GOP Hopefuls for Allen’s Seat Attack Baugh and His Backers

In the first indication that the 67th District Assembly race could turn into a fratricidal war within the Republican Party, one candidate attacked another Friday for what she called “deceptive and misleading campaign literature,” and a third candidate charged a party leader with manipulating a pre-election poll of voters.

The charges came as several leading Republican legislators announced their endorsement of candidate Scott Baugh who, according to the GOP poll, has a significant lead over the other three Republican candidates in the race to defeat Democrat Linda Moulton-Patterson on Nov. 28.

The candidates are seeking the seat held by Doris Allen (R-Cypress), who faces a recall on the same ballot. If Allen is recalled, the candidate with the most votes wins. There is no run-off.

Republican candidate Shirley Carey on Friday charged that Baugh’s flyers incorrectly state that he is a trustee of Harbor Community College, wrongly list him as a Sunday school teacher at a church he no longer attends, and deceptively imply through a photograph of him with a Huntington Beach police officer that he has the department’s endorsement.

Baugh defended the content of the flyers but conceded that they contain two errors which he did not catch before they were produced by his campaign consultant. “The new literature has it corrected,” he said, adding that some “old literature is circulating, and if it is in the pipeline it is too late to stop it.”

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Baugh said he is a member of the board of the charitable foundation that supports Los Angeles Harbor College in Wilmington, rather than the governing board of the community college itself.

Baugh said the reference to his Sunday school teaching is historical, as in a resume, and refers to volunteer work he did at Sea Breeze Church before he switched early this year to attend services at Mariners Church.

Baugh also said he is “not going to use the pictures [of the police officers] anymore, particularly if it has caused a problem for officers involved.”

The Huntington Beach police received a complaint from Carey that photographs of an officer and a city police cruiser appear in Baugh’s campaign literature. In some flyers, the picture appears above the caption: “Law enforcement supports Scott. His no-nonsense approach is just what we need to rid our streets of crime and graffiti.”

Capt. Charles Poe said the two officers were reminded that “we don’t allow officers to purposely pose for political campaigns . . . there is no discipline pending.” Poe said the picture was taken by a local store owner, who came out and asked them to pose with Baugh.

Baugh confirmed the account, saying he has a relationship with a number of officers who he encounters daily at the local market where he takes his morning coffee.

Candidate Haydee V. Tillotson pointed out that she, not Baugh, has the endorsement of the Huntington Beach Police Officers Assn. and the Southern California Alliance of Law Enforcement, which represents 30,000 officers.

Meanwhile, Tillotson charged Republican Assembly Leader Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove), who on Thursday endorsed Baugh, with engineering questions on a voter poll so the results would suggest to party leaders that her candidacy is weak, dissuading them from supporting her.

“I feel these polls are being distorted,” she said. “They are manipulating the system. Pringle has done the most recent one, and he won’t give it to me.”

Pringle could not be reached for comment.

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The poll, done by a private firm hired by the recall campaign, was not available, but several who have seen it said it shows Baugh and Moulton-Patterson bunched together just short of the 20th percentile, with the other three candidates--Tillotson, Carey and Don MacAllister all below 10%.

Both Tillotson and Carey said their attacks do not break their promise to support the GOP’s 11th commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.”

“The rest of the 11th commandment is: Thou shall not lie, thou shall expose,” Tillotson said.

Baugh, whose original and most prominent supporter has been Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), also was endorsed Thursday by state Sen. John R. Lewis (R-Orange) and Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton). Republican leaders had talked about coalescing behind one candidate to avoid the possibility of losing to Moulton-Patterson in a split field.

Pringle’s hope of winning the Assembly speakership would be dealt a blow if the Republicans do not win this race, which is being run in his own county.

Tillotson and Carey said the endorsements will backfire because they will show that politicians from outside the district, half of which is in Huntington Beach, are trying to dictate to the rank-and-file voter.

“If the party leaders were so concerned about a Democrat not winning this race, they could have very easily backed me,” Tillotson said. “But the spoiler is Dana Rohrabacher, who picked this fellow [Baugh]. This is somebody who wants to play kingmaker. Rohrabacher is jeopardizing a majority of Republicans in the Assembly by playing games, and those guys [the three who endorsed Baugh] are going along with it.”