Local Campaigns Keep It Clean, With a Few Exceptions

Measure O as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Tony Strickland as an armed and dangerous gunslinger. Uncle Sam peeping through a keyhole as an agent of Elton Gallegly. Two council candidates as part of a pro-growth recipe for disaster in Thousand Oaks.

That is about as negative as Ventura County campaigns got in this year of gentlemanly politics.

“Candidates don’t want to arouse the voters’ anger with last-minute smears,” said Jamie Fisfis, political director for the Assembly Republican Caucus. “But I do believe the worst is yet to come. In the end, candidates typically fall back to their old ways and blast away.”

Just two days before the Nov. 7 election, most Ventura County campaigns have followed the model of civility that is the U.S. presidential race, focusing mostly on issues and personal qualifications in a rash of fliers and brochures, as well as radio and television ads.

For many of Ventura County’s 387,075 registered voters, those final images--candidates with families, candidates in classrooms, candidates citing opponents’ records--will be what sticks in the mind following a number of campaigns that were among the costliest in county history.

Spending records were set this fall in half a dozen races for Congress, the state Assembly, county supervisor, the Thousand Oaks council, and the $2-million-plus Measure O initiative that would transfer control of $260 million in tobacco settlement funds from county government to private hospitals.

Most of those campaigns kept it relatively clean compared with the angry, personal attacks of the past.

“I think candidates realize that negative campaigning not only won’t resonate with voters this year, it will backfire,” said Carolyn Leavens, a prominent county Republican. “I think people are sick to death of smear tactics.”

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The 37th Assembly District race between one-term Assemblyman Strickland (R-Moorpark) and Democrat Roz McGrath, a Somis kindergarten teacher, has perhaps the hardest edge of all local races.

It also may be one of the closest, after McGrath lost to Strickland by just one percentage point when they first battled for the Assembly in 1998. And her campaign has almost twice as much money--at least $800,000--to spend this time. Strickland’s contributions exceed $1 million.

A series of hard-hitting mailers, paid for by the state Democratic Party, has hammered away at Strickland’s record on gun control, women’s issues, health care, education and the environment.

The gunslinger mailer depicts on its cover a cowboy with pistols drawn. Inside, the flier states, “Tony Strickland, Armed and Dangerously Out of Touch.” It features Strickland’s opposition to mandatory trigger locks on guns and his stance against tougher penalties for selling “Saturday Night Specials.” It notes his campaign contributions from the National Rifle Assn. and conservative Christian broadcaster Edward Atsinger III: “Far Right Gives Strickland $100,000.”

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The cover of another mailer shows a man in a gas mask surrounded by smoke. “Pollution? No Problem,” it says. Then it recounts Strickland’s purported negative record on the environment.

That left Strickland to cite his own squeaky-clean ad campaign and compare it to the Democrats’ attacks. He responded with a statement by former Republican Rep. Robert Lagomarsino, who likened McGrath’s campaign with the nasty assault of millionaire Michael Huffington, who knocked off Lagomarsino in 1992.

“Roz McGrath is continually misrepresenting Tony’s votes,” Lagomarsino said in a campaign press release, “and unfairly attacking one of the hardest working Assembly members.”

McGrath said she had nothing to do with the ads. “The Democratic Party did it,” she said.

Strickland also answered back in ads paid for by the state Republican Party, a series of mailers reproducing the controversial covers of the Democratic mailers and asking: “What’s Wrong With Roz?”

Inside, one reads: “Roz McGrath is on her third run for the Assembly. In their desperation, her campaign advisors have filled your mail boxes with half truths and distortions about Assemblyman Tony Strickland’s record . . . It’s your typical million dollar slash and burn say anything to get elected campaign.”

“We encourage our candidates to hit back when they’re hit,” said Fisfis, of the Assembly Republican Caucus. “But according to our tracking polls, that piece on guns didn’t work. They tried to attack, but Tony won the argument 22% to 19%, and 45% said they didn’t care. So it was a net gain for Tony for them to attack.”

Phil Giarrizzo, director of McGrath’s campaign, said Strickland has spent two years promoting himself while in the Assembly, so the challenger’s task is to shine a hot light on his record, which is much too conservative for the 37th District.

“Those aren’t attack pieces,” Giarrizzo said. “They’re a statement of his record. We have hammered at his record.”

The lively gunslinger and “Pollution head” mailer fronts are just a way to get voters to look inside, he said. “We’re not only competing with other candidates, we’re competing with all of the communications in the mailbox. So the piece has to be creative enough to draw people in.”

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A Thousand Oaks City Council race may be even more heated than the Strickland-McGrath contest. Five formal complaints of improper electioneering have been filed against five of seven candidates.

Free-spending attorney Ed Masry, whose $130,000 campaign set a local record, has also charged Councilman Mike Markey, who is seeking reelection, with lying about Masry’s health and repeating the lie after he knew the truth.

For weeks, Markey, 45, has maintained in a mailer to absentee voters subtitled “Honesty & Integrity” that the flamboyant 68-year-old Masry has a heart problem that could keep him from serving the city.

“Masry told the Los Angeles Times that he stopped trial litigation because of his health. With dialysis treatment three times a week and three heart attacks in the past six months, how will his health hold up under strenuous City Council work?” asks the incumbent, who says he learned of the heart problem from newspaper articles.

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The Times never reported that Masry had a heart attack, and in an interview, Markey would not identify the news articles that did.

Masry said he had heart-bypass surgery--not a heart attack--10 years ago to unclog arteries to his heart, and has had no heart trouble since. After the first Markey mailers landed nearly a month ago, Masry produced a letter from his physician, and read it at televised forums attended by Markey. Markey mailed more fliers making the same claim.

“How can he say he has honesty and integrity when he was lying and continues to lie?” Masry asked.

Markey said he still believes that Masry has a heart problem.

“I’m not aware that it’s inaccurate,” Markey said. “My information is that it’s very viable information. Mr. Masry has not called me to say it’s inaccurate . . . He read a letter about his heart in one forum, but I didn’t really pay attention to Mr. Masry. They can maintain anything they want, that doesn’t mean it’s true.”

Markey said a potential inaccuracy about Masry’s health should be no bigger problem than alleged distortions in Masry’s mailers about his opponents. He would not cite specific examples of Masry’s alleged distortions.

“Why all of a sudden is Mr. Masry the victim, when he’s sitting here putting mailers out on other people?” Markey asked.

Perhaps the most pointed Masry mailer arrived last week, entitled “Recipe For Disaster.” It criticizes Markey and a second candidate as pro-growth, warns that Thousand Oaks could become another San Fernando Valley, and maintains that developers have targeted Masry for defeat. Masry said there is a difference between such issue-oriented ads and Markey’s factual inaccuracies.

Masry acknowledges health problems--he has dialysis three times a week for a malfunctioning kidney. But he said he feels good and can serve as a councilman.

“I’ll race Markey down T.O. Boulevard for a mile,” he said. “And I’ll drag my dialysis equipment, and still beat him. That’s a challenge.”

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In the 23rd Congressional District race, seven-term Rep. Elton Gallegly has been crying foul from the start.

Democrat Michael Case, a Ventura lawyer giving Gallegly his first serious challenge since 1992, has attacked the incumbent’s record, particularly on abortion, gun control and education, insisting it is too conservative for Ventura County.

At the same time, Gallegly has focused almost exclusively on himself, never mentioning Case in campaign materials, and always citing his own personal history and congressional record.

“The person on the other side has sent 11 attack pieces out,” Gallegly said. “He said he would run his campaign like a trial--to win. And he has. It’s one thing to twist the truth or tweak it, but you cross the line when you make up blatant lies.”

An example of Case’s distortions, the incumbent said, is a flier mailed last week stating that Gallegly voted against amending a 1999 financial reform bill to keep citizens’ personal and financial records private.

“That bill was overwhelmingly bipartisan,” Gallegly said. “The president signed it and said it was one of the best examples of bipartisan leadership by the Congress. Then [Case] pulls out a small section of it, and says I voted to violate a right to privacy.”

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Jonathan Brown, campaign manager for Case, said his candidate has never distorted a Gallegly vote.

“Our mail pieces give the dates of bills we’re [referring to] and the vote number,” he said. “So anybody with Internet access can look it up for themselves. And if Elton had given us an opportunity to debate, rather than hiding, perhaps the unvarnished truth would be known.”

Brown said Gallegly’s privacy bill vote is, in fact, a good example of how Gallegly favors corporations over the average citizen. During consideration of the landmark financial services reform bill, Gallegly voted against returning the measure to committee for changes that would have kept banks and insurance companies from distributing sensitive personal records.

“That specific vote was highly partisan,” Brown said. “And because Gallegly’s backers are big banks and insurance companies, he wanted them to have the ability to market your personal records.”

That is the way it has been for months--Case attacking and Gallegly alleging distortion. Case has also used mailers to state his own qualifications as a lawyer and community leader, but often, he has highlighted the incumbent’s record.

In the mailer that depicts Uncle Sam as a Peeping Tom, Case notes that Gallegly opposes abortion in nearly all cases. In another mailer that features a frowning Gallegly and the Statue of Liberty lying on its side, Case says the incumbent “received a 100% rating from the Christian Coalition.”

A third flier features the face of a young Latino girl and a newspaper photo of Gallegly watching a mother cry during an early-morning immigration raid. “[Gallegly] punishes innocent Latino children,” by proposing a constitutional amendment to deny them citizenship if their parents are in this country illegally, it says.

Meanwhile, Gallegly, has presented a series of “Thank You, Elton” advertisements that highlight what he has done in Washington for Ventura County--helping to save Navy bases, working for expansion of the Port of Hueneme, and securing tens of millions of dollars for a host of public works projects.

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Last week, the congressman rolled out a flier titled “What Democrats say about the real Elton Gallegly.” Inside, nine prominent Democrats praised his work, although at least one said the flier left the impression he had endorsed the Republican.

“It’s misleading to have that construed as an endorsement,” said Hueneme Harbor Commissioner Jess Herrera, who endorses Case.

Gallegly said polls show Case’s campaign-long aggression has backfired.

“The negative part of this has driven his negatives up in our polls,” Gallegly said. “There’s been a tremendous rejection. I would have liked to give him some money out of my campaign so he could do more.”

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FYI

For more information on this and other political races in Ventura County, please see the Los Angeles Times’ Ventura County Web site at www.latimes.com/editions/ventura/elections.

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