Democrat Hopes to Overcome GOP Edge

If this is indeed a Republican year in politics, then central Orange County’s 68th Assembly District would seem a sure-fire winner for the Grand Old Party.

The GOP, after all, enjoys a nice edge in registered voters and has a perfectly marketable candidate in Ken Maddox, a police officer who moonlights as a Garden Grove councilman.

But not so fast, says Democratic candidate Mike Matsuda.

Matsuda sees a scenario that has him scoring an upset victory and heading to Sacramento after the Nov. 3 election.

It goes something like this: Though Republicans hold a 43% to 39% registration edge over the Democrats, Matsuda figures he’ll get much of the district’s large Asian vote, which normally would side with Republicans.

Meanwhile, blue-collar Democrats who typically stay home in nonpresidential elections will be whipped up by the heated fight between Democrat Rep. Loretta Sanchez and Republican Robert K. Dornan in the overlying congressional district.

Matsuda, 41, also notes that in the race two years ago, Democrat Audrey Gibson, a single mother with virtually no campaign funds, got 41% of the vote against incumbent Assemblyman Curt Pringle, the Garden Grove Republican who was then the Assembly speaker and now is giving up the seat to run for state treasurer.

“You start slicing the pie and figuring the numbers,” Matsuda said, “and it all adds up to an upset victory in two weeks.”

Maddox and his supporters hardly see it that way.

The 34-year-old conservative is particularly troubled that Matsuda, a grandson of Japanese immigrants, would claim the support of any particular ethnic group.

“I’m confident the principles of the Republican Party ring true for people of all ethnicities,” Maddox said. “I’m curious why he would lay claim to any one group. I think he’s pandering to an ethnic community.”

Maddox also enjoys a substantial fund-raising edge. He had collected more than $225,000 and had more than $90,000 left on hand for the campaign’s final days. Matsuda, meanwhile, had raised nearly $80,000--much of it from the district’s Asian community--and had almost $45,000 left.

That surplus of campaign cash has allowed Maddox to hire a Sacramento consultant, litter the district with campaign mail and generally act the part of front-runner.

Maddox also has the support of top GOP politicians, from Gov. Pete Wilson to Pringle, as well as endorsements from several police unions and crime victim groups.

Matsuda admits he is running something of “a guerrilla operation.” He has gotten virtually no funding help from Sacramento Democrats, who see the race as something of a long shot given the district’s tradition of electing Republicans.

Instead, Matsuda is relying on a network of more than 400 volunteers to walk the entire district and has pulled together enough campaign cash to dispatch mail to independent-minded voters he believes can swing the race.

“I’m a community guy,” said Matsuda, whose parents ran a nursery in Garden Grove for more than 35 years. “That’s in my favor. This is a blue-collar, working-class community. People appreciate it if you come to their door and talk to them.”

Matsuda, a junior high school teacher in Anaheim, is targeting three key issues--education, gun control and health care reform--in his uphill fight against Maddox.

He opposes school vouchers, wants to reduce class sizes and provide more books for students. How to fund it? “We’re going to have to shift resources,” he said. “I think we’re spending way too much money on prisons. There’s fat to be cut there. We’re spending $35,000 a year on each inmate and only $5,000 on educating each child.”

He supports the death penalty, and wants to ban the sale of cheap handguns known as Saturday night specials and of copycat assault weapons. He also supports Democrat efforts to reform the health care industry.

Matsuda also has hit his Republican foe over the issue of what constitutes a teacher. In campaign literature, Maddox calls himself an educator, citing his role with the Tustin Police Department as a Project DARE anti-drug instructor in Orange County schools. Matsuda argues that Maddox is stretching the truth in hopes of boosting his credentials as an education candidate.

“He’s a DARE officer, not a credentialed teacher,” Matsuda said. “I’ve been on some ride-alongs with police, but does that qualify me to be a police officer? I don’t think so.”

Maddox takes umbrage at Matsuda’s arguments. Aside from his DARE work, which puts Maddox in school classrooms every day, he has tutored immigrant children in English. He also considers Matsuda’s criticism a slap at private-school teachers who do a fine job without the benefit of a teaching credential.

A supporter of tax vouchers for parents with children in low-performing public schools, Maddox is a stickler for a back-to-basics approach and encouraging “family values” in the classroom. He wants to expand the class-size reduction movement now underway in public schools and backs an end to bilingual education.

As a councilman, Maddox said he has never supported a tax increase, and he vows to push for lower taxes and smaller government in Sacramento. His nine years as a law officer also give Maddox an insider’s perspective on fighting crime. He talks of getting tougher on juvenile offenders and gangs. “If we dealt harshly with them from the get-go, perhaps they’d decide they didn’t want to be involved,” he said.

Maddox said gun restriction efforts are wrong-headed. He calls the push to restrict small, cheap handguns “too broad,” noting that a bill in the Legislature this year would have banned his own off-duty weapon.

Maddox noted there are federal laws banning true assault weapons. Copycat assault rifles “are really very similar to hunting rifles, but they’re cosmetically offensive,” he said. “I don’t see a role for government outlawing something because it looks offensive.”

As for proposed Democratic reforms of health maintenance organizations, Maddox also believes it is government overkill. “I think managed care is going to provide quality medical service to a good many people who wouldn’t get it otherwise,” he said.