Laughing Along With Sybert’s Sign Antics

How did you feel when you first heard the news about Rich Sybert?

Outraged? Disgusted, perhaps? Did it sadden you that a Harvard-educated lawyer who was nearly elected to Congress--not once, but twice--would stoop so low? Did you find it pathetic he would use his wife as an alibi?

Or did you, like me, just laugh out loud?

I actually did more than laugh. I found myself remembering, ever so fondly, my own days as a dirty trickster.

Yes, I can relate to Rich Sybert. Been there, done that--except for the getting-caught part.

And the more I think about it, the more it seems we could use a hands-on, burn-the-midnight-oil guy like Rich Sybert in Sacramento.

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For those who don’t know who Sybert is or what he got caught doing the other night at about 3 a.m., a little recap:

Rich Sybert is a handsome, wealthy Oxnard toy-company executive who once worked for Gov. Wilson and used to be considered a rising star of the Republican Party. In 1994, a year the GOP remembers fondly, Republicans won control of Congress and Sybert nearly toppled longtime Democratic Congressman Tony Beilenson, falling less than 2% short in the district that straddles the Los Angeles-Ventura county line.

Two years later, with Beilenson retired, Sybert seemed a good bet to win despite the shifting political tide. That time Democrat Brad Sherman bested Sybert, surprising some of Sherman’s own volunteers.

So this year, Sybert set his sights lower, hoping to succeed the termed-out incumbent in the safely Republican 37th District. Unfortunately for Sybert, Tony Strickland, a 28-year-old legislative aide and protege of Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge), wants the job too.

It seems safe to say that Sybert and Strickland follow Leo Durocher’s maxim about nice guys. Nastiness abounded in this campaign. Sybert would accuse Strickland of erecting illegal campaign signs. The Strickland camp went so far as to make the seemingly outlandish charge that Sybert himself was out in the wee hours vandalizing Strickland signs.

Sybert just scoffed, saying he checked with his wife and she assured him the man sleeping in bed beside her that night was him.

It was then that Strickland gleefully released the funniest home video of this political season--the gotcha evidence made by a 19-year-old campaign volunteer who had staked out Sybert and followed him with a camcorder.

And so Sybert fessed up, saying he was “embarrassed and ashamed” by his “stupid prank.”

“It was equally silly of me,” he told a Times reporter, “to lie to you about it.”

Confession is rumored to be good for the soul, and so Sybert said this: “All I can do is come clean and say I’m sorry.”

But Rich Sybert is not one to get carried away with repentance.

“I made a mistake,” he added, “but I don’t think it says anything more about me.”

Seems to me he’s being modest. As the old saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Obviously, Sybert doesn’t mind rolling up his sleeves and doing the dirty work.

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Count me among those who are neither outraged nor disgusted by Rich Sybert’s deed. Those emotions are just too strong. Perhaps my attitude is shaped by my own political heritage.

You see, I grew up in Orange County, the heart of Nixon Country. Before I was able to vote, my hometown was represented in Congress by John G. Schmitz, now better known as the horrible father of Mary Kay LeTourneau. Years later we (but not I) would vote into office Robert K. Dornan, who seemed like a moderate compared to Schmitz.

Now my hometown is represented by Loretta Sanchez, who was elected even though her husband got caught ripping down Dornan signs and wound up paying $640 in fines, penalties and restitution. Dornan, of course, unsuccessfully claimed that Sanchez got her winning margin from noncitizen voters.

And it so happens that, about a year before a so-called “third-rate burglary” occurred in Washington, my best pal’s dad ran for county supervisor. He was a Republican, of course, just like his main rivals. Mr. Hill was a respectable businessman and, I’m sure, preferred to think his youthful volunteers were simply out erecting campaign signs.

Our silence on extra-curricular activities assured Mr. Hill of what folks in the Reagan Administration would call “plausible deniability”: Certainly he wouldn’t have approved of our mischief-making, at least not for the record. But his nephew the campaign manager told us the rivals were vandalizing our signs. He was a hands-on guy himself.

One of the bad guys had these 5-by-8-foot fiberboard signs that were simply irresistible. Thrown rocks would punch holes in the signs. A flying dropkick would shatter them. And there was that rush of adrenaline. We feared getting caught even in the age before camcorders.

You may be pleased to learn that Mr. Hill finished a distant third, but I just find myself thinking about Rich Sybert and how he’d have loved those fiberboard signs. He is, at 45, some 30 years older than I was in my Andy Hardy-cum-Donald Segretti days. So also give Sybert credit for youthful exuberance.

My gut feeling is that Sybert--who, incidentally, accused Beilenson of “last-minute dirty tricks” in ‘94--has now sunk his own campaign. But maybe in this cynical age, an argument could be made for electing someone we already know to be a cheater and liar and not somebody who’s bound to disappoint us? The devil we know and all that.

But maybe not. Sybert’s deeds may have been a misdemeanor, but they reveal him to be felony dumb. He violated the candidate’s cardinal rule of dirty trickery:

If you want something done right, don’t ever, ever do it yourself.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com Please include a phone number.