CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / 70TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : Hornbuckle Gets Tough in Battle With Incumbent Ferguson

Going from lamb to lion in the battle to oust Assemblyman Gil Ferguson, Republican primary challenger Mary Hornbuckle has flooded the 70th Assembly District with a half dozen tough campaign mailers over the past week, prompting the incumbent to cry foul.

Hornbuckle, who in recent weeks talked as if she would run a low-cost campaign, received $83,500 late this week, mostly from Sacramento-based political action committees representing doctors, teachers and a state employees group, a campaign spokesman said on Friday.

Angered by an outpouring of campaign mail he called “slimy” and “deceptive,” Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) announced Friday that he has filed a complaint against the Costa Mesa mayor with the Orange County Republican Party’s ethics committee. He also promised to ask the district attorney and state attorney general to investigate.

“She’s the stealth candidate and she’s dropped six bombs on me,” Ferguson said. “I’ve seen some really weird campaigns, but I’ve never been in anything like this. She is a major contender with that money.”

Hornbuckle could not be reached for comment, but a spokesman for her campaign said the mailers were accurate.

“What he’s really doing is whining and complaining about the fact that he was outsmarted, that he didn’t expect Mary Hornbuckle to campaign like this,” said Don Sizemore, Hornbuckle’s campaign coordinator. “The one thing he won’t respond to is the fundamental issue in this campaign--that he is an ineffective legislator.”

Sizemore also said that Hornbuckle would ask the Republican ethics committee to look into statements by Ferguson suggesting he never accepted an honorarium when he received at least four since 1986.

Hornbuckle’s literature has referred to Ferguson as “Cadillac Gil” and questioned why he was absent for votes on more than a dozen key issues.

One piece that landed in mailboxes Friday took Ferguson to task for joking that women must find him attractive because he had three female challengers in his past three elections.

Ferguson was particularly angered that the campaign literature suggested he backed an automatic pay increase for legislators. The assemblyman said he voted to place a measure on the ballot to take the pay issue out of the hands of legislators and turned down this year’s pay increase.