Candidates Woo Key Group of Swing Voters

In their quest for a seat in Congress, two Harvard University-trained lawyers have moved into the San Fernando Valley-based 24th District, donned the vestments of political moderates and collectively drained their bank accounts of $1 million.

Republican Rich Sybert gave up his job in Sacramento as the governor’s planning director to launch what has turned into a three-year campaign for Congress. His out-of-pocket costs so far: $610,000.

Democrat Brad Sherman moved from Santa Monica to Sherman Oaks and poured $390,000 of his own money into the race. He juggles his round-the-clock campaign schedule with his duties as a full-time member of the State Board of Equalization, California’s elected tax board.

All this jockeying has come in pursuit of a shared ambition: to replace venerable Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), who is retiring after 20 years in Congress.

Beilenson decided to call it quits after nearly getting bounced from office by Sybert in a bitter contest two years ago. He planned his departure for this year, hoping a Democratic successor would be swept to victory by an anticipated surge of Democratic voters and President Clinton’s popularity.

But the 24th Congressional District, which extends into Ventura County, has a fickle political streak. Heavily Republican Thousand Oaks is counterbalanced by Democratic-leaning neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley and show business liberals in Malibu.

The result is a classic swing district, where Democrats have a 5% edge in registration but are notoriously casual about going to the polls. About 11% of the voters declare no party affiliation.

Public posturing aside, Republican and Democratic party officials consider the race a toss-up. They agree it is one of the seats that will determine which party controls the House of Representatives in the years to come.

“Whoever wins is going to have his work cut out for him, because it is a tough district to hold,” said Northridge political consultant Paul Clarke, whose wife, Bobbi Fiedler, used to represent part of the area in Congress.

Both candidates have been working feverishly for more than a year to line up financial and political supporters.

Courting the same group of swing voters, they have presented fairly similar views.

Sybert has downplayed his libertarian streak, portraying himself as a moderate pro-choice Republican, a card-carrying Sierra Club member since high school and someone with compassion for the poor.

During the conservative groundswell two years ago, Sybert not only signed House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s “contract with America,” he also boldly carried a copy to Beilenson’s office and challenged the Democratic congressman to sign it.

Now that the Republican leader’s popularity has waned, the “contract with America” rarely gets mentioned at Sybert’s public appearances--except when Sherman taunts him for signing it.

“I’m not a blind follower of any party,” Sybert said, distancing himself from conservative House leaders. “I very much dislike the assumption that because you are a Republican or a Democrat, you are going to be marching lock-step to some piper offstage.”

Sherman also has cast off some ideas of his past, saying the word “liberal” is a term that fails to accurately describe him today.

He favors the death penalty, wants to see affirmative action programs phased out and has joined Sybert in calling for tough measures to control illegal immigration.

“I’m a moderate,” he said. “I’m pro-business, pro-environment, pro-education and pro-choice.”

Still, there are differences. Sherman vows to push for tighter controls on handguns and tobacco, whereas Sybert questions the need for more restrictions.

Sybert wants environmental laws to be more flexible to adapt to different regions and be less burdensome to business. But Sherman says any such flexibility will weaken them.

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On taxes, each aligns himself with his party’s presidential candidate. Sybert favors Bob Dole’s proposal for a 15% federal tax cut, while Sherman echoes Clinton’s ideas about smaller cuts, saying anything more would irresponsibly balloon the deficit.

One of their most striking differences is in personal appearance and demeanor.

Sybert, a wiry 44-year-old with a boyish appearance, lives in Calabasas and works in Oxnard as a general counsel and executive of a worldwide toy company.

Friends and foes consider him highly intelligent, super-serious, intensely driven and combative when people do not respond as he would like.

Admittedly thin-skinned, he has left a trail of sharply worded letters to those he believes have unfairly tried to undermine his campaign.

After losing the Sierra Club’s endorsement to Sherman, for instance, he accused a volunteer in the local chapter of doing him in with “smear” tactics and an “exceptional biased and dishonest” presentation of his environmental record.

After losing his first congressional bid, he filed a libel suit against Beilenson over a last-minute campaign mailer. Although he settled the suit earlier this year, three appellate court justices felt so strongly about the case that they issued an opinion anyway, saying such a suit “has no place in our courts.”

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Sybert’s practice of pounding out strongly worded letters and lawsuits dates back to when he spent a dozen years as a corporate lawyer in Los Angeles. Aside from his professional legal work, he filed seven lawsuits from 1982 to 1988, alleging that he had been personally wronged.

“I call them as I see them,” Sybert said. “I think everybody ought to be held to high standards of conduct in both their personal and professional lives. I don’t have a lot of tolerance for failing to meet that.”

Sherman, 41, is far more low-key.

On his second term as a State Board of Equalization member, the certified public accountant and tax attorney has sometimes exasperated business representatives and fellow board members by delving deeply into the intricacies of the tax code.

He is widely acknowledged as a tax law expert, but even his staff says he occasionally can overdo it.

“He’s a tax nerd, but I think we need more people like him,” said Valerie Salkin, one of Sherman’s former staff members. “He is more focused on policy than politics.”

Sherman accepts criticism about his zealous attention to detail. “If the worst rap on me is that I do my job too carefully, I’ll live with that,” he said.

He takes some issue with being called a nerd.

“I’m a regular guy, with nerdish tendencies,” said the balding, bespectacled Sherman. “I’m a recovering nerd.”