STATE ELECTIONS / 76th ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : Moderate, Conservative Wage GOP Battle

In what has become a familiar story line in San Diego politics this spring, two Republicans--one backed heavily by moderates, the other favored by party conservatives--headline the GOP primary in the 76th Assembly District.

With half of San Diego County’s Assembly contests revolving around a similar split between the Republican Party’s moderate and conservative factions, the 76th District offers the same script, but with lesser-known characters.

The resulting lower visibility could have political consequences, for it has allowed the race between former Del Mar Mayor Ronnie Delaney and retired Navy Capt. Dick Daleke to unfold without the kind of scrutiny that similar matchups in other districts have received.

Neither Delaney nor Daleke, who are joined on the GOP ballot by long shot Charles Ledbetter, bring the kind of public recognition--or notoriety--to their campaign that far-right activists Connie Youngkin or Steve Baldwin add to theirs in the 75th and 77th districts, respectively.

Indeed, if the June 2 primary were a Broadway show, Youngkin and Baldwin would be in the original cast, with Delaney, Daleke and Ledbetter relegated to the touring crew.

“We have been overshadowed by some of those other personalities,” Delaney conceded. “They’re a little jazzier, a little more controversial. The issues are pretty much the same, though.”

If the 76th District candidates have not become household names, the race is far from obscure within political circles, where it is regarded as being as much a major battle in the Republicans’ internecine struggle as it is the selection of an opponent to face Democratic Assemblyman Mike Gotch this fall.

Daleke is drawing strong support--financial and otherwise--from anti-abortion, pro-gun and other conservative groups, while Delaney’s core support comes from moderate GOP factions associated with Gov. Pete Wilson.

Last week, Wilson endorsed Delaney, along with three other local Assembly candidates facing ultra-conservative opponents, support that he bolstered with a $62,500 loan from his political committee to her campaign.

“That tells me she’s ready to give her vote to Pete Wilson,” said Daleke, a 60-year-old management consultant in his first race for public office.

Like the other GOP conservatives whose opponents were endorsed by Wilson, Daleke also argues that the governor’s backing could cost Delaney as many votes as it gains due to lingering public anger over his steep 1991 tax increases.

But Delaney prefers to interpret Wilson’s support as evidence that he feels, as she does, that the Republicans’ best chance of unseating Gotch in San Diego’s most evenly balanced Assembly district lies in nominating a moderate who could attract crossover votes from Democrats in November.

Republicans hold only a 44%-40% advantage among registered voters in the newly drawn 76th District, which stretches from Del Mar’s border east to the Santee and La Mesa city limits, covering much of northeastern and East San Diego.

“What Republican can take the seat back? That’s the whole point,” Delaney said. “A fundamentalist far-right candidate simply cannot take this seat back from a Democratic incumbent.”

Although Daleke, who opposes abortion and describes himself as “pro-gun right down the line,” is to the right of Delaney on those and other major issues, he contends that opponents have exaggerated his conservatism. About half the nearly $70,000 he has raised to date has come from two conservative business groups closely linked to the anti-abortion movement, while half of Delaney’s $125,000-plus treasury came via Wilson’s $62,500 loan.

As an elected member of the local Republican Party’s Central Committee, Daleke said, he has tried to bring together the panel’s feuding factions. He also notes that, despite his anti-abortion stance, some pro-choice advocates support his candidacy--proof, he argues, that he is “ not a one-issue extremist.”

“Somebody’s trying to paint me in that far-right corner,” Daleke said. “They’re trying to put me in the same bull’s-eye (with Youngkin and Baldwin). They want to put me on the same radar screen as those others so they can take shots at me, too.”

A former fighter pilot who served as commander of the Alameda Naval Air Station, Daleke moved to San Diego in 1982, completing his 31-year career in 1986 as commanding officer of the Navy’s Organizational Effectiveness Center.

Since retiring from the military, Daleke has operated a consulting firm specializing in organizational and management services--skills he perhaps honed in his own home. A widower with seven children of his own, Daleke married a woman who also had seven children.

“I see the life I wanted to create for my kids being chipped away by the policies coming out of Sacramento,” Daleke said. “I’ve complained about that long enough and loud enough that I figured it was time to try to do something about it.”

His management talents, Daleke argues, could help him find ways to “break the ideological deadlock” that blocks or slows many legislative decisions.

“Too many people in Sacramento are hung up on paradigms and processes that don’t serve them or the people well,” said Daleke, who favors legislative term limits. “We need to move beyond ideology to find commonalities.”

Like most other Republicans in this and other races, Daleke opposes tax increases, favors budget cuts and supports regulatory reductions. However, he provides few specifics backing up his positions, saying, for example, that he has “nothing specific in mind yet” in regard to budget cuts because “I’m not in Sacramento yet and don’t have all those details.”

Daleke’s vagueness has allowed Delaney to accuse him of “trying to run the one true stealth campaign we’re seeing this year”--a reference to the deliberately low-profile races run by many Christian activists in 1990, when they captured dozens of low-level offices throughout San Diego County.

Two years ago, some far-right candidates quietly campaigned among church, anti-abortion, pro-gun and other conservative groups while remaining all but invisible to opponents and the general public. Some fundamentalist candidates skipped all or most public forums, or downplayed the intensity of their anti-abortion and religious convictions whenever they were before non-church groups.

Accusing Daleke of resorting to the same tactics, Delaney notes that he missed several major forums and “hasn’t said very much about anything” at those he has attended.

“Is he a staunch conservative? I’m not sure he’s ever been a staunch anything ,” Delaney said. “We know he’s anti-abortion and pro-gun, but he’s very difficult to pin down on anything else. I can’t tell you who he is and I don’t think many voters could, either.”

Delaney’s political resume includes service on the Del Mar City Council from 1985-88, the last year as mayor--a largely ceremonial job rotated among the council members--and a 1990 primary loss to then-Assemblywoman Sunny Mojonnier in the 75th District.

Buffeted by ethical questions, Mojonnier survived the four-candidate primary, in which Delaney finished second, but was defeated in November by Democrat Dede Alpert, who is seeking reelection in another district this year.

While on the council, Delaney was part of a coalition that pushed for improvements in public-works projects and city services. During emotional, divisive referendum debates over proposed developments, she supported construction of the shopping mall and hotel that today form the nucleus of the coastal city’s downtown, a controversial position that contributed to her defeat when she ran for reelection.

Although the 47-year-old Delaney calls abortion rights, which she supports, “a litmus test in this election,” she acknowledges that the economy is uppermost in most voters’ minds.

Her council service, combined with her experience running a real-estate company, give her, Delaney says, a combination of political and business savvy eclipsing her opponents’ qualifications.

Not surprisingly, Daleke disagrees, saying that being the commanding officer of a naval air station “is like being the mayor of a city where you’re personally in charge of housing, police and fire departments and a budget.”

Echoing a theme heard in other local Assembly races, Delaney has suggested that cities and counties should “get tough with Sacramento” by refusing to carry out state-mandated programs that are not fully funded.

San Diego County’s long-range solution to that problem, she adds, hinges on the outcome of its lawsuit against the state seeking to change revenue distribution formulas that county officials complain shortchange San Diego by tens of millions of dollars annually.

Ledbetter, a lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve, is a political novice who readily admits he is the “low man on the totem pole” in the three-candidate Republican primary.

“It’s important for me to stay in so people have an alternative,” the 41-year-old said. “Things have gotten so bad in Sacramento that I feel any concerned, honest citizen could do a better job than is being done now. The insiders have had it their way for too long. Somebody’s got to say, ‘Enough is enough.’ ”

Emphasizing education and economic issues, Ledbetter supports increased spending on schools and vocational training courses, describing proposed state funding cuts as “much too deep.”

He also favors tax credits for companies that expand their California work force, and argues that welfare reform is needed to prevent Mexican nationals from “disappearing over the border with $700 million” annually in what he claims are fraudulent benefits.

Democrat Gotch, who will be seeking reelection to a second two-year term, and Libertarian Pat Wright are unopposed in their respective primaries next week.

Two Peace and Freedom Party members--Forest Worten and C. T. Weber--are also running, the former on the ballot, the latter as a write-in candidate. His candidacy, Weber explained, is intended primarily to challenge what he regards as unfair state laws governing write-in candidacies.

Dick Daleke: “Somebody’s trying to paint me in that far-right corner. They’re trying to put me in the same bull’s-eye (with ultraconservatives). They want to put me on the same radar screen as those others so they can take shots at me, too.”

Ronnie Delaney: “What Republican can take the seat back? That’s the whole point. A fundamentalist far-right candidate simply cannot take this seat back from a Democratic incumbent.”

Charles Ledbetter: “Things have gotten so bad in Sacramento that I feel any concerned, honest citizen could do a better job than is being done now. The insiders have had it their way for too long. Somebody’s got to say, ‘Enough is enough.’ ”