Up Against a Tough Foe, Dubious Voters

Everywhere he goes, he gets the Why question.

Sometimes it is delivered politely by a potential supporter who wants to hear Kevin Feldman’s ideas for making government work better. More often, however, it comes wrapped in a tone of incredulity, sometimes even hostility, and accompanied by a list of reasons he cannot possibly unseat a fellow Democrat.

Why is he challenging Westside Rep. Henry A. Waxman, one of Southern California’s most enduring and respected officeholders? Waxman, after all, has not had a primary challenger since 1994, and he got nearly 76% of the vote in his last election.

“Why should I interview your guy? He could be a crackpot,” the editor of a community newspaper recently told a campaign aide seeking coverage of Feldman’s quest to oust Waxman in Tuesday’s primary.

Feldman is no crackpot, and he is serious about his candidacy even while acknowledging his long odds. The 34-year-old, who holds a master’s degree from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, has long been active in local Democratic politics and in gay-rights causes. He quit his job as a vice president for the Charles Schwab brokerage firm to campaign full time.

Clean-cut and conservatively dressed, he stumps energetically throughout the 30th Congressional District, which fans from the Westside west and north into Malibu, Westlake Village and the west San Fernando Valley.

Running for office has been “a life’s dream,” Feldman says. He thought about seeking a City Council seat, “but the issues I have the most passion about are the big, meaty issues” that Congress faces. He ruled out state office because he believes California’s fiscal problems are so severe that they will monopolize legislators’ attention for the next several years.

Feldman is one of scores of candidates tackling extremely long odds in their election challenges to entrenched incumbents this year. Already better known and better financed than their challengers, the incumbents got an added boost last year when the congressional and state legislative districts were redrawn with the goal of creating safe seats for nearly all current officeholders in both major parties.

So why do these challengers do it? Why put in the time and effort, maybe even mortgage the house to pay for a political mailer or a phone bank, only to risk resounding defeat at the ballot box?

A few--including a handful of perennial candidates--run mainly for the pleasure of seeing their names on the ballot, political experts say. Others hope to position themselves for future campaigns by making a decent-enough showing to earn the respect of party leaders and donors.

The nominee of a party that is woefully behind in district registration may get clobbered on election day but will automatically earn a spot on the party’s policy-making state central committee. Such a position is guaranteed, for example, to West Hollywood bartender Tony D. Goss, the only Republican on the ballot in the 30th District, where Democrats hold a 52%-28% registration edge.

Other longshot candidates are afflicted with what political analyst Allan Hoffenblum calls “candidate-itis.”

“You become so convinced that you are right and you have all the answers that you believe that if you can only reach enough people, you can win. It’s very common among marginal candidates,” said Hoffenblum, a longtime Republican consultant whose California Target Book tracks congressional and legislative races throughout the state.

Feldman seems to fall into the last category. He said he has grown impatient with a political system that discourages new leaders with fresh ideas, so he decided to take on Waxman--against the advice of insiders he has come to know in his 10 years of fund-raising and other activism in the Democratic Party.

“Most people said, ‘Don’t do it,’ especially the elected officials, but they were focused on could I win and not on whether I was talking about the right things,” Feldman said. With the help of a small paid campaign staff, including three student interns from his alma mater, UCLA, Feldman has crisscrossed the district, walking precincts, going to farmers markets, addressing Kiwanis and Rotary clubs and accepting invitations to speak at small gatherings at supporters’ homes. He has scored interviews for stories in several community papers--including the one with the plain-spoken editor.

He uses a Web site, www.feldmanforcongress.com, to keep supporters up to date, and his distinctive purple and lime-green campaign colors are turning up on billboards, lawn signs and the fliers he hands out on stops across the district.

By the end of January, he had raised about $26,000, which included a $10,500 loan to himself, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. Waxman reported having around $550,000 on hand and said recently he expects to use some of it to help Democrats in other, presumably tighter, races.

Feldman, who grew up in Malibu and Los Angeles and lives in West Hollywood with his partner of 11 years, Tom Nash, said he is concentrating on the roughly 40% of the district that is new to Waxman.

In last year’s redistricting, Waxman lost some of his Hollywood-area neighborhoods and picked up such communities as Calabasas and Agoura Hills, as well as a substantial part of the West Valley. Feldman said he believes voters there are more in sync with his priority issues--the economy, transportation and education--and appreciate his business background.

He acknowledges that he shares Waxman’s political views on many issues, but “our priorities are different, and so are our ways of reaching the goals. I have more of a private-sector approach” to solving problems.

Waxman, 62, also is spending time in the new parts of the district and running on a record that includes working for better medical benefits for the elderly, combating abuses in nursing homes and, most recently, investigating failed energy giant Enron Corp. He disagrees with Feldman’s contentions that he is not in tune with voters and that he should step aside for a new generation of leadership.

“I’ve done a good job. I’ve been there fighting on the issues [that voters care about],” said Waxman, noting his seniority will put him in key assignments if the Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives.

A longtime Democratic power player, Waxman first won a seat in Congress in 1974 and has been reelected by big margins ever since. The nonpartisan Almanac of American Politics calls him “one of the ablest members of the House, a shrewd political operator who is a skilled and idealistic policy entrepreneur.”

Waxman’s work, which also includes battling tobacco interests, pushing for campaign finance reform and championing environmental issues, has made him popular in the district, home to many of the entertainment industry’s liberal political activists and contributors.

Unlike many favored incumbents, who dislike providing a forum (and perhaps a credibility boost) to their little-known challengers, Waxman has a long-standing policy of sharing a podium with his political opponents. He and Feldman have made several joint appearances, most notably Feb. 19 on commentator Bill Rosendahl’s public affairs program on Adelphia Cable TV. “I’ve always felt that’s the proper thing to do,” Waxman said. “I have always been willing to make my case when I ask the voters for support every two years, and I see no reason to fear or run away from debating my opponents.”

Feldman said he got a much chillier reception where he least expected it--from many in the district’s politically active gay and lesbian community.

Active in gay-rights causes for more than a decade, Feldman expected many in his community would welcome the opportunity to elect an openly gay man to Congress.

Instead, he said, he encountered hostility from those who disliked his challenge to a powerful incumbent with an outstanding record on issues important to gays and lesbians.

“I found there was a lot of working behind the scenes against me,” Feldman said.

But he said most gays and lesbians, as well as other voters he has approached, have responded positively to his campaign.

“I just hope people defy the conventional wisdom ... and vote for me.”