ASSEMBLY DISTRICTS : Connolly Stages Big Upset Over Baldwin in 77th

Only weeks ago, it seemed improbable that Republican Steve Baldwin could lose the race for the 77th Assembly District.

With $243,000 in campaign contributions, Baldwin had outspent Democrat Tom Connolly 10-to-1, in a heavily Republican district considered among the most conservative in San Diego County.

A property manager for a commercial real estate company, the 36-year-old Baldwin touted his work as national director for the Young Americans for Freedom, as the deputy director of the College Republican National Committee and his work for Ronald Reagan’s presidential bid in 1980.

In a letter to campaign organizers, Baldwin had stressed the importance of Republicans winning more seats in the Senate and Assembly and noted that this year, the GOP would have a better-than-even chance of winning the Assembly for the first time since 1970.

But in the last week of the campaign, several factors combined to sink Baldwin and help 46-year-old Connolly, a children’s law attorney, pull ahead by 5,100 votes with absentee ballots yet to be counted. Baldwin said the chances of his winning the election are extremely remote.

The state Democratic Party contributed $101,000 to Connolly’s campaign three days before the election, including $4,800 for signs alone and the rest mostly for mailers. Until that point, Connolly had raised only about $24,000.

In the final few days before Tuesday’s election, two national news programs--the “NBC Nightly News” and “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour”--and Cable News Network--all had broadcasts on the efforts of fundamentalist Christians to promote candidates for local and statewide offices. Baldwin was featured prominently on all three and refused comment each time.

And Bill Clinton won the presidential race by a landslide. Clinton’s victory in San Diego County may have helped pull voters to Connolly, Connolly supporters believe.

“I think there were some coattail effects at the end,” said Dena Holman, a Connolly political consultant, who provided the local media with a blizzard of information about Baldwin, including a 162-page “white paper” filled with press clippings, mailers and Baldwin speeches.

Among the more bizarre disclosures during the campaign was the existence of a taped Baldwin speech last year at a rally for Rep. Bill Dannemeyer (R-Orange County) in which Baldwin describes the declining morals of society.

The “witches tape,” as it came to be known, included this Baldwin passage:

“We now have official state witches in certain states. Official state witches in Massachusetts. We have an official state witch. Even in the Air Force there is an official Air Force witch. In the Air Force! We have classes taught in our state schools on witchcraft. Nothing on Christianity. We can’t have that!”

Beyond the tape, Connolly repeatedly pointed up the differences between him and Baldwin on public education, health care and abortion. Baldwin is anti-abortion, in favor of tuition tax credits and the use of public money for a private education voucher system and supports tax breaks to those willing to purchase health insurance.

Connolly is pro-choice, favors a nationalized health system and opposes tuition tax credits in favor of more vocational training and extended school terms.

On Wednesday, hours before he was to meet with Assembly Speaker Willie Brown in Sacramento along with other newly elected Democrats, Connolly said a pro-choice mailer he sent out a month ago began to turn the tide against Baldwin.

More recently, state Democratic officials polled voters and found that Connolly tracked well with moderate Republicans. The state party money poured in and Connolly assembled phone banks and last-minute mailers that ran until election day, when the candidate had 250 volunteers knock on doors seeking support. Connolly painted himself as a local version of Clinton.

“We really made hay in the last 10 days,” he said.

In the end, Connolly said, the two candidates’ positions on abortion made the difference. He said his pro-choice view “stirred the passion of moderate Republicans and got them to cross over.”

At one point during election night, the burly Connolly did an impromptu jig at election headquarters.

“I feel terrific,” he said Wednesday. “I’m beside myself.”

At 2 a.m., Willie Brown called Connolly at his hotel room with his congratulations and invited him to a meeting in Sacramento Wednesday.

“Here I am at 2 o’clock in the morning talking to the speaker of the Assembly,” Connolly said. “Who would have thunk it?”

For his part, Baldwin said he is stunned by the results.

“We’re kind of in shock,” he said. “We had 300 volunteers. Tom Connolly had about eight. We had massive precinct walking and phone banks and things that the campaign people say you have to have to win. So this is just a mystery.”

The last-minute contributions resulted in 10 “hit piece” mailers, as Baldwin calls them.

“One called me a Moonie and another called me a Nazi,” Baldwin said. “It’s hard for me to rebut those things. I guess if you repeat it often enough, people tend to believe it. We think Willie Brown bought this race, and it wasn’t something we could follow or track. It just hit us like a time bomb.”

Clinton’s strong national showing hurt Republicans in four local Assembly races.