Assertion of Quayle Endorsement Questioned

The race for the state Assembly seat being vacated by Oxnard Republican Nao Takasugi has barely begun, but the campaign is already heating up.

Tony Strickland on Tuesday accused rival GOP candidate Rich Sybert of lying about an endorsement from former Vice President Dan Quayle.

“I wouldn’t think much of it, but Rich has a past history of this stuff,” Strickland said. “He’s trying to use conservative endorsements he does not have. I checked it out, but if I didn’t, he’d still be doing it.”

But Sybert shot back that Strickland is doing the same--by falsely claiming he had received an endorsement from Camarillo Councilwoman Charlotte Craven.

Sybert characterized the accusation that he had fudged the Quayle endorsement as a publicity-seeking ploy by Strickland, an aide to Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge).

“This shows the desperation of the Strickland campaign in the face of all the endorsements I am getting,” Sybert said. “What you are seeing is panic from a campaign that is worried it will not be taken seriously.”

It is the second time Sybert has been accused of inflating his campaign endorsements. During his second failed run for Congress in 1996, Sybert was accused by current U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) of implying he had been endorsed by Gen. Colin Powell, when in fact he had not. Powell later sent Sybert an encouraging letter and a support check, but never gave him his official endorsement.

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Neither Quayle nor his representatives could be reached for comment Tuesday. But according to Sybert, the entire incident stems from a misunderstanding he had after a conversation with Quayle--a mix-up that his political opponents are now seeking to blow out of proportion.

“I had a personal conversation with Dan Quayle, and I believed I had an endorsement,” said Sybert, a Thousand Oaks resident and Oxnard toy company executive. “An anonymous caller then called Quayle’s people--we can guess who that was--and told them about my endorsement list.

“I subsequently received notice [from Quayle representatives] that Dan Quayle supported me, but had not given me an official endorsement,” he added, “and I immediately took his name off my list.”

It had been brought to Sybert’s attention, he added, that some of Strickland’s own endorsements--including that of Craven--were bogus, but he thought the charges too juvenile to take to the media, he said.

Hardly the same, according to Strickland, who acknowledged he had had a mild mix-up with Craven over her endorsement.

“It’s not even close to saying you had the endorsement of the former vice president of the United States,” he said.

Craven confirmed she had been wrongly listed among Strickland’s endorsements--the result, she and Strickland said, of an apparent miscommunication between the two after a personal meeting last year. But she said that the situation has since been resolved.

At this point, Craven added, she has not endorsed either Sybert, who has asked for her support, or any other candidate for the 37th Assembly District seat. Other expected candidates in the June primary election include Camarillo podiatrist Jon Williams and taxpayer advocate Jere Robings.

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Takasugi, whose district stretches from Oxnard to Thousand Oaks, is being forced out of his legislative post by term limits.

If she chooses to take sides in the Assembly race, Craven said, she will make her choice clear.

“At this point, I told Mr. Strickland that I would not endorse him, and I told Mr. Sybert I would think about it,” Craven said. “But I told him, ‘In the meantime, don’t use my name.’ ”