Foes Discuss Future of Long Beach Base

For the second straight day Friday, state Treasurer Matt Fong and electronics entrepreneur Darrell Issa tussled over policy issues and traded insults as they continued their too-close-to-call fight for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination.

The two collided on a San Diego County radio show a day after squaring off at a San Jose State University debate.

Fong said reports about Issa’s past business practices--including a newspaper assertion Friday that a former Army buddy has accused Issa of theft--have hurt the multimillionaire’s chances of beating Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer in the fall.

He added that voters are rejecting rich candidates who lack government experience--evidenced in recent polls that show former front-runners Issa and Al Checchi, a wealthy Democratic gubernatorial hopeful and political neophyte, no longer leading their races.

Issa angrily blasted some of the press coverage of his campaign and accused “Boxer operatives” of feeding untrue stories about him to newspapers.

“They’re designed to knock me out of the primary so Barbara Boxer can face Matt Fong, someone who I think, candidly, . . . she can beat,” Issa said.

Boxer’s political consultant Roy Behr said, “We have no preference on who the Republican nominee is. We think Barbara Boxer can and will defeat either of them.”

Issa was incensed at an article Friday in the San Francisco Examiner about his military career in which a retired Army sergeant accused Issa of stealing his Dodge in 1971--an allegation the candidate denied. A week ago, The Times reported that Issa and his brother were indicted in 1972 in Cleveland for allegedly stealing a Maserati but that the charges were later dismissed.

Fong and Issa broke new ground on a single issue in the Friday face-off, one of economic significance to Southern California, particularly Long Beach.

Issa said he opposes the plan to lease land at the former Long Beach Naval Station to a Chinese shipping line, the China Ocean Shipping Co., known as Cosco. “There is no way, shape or form I want [the site] to go to people who do not share our democratic form,” he said.

Fong called for a “fresh examination of Cosco not just in Long Beach but Cosco in all six to eight ports they are doing business in in this country.”

A week ago, speaking to the Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, where support for the Cosco deal is strong, Issa and Fong were noncommittal on the controversial subject.

A San Diego congressman has attempted to block the Cosco deal, citing national security concerns in allowing a company tied to the Chinese military to essentially control a major American port.

On Friday, the two rivals also revisited subjects from the previous day’s event, including offshore oil drilling and U.S. policy in the Middle East. Fong repeated his stand against offshore drilling; Issa said he would consider it with environmental safeguards.

Fong said Israeli security must override other concerns in the Mideast, but Issa said President Clinton is correct to pressure Israel to accept self-rule for the Palestinians.

To beat his foe, Issa hopes for a sizable margin in San Diego County, his home since 1985, to offset Fong’s expected strength in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. Fong, who grew up in Oakland and lives in Hacienda Heights, anticipates support in San Francisco’s Asian American community, where he campaigned Thursday night.

After Friday’s debate, staged at a restaurant in this seaside town, Fong went to Los Angeles to continue fund-raising. Issa launched a 98-hour campaign trip via motor home that will take him through two dozen small and medium-sized cities from Vista to Chico.

While Issa and Fong were debating Friday, a hoarse Boxer spent the day in San Francisco meeting with organized labor and environmentalists--two of her most enthusiastic support groups.

At a Spare the Air kick-off in the Gap’s New Age headquarters, then at a convention of mail carriers, Boxer scarcely acknowledged the GOP candidates who have spent months attacking her six-year Senate record.

Times staff writer Faye Fiore contributed to this story.