He’s proving his worth one weekend at a time

The sun was hardly up when Jerry McNerney shut his front door behind him, a bowl of Great Grains Maple Pecan Crunch in his stomach, a brown suit and his good black shoes in a garment bag for later.

In the 16 hours before he returned home, the freshman congressman who was never supposed to win would put on 40 pounds of gear at a firehouse and spend nearly two hours at a grocery store, talking to voters by the beer nuts.

He would toss down half a quesadilla at a strip mall, meet more voters at a hardware store, and chat with business types before putting on the suit and shoes for two 7 p.m. dinner commitments, an hour and 20 minutes apart.

Lately, this is a typical Saturday for McNerney, the 56-year-old wind engineer who a year ago felled a GOP Goliath, Richard W. Pombo, shocking the political establishment. Now nearly halfway through his first term, he has set out to prove his victory in this traditionally Republican district of farm country and upscale exurbs east of San Francisco was no fluke.

One of 30 Democrats carried to the House of Representatives on a wave of voter discontent, he is high on the GOP’s 2008 target list. His race for a second term promises to be one of the nastiest and most expensive in the country -- the opposition papered his district with attack fliers the day he was sworn in. And many see it as a test of how durable the Democrats’ 2006 victories will be in a presidential election year.

But McNerney, whose antiwar, pro-environment campaign was fueled by liberal activists, is proving to be a more moderate lawmaker than many expected. In 10 months, he has managed to tick off liberal bloggers who are pledging to take their money elsewhere, while picking up support from Republicans at home who can’t remember the last time they liked a Democrat.

Converting the base

For a man who has spent his life pondering the complexities of math and harnessing the power of wind, McNerney’s political calculus is fairly simple: meet as many voters as he can.

So he makes the five-hour cross-country flight from Washington every Friday night and back every Monday at dawn, a record few geographically disadvantaged California members can claim. Airsick-prone, he has been ill on the plane twice, and he came down with bronchitis two other times.

“It’s really important to touch base with people at home because you lose track in Washington. I see it. You have to make a real effort to stay grounded,” McNerney said, riding past spinning wind turbines, most of which he has climbed, on the velvety brown hills along Interstate 580. Someone has mowed the words “Jesus Saves” into the brush.

Even now, some call this Pombo Country after the conservative, Stetson-wearing rancher who commanded the seat for seven consecutive terms. About 90 minutes from liberal San Francisco, the agricultural Central Valley is traditionally more conservative. President Bush easily prevailed here twice.

McNerney puts in marathon Saturdays listening to voters in coffee shops and fire houses in sessions known as “Congress At Your Corner.”

This is session No. 23. Today’s site is the family-run Morada Market in very Republican San Joaquin County. Richard Shaffer and William Fields, retired community activists in their 60s who mourned Pombo’s loss as the end of an era, were waiting for McNerney in the parking lot when his car pulled up.

“This is a very Republican area, and I’m personally very pleased with the job McNerney has done,” Shaffer said. “The congressman is not considered the type of person who wakes up every morning hating George Bush.”

The mayor of Lodi, never a supporter, recently effused after one of McNerney’s whirlwind visits, “You could have spent more time with the congressman than with your spouse.”

Accessibility is becoming a McNerney trademark, such as the sun-blocking gray-and-black fedora he wears on his dermatologist’s orders -- practical but nonetheless impressive. His liberal views on civil unions and reproductive rights don’t comport with his more conservative constituents. But he is with a lot of them on traffic, immigration, healthcare and veterans assistance. He recently introduced a bill to exempt small farms and small businesses from the estate tax.

On this particular Saturday, voters of all stripes seemed most impressed by his presence. “You could see Pombo -- for $100 a plate,” said Paul Frekey, 47, a Republican voter who works in commercial real estate.

By now, a line of about 30 voters stretches from the beer nuts to the refrigerator case.

“It’s an exhausting pace,” Shaffer observes to his friend. “If he keeps it up, he’s going to convert this area, don’t you think, Bill?”

“Yep, he very well could.”

Shifting numbers

The Central Valley feels like a small town with big problems.

People priced out of San Francisco are moving in, and development is exploding. The onramp to the interstate starts backing up at 5:30 a.m., and some residents dread a 2,000-home subdivision under construction, promising another 4,000 cars.

The war in Iraq has come home here, too; Tracy has the second-highest combat casualty rate in California.

And immigration is a complicated matter in a farm community that wants secure borders but is plagued by a labor shortage. The pear crop rotted on the trees last year for lack of pickers, and the tops of the still-unpruned cherry orchards are sprouting madly.

Growth has also altered the political landscape, with more Bay Area Democrats and moderates moving in, whittling the GOP advantage to about 5 percentage points. But given that Republicans are generally more reliable voters, McNerney can take small comfort.

“Jerry McNerney is far too liberal for the district,” said Ken Spain, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “In a presidential election year with high Republican turnout, he is going to find himself in an uphill battle.”

In a hint of the campaign to come, Spain called McNerney a “Pelosi clone” in reference to Nancy Pelosi, the liberal Democratic House speaker from San Francisco.

While McNerney’s more moderate stands have endeared him to some in his district, they have infuriated those on the left who mobilized in 2006 to put his long-shot bid over the top. He was one of only 59 Democrats, and the only one from the Bay Area, to vote against a bill in May to withdraw all combat troops within nine months.

McNerney says he does not regret voting against a bill that included no diplomatic strategy or veterans benefits: “Oh no, that was the right thing to do, I would absolutely do that again.”

He further irked the antiwar activists when he came back from Iraq seeking to compromise with Republicans on a withdrawal timetable that would survive a Bush veto. Critics called it capitulation.

“He was elected by a grass-roots group that walked that district from one end to the other believing he would be a grass-roots voice. . . and he’s turned his back on them,” said Tim Carpenter, national director of Progressive Democrats of America.

Though McNerney echoes complaints from the party’s left wing that Pelosi has buckled on the war -- “She hasn’t stood up to the president hard enough; it’s the job of the Congress to stand up” -- he considers himself beholden to his district, not activists outside it who helped him get elected.

“He doesn’t rush to find out how MoveOn.org wants him to vote. He’s in the district all the time and making a favorable impression. He’s working his fanny off,” said Allan Hoffenblum, a political strategist whose nonpartisan California Target Book handicaps races around the state.

That means McNerney probably cannot count on another major infusion of cash from the left to finance a race that could cost as much as $4 million per candidate.

So he walks down the street from the Capitol to Democratic campaign headquarters about three times a week, calling donors for money. He’s raised $1 million so far, more than twice as much as his challenger, former state Assemblyman Dean Andal, a Republican from Stockton.

Listening, not logic

McNerney is less scripted than many of his veteran colleagues. A more practiced politician might not have revealed, for example, that he had to overcome the urge to fall asleep at some committee hearings, the way he used to at lectures and seminars.

During a recent radio broadcast panel in Washington, he was steam-rolled by his veteran Bay Area Democratic colleagues Zoe Lofgren of San Jose and Anna G. Eshoo of Menlo Park.

“Jerry, you gotta stop talking,” KGO Radio host Ronn Owens cracked when McNerney couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

And no one can recall the last time a lawmaker rose before an empty House chamber to extol a breakthrough in advanced geometry. He is the only sitting member of Congress with a doctorate in mathematics. As a leading expert on renewable energy, he was handpicked by Pelosi for her select committee on how Congress should deal with climate change.

A wind energy consultant in his previous life, landing this job pushed McNerney and his wife, Mary, to the financial brink. They would have had to sell the stucco house where they raised their three children had he lost.

But he didn’t. Now he’d like to continue in the first career he’s ever had where a gift for logic doesn’t come in handy. It’s not like math.

“This job is more about demagoguery. Oh, Andy doesn’t like that,” McNerney laughed, waiting for his communications director and driver this day, Andy Stone, to wince at what might be considered ill-advised candor. He goes on anyway. “It’s not about getting up there and arguing logically. Normally, it’s not.”

But here at home, it’s not about demagoguery, either.

It’s about listening, which he seems to do a lot of.

“You have to care to do this, come out and meet the folks and listen to what their problems are,” said Fields, while waiting Saturday morning for McNerney in the Morada Market parking lot. Fields was wearing a gray-and-black fedora -- in honor of the man he didn’t vote for.

faye.fiore@latimes.com

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Subtracting scandal

In his underdog bid for Congress, California Democrat Jerry McNerney was aided by scandal. His opponent in the Republican-leaning district, Richard W. Pombo, had taken campaign contributions from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, as well as from Abramoff’s clients.

Below are some other Democrats who benefited from scandal last year in Republican-leaning districts, which the GOP hopes to win back:

Nick Lampson, Texas -- He won the seat once held by Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader who had resigned from Congress amid money-laundering charges.

Tim Mahoney, Florida -- He won the seat once held by Rep. Mark Foley, who had resigned shortly before election day over allegations that he had sent inappropriate e-mails to teenage congressional pages.

Zack Space, Ohio -- He succeeded Rep. Bob Ney, who had resigned after pleading guilty to charges in connection with the Abramoff scandal.

In its latest assessment, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report said that voters in all four districts tended to favor Republicans but were leaning toward reelecting their Democratic House members next year.

Source: Times reporting