Nao Takasugi, Matt Noah Offer Striking Differences

They’re both Republicans running for their party’s nomination for an Assembly seat that represents Thousand Oaks and Oxnard and everywhere in between.

Other than that common goal, they part ways on the most volatile political issues of the day. And they exhibit striking differences in personal style.

Assemblyman Nao Takasugi (R-Oxnard) is a 73-year-old legislator nearing the sunset of his political career. Soft-spoken and courtly, Takasugi abhors controversy and avoids public confrontations at all cost.

A traditional Republican, he looks out for business interests in Sacramento, but wants government to stay out of the home and deeply personal decisions, such as abortion.

Challenger Matt Noah, a political upstart nearly half Takasugi’s age, is so eager to advance his morally conservative agenda that he often stirs up a commotion, mostly among members of his own party.

A fervent antiabortion activist, he is best known for televising graphic pictures of aborted fetuses in his last campaign for public office.

And now he has loaned his campaign $81,000 to upset the local Grand Old Party again, with his bid to unseat a beloved septuagenarian seeking his final term in the Assembly.

“We can’t afford to lose our strongest ally to a misguided primary challenge,” said a fund-raising letter for Takasugi sent recently to key Republican donors and community leaders. The letter was signed by two of the county’s most influential Republicans: Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) and Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury.

Besides heaping praise on Takasugi as “Hard working. Fair. Honorable. Ethical,” Gallegly and Bradbury announced themselves as co-chairmen of Takasugi’s reelection campaign.

Ever passionate about his beliefs, Noah has a long history of bucking the establishment.

He used to make a practice of joining human blockades of clinics that perform abortions. He was arrested twice for trespass in 1989, once with a group from Operation Rescue in front of a Planned Parenthood office in Denver, and the other at the Women’s Health Organization in his hometown of Fargo, N.D. Neither incident led to a conviction.

Noah challenged the Republican as well as Democratic Party nominees in 1992 by running as an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate in Colorado under the banner of the Christian Pro-Life Party.

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During the campaign, Noah took on television stations across Colorado that refused to broadcast his 30-second political ads featuring grisly color photographs of dead and dismembered fetuses. He won the right to air the ads designed to shock TV viewers, but lost the election.

Soon after moving to Ventura County in 1993, he led the attack on the Simi Valley school board decision to include birth control in its sex-education curriculum.

More recently, he has sparred with fellow members of the Ventura County Republican Central Committee over ethical and parliamentary issues. He wants the local party to take a strong stand opposing abortion, affirmative action and sex education.

“Some people think I’m an agitator,” Noah said. “It all depends on your perspective. Jesus Christ was an agitator. Mahatma Gandhi was an agitator. Pat Buchanan is an agitator. An agitator or a hero, sometimes there is a fine line.”

Noah said he decided to challenge Takasugi because he believes the assemblyman is not aggressively leading the charge to reduce taxes and chop spending, and because of their differences regarding abortion.

Indeed, Noah and Takasugi hold divergent views on many of the social issues that fuel the ongoing struggle among social conservatives and moderates for control of the Republican Party.

Takasugi favors women’s abortion rights. “This is a decision left to the expectant mother and should not be controlled by the state,” he said.

Noah believes all abortions should be outlawed, except in cases where a pregnancy endangers the life of the mother.

Noah would like to see prayer returned to school, sex education abolished and Bible-based creationism taught as an alternative theory to the origins of the universe. He said he would have voted to allow paddling students in public schools.

Takasugi was one of the 10 Assembly Republicans to break party ranks and vote down corporal punishment last month.

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Although he said he would not oppose a moment of silent prayer in the classroom, he feels strongly that sex education is needed to reduce teenage pregnancy and that creationism does not belong in public schools.

Takasugi said the new Republican majority in the Assembly would be better off focusing on reducing capital gains and income taxes, reforming workers’ compensation laws, loosening regulations on business and stimulating the state’s economy.

“I’m still particularly concerned about getting the state back on its economic feet,” he said.

Noah said Takasugi’s plans do not go far enough.

If he were the assemblyman, Noah said he would try to chop the state budget by 10%, cutting what he called the “bloated” bureaucracy in the state education department and eliminating some departments altogether.

“I’d cut off the family planning office,” he said. “I don’t see why we need some of these radical departments at the universities--Chicano studies, black studies. Why not American studies? We are Americans. Why do we need this separatism? I would do away with some of these departments.”

Noah, 38, did not arrive at his brand of conservative views in a facile way. Deeply religious, Noah is a conservative Catholic who once contemplated becoming a priest.

Instead, he has pursued a career in electrical engineering and now works as manager for telecommunications software at ACT Networks Inc. in Camarillo. Noah lives in Moorpark with his wife, Susan--whom he met a few years ago at a meeting of an antiabortion group--and their 15-month-old son, Joseph.

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His friends say he is often reading several books at one time on theology, religious dogma and inspirational leaders. He diverges from some of his conservative brethren by opposing the death penalty. “I’m pro-life,” he said.

On occasion, Noah has become angry at the negative reaction to his campaign from fellow Republicans.

He issued a sharply worded press release, titled “Stupid Is What Stupid Does,” after Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) telephoned to ask him to drop out for the benefit of the party.

Noah said he was disappointed Gallegly signed the fund-raising letter that characterized his campaign as misguided. “I think Elton should be ashamed to support a supporter of abortion, if he really believes that abortion is the murder of an unborn child.”

Gallegly said he understands Noah’s passion for the issue, but said he agrees with Takasugi on most matters. Moreover, he said he and Takasugi have a friendship that dates back to the 1970s, when they both were board members of the Ventura Regional Sanitation District.

“My commitment to Nao goes back much further than this primary,” Gallegly said. “He represents his district with class and dignity and honor.”

Steve Frank, a close Noah friend, said he “made it quite clear to him that the establishment would be quite upset with him” for challenging an incumbent. But Noah’s mind was already made up, he said.

“He believes in principals over politics,” Frank said. “I have to respect that.”

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State Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley), who appointed Noah to the California Republican Party’s Central Committee, said she has endorsed Takasugi because she supports incumbent Republicans.

“As a Republican, you’re concerned about money spent in a primary, which you would much rather see going into a race against a Democrat in the General Election,” she said.

Takasugi said he does not know Noah, but takes his opponent seriously.

“I am very cognizant of what happened to Madge Schaefer a few years ago,” he said, referring to the former Ventura County supervisor who ran a complacent reelection campaign in 1990 and lost by about 100 votes.

Takasugi said he will raise money, walk precincts, send out political mailers and set up phone banks to get his supporters to vote on Election Day.

“I’m just coming into my own here and hitting my stride,” Takasugi said in a telephone interview from his new Sacramento office as chairman of the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee.

“I’m not gregarious or outlandish,” he said. “I tend to work quietly and try to get agreement from both sides of the aisle to push legislation through.”

As for Noah’s strategy to challenge Takasugi, the challenger said he has not decided whether he will spend much of the $81,000 he has loaned his campaign.

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But Noah said he will not push graphic antiabortion TV ads again, citing a legal reason for his change in strategy.

As a candidate for federal office, his ads were protected as free speech by federal law. They could not be censored or rejected for their content. As a candidate for state office, no such federal protection applies.

Noah also said he will not be sending political mailers designed to shock readers with graphic antiabortion pictures.

“We saved babies in Colorado,” Noah said of his 1992 campaign that captured national attention. “We changed hearts and minds. Maybe that is what we needed then. But now, that is not the road I’m going to take.”

Instead, he said he hopes to run a more traditional, grass-roots campaign with volunteers culled from the ranks of the Christian Coalition and other groups that share his morally conservative values.

“I hope it turns out to be hundreds,” he said, “but now it is more like a handful.”

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The Candidates

Representing the district for the past four years, Assemblyman Nao Takasugi (R-Oxnard) is seeking his last term allowed by voter-imposed term limits. He faces challenger Matt Noah in the March 26 Republican primary. Democrat Jess Herrera is running unopposed in the primary and will face the Republican nominee in November.

Nao Takasugi

Age: 73

Residence: Oxnard

Occupation: Assemblyman

Education: Master’s degree in business administration from Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, bachelor’s degree in accounting from Temple University.

Background: An Oxnard native, Takasugi ran a family market for 35 years. He was appointed to the Oxnard Planning Committee in 1974, elected to the City Council in 1976, and in the middle of his second term was elected mayor. He served as the city’s mayor for a decade. He was elected to the state Assembly in 1992 and this year was named chairman of the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee.

Issues: With his new chairmanship, Takasugi plans to push Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposed 15% income tax cut, a capital gains tax cut and study the idea of switching to a flat tax. He wants to continue to eliminate excessive regulations on business and proceed with workers’ compensation reforms. He also wants to help boost California’s economy and improve public schools.

Matt Noah

Age: 38

Residence: Moorpark

Occupation: Engineering manager

Education: Master’s degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University, bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from North Dakota State University.

Background: Native of North Dakota, Noah became active in politics as an antiabortion protester. He mounted an unsuccessful bid for U. S. Senate in Colorado in 1992, attracting attention for graphic TV ads of aborted fetuses. Moving to Ventura County in 1993, he fought against teaching birth control in Simi Valley schools. He was elected to the Ventura County Republican Central Committee in 1994 and appointed to the GOP’s state central committee.

Issues: Noah wants to lower taxes and cut the state budget by 10%. He wants to cut off Planned Parenthood from public funds, eliminate state affirmative action programs and abolish abortion. He wants to cut the state education bureaucracy, institute more local control over public schools, institute voluntary prayer in the classroom and end sex education.