulf War--have positioned him for more substantial gains.

Perdue, Davis and surgeon Adelito Gale hope to make Cunningham’s future in Congress a brief one, but acknowledge that their uphill campaigns became even steeper when all three entered the race, creating a scenario in which any anti-incumbent vote could be splintered.

Despite overlapping positions on many major issues, the three non-incumbents have chosen different tacks in their efforts to carve out a niche in the crowded race.

Davis, who entered the campaign before either Lowery or Cunningham, has emphasized political and tax reforms in his first race for public office. Toward the former goal, Davis promotes term limits, open primaries and bans on contributions from any source other than individuals, while his tax reform package includes calls for changes designed to help lower- and middle-income families and a freeze on federal spending until the deficit is eliminated.

He also has suggested exempting individuals’ first $15,000 in income from any taxes “to give those at the bottom a chance to start accumulating money.”

Among the Republicans, Davis, 39, is the only one who holds a pro-choice position on abortion, an always volatile political issue made more so this year by the widespread expectation that the U.S. Supreme Court will curtail abortion rights during its current session.

Gale, a 58-year-old surgeon who has practiced in the Escondido area for 21 years, has emphasized health care and education issues.

A former Poway school board member, Gale argues that government regulations governing education need to be reduced and that creation of a national “teaching corps” could help alleviate school crowding.

In health care, Gale favors increased spending on prenatal care and other preventive programs such as preschool immunization.

Lawyer Perdue, 36, has focused on economic issues, an approach that allows him to emphasize a business and legal resume that includes formerly running an aerospace firm and advising more than 20 other companies.

To create jobs in inner cities, he would reduce corporate taxes in critical regions, expand job-training tax credits and offer free government-owned land and low interest rates to employers to encourage expansion.

Although the 51st District’s lopsided demographics would seem to consign Democrats to an all-but-certain also-ran status, the five candidates seeking their party’s nomination view it not as a dubious prize, but a path to a potential upset, given the public’s volatile mood.

“In a normal year, it might be fair to call us sacrificial lambs,” Democrat Steve Thorne said. “But this is not a normal year in politics.”

That having been said, however, publisher Steve Posner, initially seen as one of the strongest candidates in the Democratic field, dropped out of what he came to see as a futile against-the-odds race.

And another Democrat, systems analyst Brian Dunlea, candidly acknowledges that he does not believe the race can be won but feels Democrats must seriously contest it in order to enhance the party’s turnout in the presidential election and other contests.

Of the active Democrats on the ballot, only Thorne, a twice-unsuccessful state Assembly candidate, has sought public office before, a fact the 37-year-old educator and crisis counselor says could help his bid.

“You’re not going to beat an incumbent like Randy Cunningham with someone who’s new at this game,” he said. “I’m ready to go toe-to-toe with him.” Thorne belittles Cunningham’s close ties to his political mentor, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado), calling him Hunter’s “tough-talking ventriloquist dummy.”

The economy, health care and abortion rights top Thorne’s agenda, though his positions on those and other major issues usually differ little from his Democratic opponents.

Running on the slogan “One of Us,” lawyer Jeff Schwartz has stressed his involvement in community activities ranging from suing skinheads to force them to pay for anti-Semitic vandalism to creating free legal clinics for senior citizens and college students.

Schwartz, 32, who peppers his campaign speeches with catchy one-liners--”We need to turn the peace dividend into the jobs dividend,” for instance--has released detailed position papers on a variety of major issues, including education, women’s rights and the environment.

His health care proposal, for example, includes an eight-point plan to reduce costs through, among other things, a paperless claims system, malpractice reform and direct payments for services.

Bea Herbert, a 70-year-old accountant and the only female major-party candidate, tells campaign audiences that her profession has given her insight into the “inequities of tax laws and what they’ve been doing to individuals and small businesses.”

Beyond offering broad plans similar to that of her Democratic colleagues on major issues such as abortion rights, education and health care, Herbert also authored one of the more unorthodox proposals heard in the race: the use of closed military bases for job training centers, drug treatment programs and Olympic training facilities.

The 34-year-old Dunlea, meanwhile, said he was drawn into the race by his revulsion over the U.S. Senate’s handling of Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. In particular, Dunlea said he was distressed by some senators’ harsh questioning of law professor Anita Hill, who accused Thomas of sexual harassment.

“Those hearings said a lot about how bad things have gotten in Congress,” Dunlea said. Like Schwartz, Dunlea has proposed a handful of detailed plans in areas ranging from campaign reform and the economy to health care and education.

Although some might question why anyone would bother seeking the Democratic nomination in a district in which Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 71,000 registered voters--164,317 to 93,069--writer John Leone faces an even more daunting task than the other primary contenders.

Calling himself “not liberal, not conservative, but progressive,” Leone is running as a write-in candidate in the Democratic primary.

Three minor-party candidates uncontested in their respective primaries--Peace and Freedom Party member Miriam Clark, Libertarian Bill Holmes and Green Party member Dick Roe--are also on the ballot.

51st Congressional District

Rep. Randall (Duke) Cunningham: “I never planned to do this for a long time. . . . My goal has always been to do as much as I can here for a while and then get out of Dodge.”

William Davis: “The political scandals and the public’s anger have given us this point in time where we have a chance to change the course of Congress and the country. If we don’t take it now, we may have to wait another 10 years.”

Adelito Gale: “We need a doctor in the House to take care of the sick House. In fact, the House is so sick it needs a surgeon.”

Rep. Bill Lowery: “I am neither encouraging nor orchestrating these people (trying to draft him). I am not a candidate. But, if there happens to be the level of support (to win the nomination), that would be an incredible statement . . . that I would not ignore.”

Brian Dunlea: “It is time that we end the decade of the ‘me generation’ and get back on track with the ‘we’ or ‘us generation.’ We must take responsibility for the inadequacies of our government; we elected these politicians.”

Bea Herbert: “I understand the inequities of tax laws . . . that give 75% of the tax relief benefits to the top 5% in our country, while the middle class still foots the bill.”

Jeff Schwartz: “I bring an average person’s perspective to the job and the problems facing Congress. When I hired a new secretary, I had 12 applications within four days. That . . . tells you a lot more about the economy than anything coming out of Washington.”

Steve Thorne: “In a normal year, it might be fair to call us sacrificial lambs. But this is not a normal year in politics.”

John Leone: “As a native Californian, I see the paradise I grew up in vanishing, beset by grave problems which worsen daily because of congressional neglect.”

Michael Perdue: “The real issue isn’t the number of checks written (in the House banking scandal). The real issue is that all of them, Randy Cunningham included, were . . . doing things that would have landed an ordinary citizen in jail.”