Candidates jockey to fill Duke’s seat

North County Times
Saturday, July 23, 2005

By WILLIAM FINN BENNETT and MARK WALKER – Staff Writers

If it were a race at Del Mar, the track would need an extra starting
gate to make room for the 13 Republicans who have already emerged as
potential successors to U.S. Rep. Randy Cunningham.

With the filing period six months away and more than 300 days until
the primary election, the already crowded field is highlighted by
legislators past and present hoping to keep the 50th Congressional
District seat in the Republican column.

Cunningham announced earlier this month that he would not seek
re-election, citing a San Diego federal grand jury investigation.

The probe centers on Cunningham’s real estate dealings with Washington
defense contractor Mitchell Wade and Wade’s company, MZM Inc., as well
as on the circumstances of the congressman’s living aboard a boat
owned by Wade.

Since the Cunningham announcement July 14, the list of GOP candidates
for the job, which pays $162,100 a year, has grown almost daily.

Handicappers suggest the front-runners for the June 6 primary are
state Sen. Bill Morrow, who represents most of North County, state
Assemblyman Mark Wyland, whose office is in Escondido, former
Congressman Brian Bilbray, and former Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian,
all North County residents with conservative credentials.

Midpack are state Assemblyman George Plescia, San Diego County
Supervisor Pam Slater-Price, Escondido Mayor Lori Pfeiler as well as
Charlene Zettel, former legislator and now director of the state
Division of Consumer Affairs.

Long shots include George Schwartzman, former Del Mar Mayor Richard
Earnest, and San Diego City Councilman Brian Maienschein, and county
Supervisor Bill Horn, who says he probably won’t run.

Term limits

Two of the front-runners are state legislators scheduled to leave
office because of state term limits —- Wyland and Morrow. California
has one of the nation’s strictest term-limits laws, allowing no more
than six years in three terms in the Assembly and eight years in two
terms in the Senate.

Wyland said Thursday he was “very seriously” considering running for
Congress after having served the last five years as the assemblyman
for the 74th State Assembly District, which covers a large swath of
North County including parts of Escondido, Vista, San Marcos,
Carlsbad, Encinitas and Solana Beach.

“I have been encouraged by several people to do it,” the Escondido
native and Del Mar resident said. “I have represented my district for
five years and it encompasses a big part of the congressional
district.”

At the age of 58, Wyland is hardly ready to be put out to pasture, but
term limits are soon to end his career in the Assembly.

Morrow, who served six years in the Assembly and is in his seventh
year in the state Senate, is one of four people who have said they
plan to run. The others are former Assemblyman Kaloogian, former
gubernatorial candidate Schwartzman, Assemblyman Plescia, and Del
Mar’s Earnest.

The jockeying begins

Schwartzman was first out of the gate, announcing his candidacy one
week before Cunningham declared that he would not seek re-election.

Morrow and Kaloogian made unofficial announcements that they were
running less than an hour after Cunningham said he wouldn’t run again.

Morrow has long said that when Cunningham called it quits, he would
launch his candidacy. And while he hasn’t made a formal announcement,
he said Thursday that he will run.

“I am not blushing —- I have no reason to be, and I am running,”
Morrow said. “It’s no secret that I have always wanted to go to
Congress.”

Kaloogian heads Move America Forward, a conservative group he formed
after helping to spearhead the recall that ousted former Gov. Gray
Davis in 2003.

Kaloogian left the state Assembly in 1999, and says he has long
coveted a seat in Congress. He plans to announce his candidacy
“officially” within the next two weeks, he said.

Bilbray, who lost his seat to Democrat Susan Davis in 2000 before
redistricting changed congressional boundaries, is also considering a
run, he said.

Bilbray, who moved to Carlsbad in June, works as a lobbyist for the
Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, which
supports tighter immigration policies.

Making him a strong contender for Cunningham’s seat, Bilbray said, are
his experience and the fact that a large portion of the 49th
Congressional District he represented is now part of the 50th
District.

Friend vs. friend

Plescia, a 38-year-old La Jolla resident whose 75th State Assembly
District encompasses much of the 50th Congressional District, said
last week that he will make a formal announcement in a few days.

“I’m very familiar with this district and I feel I am in a very good
position,” Plescia said.

Plescia would be running against a former boss: before winning
election to the Assembly he served as Bill Morrow’s “legislative
district director.”

“It looks like there are going to be a lot of friends in the race,”
said Plescia, now in his second Assembly term.

Slater-Price, now in her fourth term as a county supervisor, said
after Cunningham opted out that she had been asked by unnamed
prominent Republicans to run for the seat.

Her chief of staff, John Weil, said Thursday that the 57-year-old
former Encinitas mayor and City Council member was still mulling her
entry into the race.

“The supervisor is giving it serious consideration,” Weil
said. “She’s taking a little more time to think it over.”

The first Republican to announce was Schwartzman, 59, who announced
his candidacy July 5.

Schwartzman describes himself as a moderate, “pro-choice” Republican
and has said he is prepared to tap heavily into his own resources to
boost his candidacy.

Schwartzman ran in the gubernatorial recall election, finishing a
distant ninth. He is co-founder and president of MediKeeper Inc., a
San Diego health record management company.

Horn said Thursday that while he could still decide to take a shot at
the nomination, he’s an unlikely entry —- especially if Wyland runs.

“If Mark were to get into the race, I have full confidence we would
be well represented and I wouldn’t get in,” he said. “I prefer to stay
on the track I’m on.”

Escondido representation

Last week, Pfeiler sounded as if she would enter the fray.

“I’d like to run,” said the 47-year-old inland mayor who has served
on the City Council for 13 years. “Escondido deserves
representation. And I know what people expect from their government.”

Pfeiler was with Cunningham on the day he announced he would not seek
re-election. A week before that announcement, she introduced him at a
Rotary luncheon as a “true American hero.” Pfeiler said she will make
a decision in about a week on whether to run.

Another candidate, Earnest, is the former mayor of Del Mar, who while
in that office led a successful effort to push the U.S. Marine Corps
to change its helicopter flight paths. The 63-year-old Earnest said
Thursday he will be in the running.

“I’m very serious about this and I’m in the process of putting a team
together,” said Earnest, who like Cunningham was a U.S. Navy fighter
pilot during the Vietnam War. “I would like to try and restore some
integrity (to) and faith in our public servants.”

A technology company CEO, Earnest said he will be running as a
businessman stressing a reputation as a leader who “can get things
done.”

Among the crowd that is “seriously considering” running is San Diego
City Councilman Brian Maienschein.

“I’m very serious about it,” said the 36-year-old Maienschein, who is
now serving in his fourth year on the council.

San Diego mayoral candidate Steve Francis has said he would consider
a congressional campaign if his mayoral bid failed.

A former San Diego mayor and one-time senatorial candidate, Susan
Golding, also is reportedly considering a run.

Another possible candidate is Poway resident Zettel, director of the
state’s Division of Consumer Affairs. Zettel is a former state
assemblywoman who also served as a Poway Unified School District
trustee.

Efforts to reach Francis, Zettel and Golding were unsuccessful.

View from the rail

Oceanside Republican political consultant Jack Orr said he wasn’t
surprised at the number of early entries.

“When a safe seat opens up, there are so many people who want it,
especially in a state where there are term limits,” Orr said. “They
are attracted to this jewel.”

The 50th District has long been considered GOP turf because
registered Republicans outnumber Democrats 158,904 to 105,701. The
district stretches from Escondido to Carlsbad, southward along the
coast to include a portion of the city of San Diego.

Orr, who says he isn’t working for any of the hopefuls, said Thursday
that he sees the front-runners as Morrow, Kaloogian, Wyland and
Bilbray.

The big money will spent in the primary, he said, adding that serious
candidates should be prepared to spend at least a half-million
dollars.

Kaloogian said that figure was too modest, and the amount needed to
compete was closer to $1 million, he said.

“It’s going to be a crowed field, and you are going to have to shout
louder than the next guy,” Kaloogian said.

One Democrat in race so far

On the Democratic side, Francine Busby launched her campaign for that
party’s nomination in early June. She was the party’s nominee in
2004, winning about 38 percent of the vote.

No other Democrats have signaled their intentions to challenge Busby,
who has called on Cunningham to resign because of the ethical and
legal questions that swirl around him.

She faces a difficult task in wooing enough votes to put the seat in
the Democratic column, but national party officials have signaled
their intention to help fund her campaign.

Despite the Republican majority in the 50th District, the seat is
anything but a lock for the GOP, Democratic political consultant Bill
Wachob said Friday.

He said that recent events in San Diego County and the nation were
affecting the mood of voters and creating a desire for change: the
allegations against Cunningham; the convictions of San Diego’s acting
Mayor Michael Zucchet and Councilman Ralph Inzunza last week for
conspiracy, extortion and fraud; and rising voter dissatisfaction with
the war in Iraq and the federal trade deficit.

Wachob said that if the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
decides to seriously take on the 50th District seat, the national
organization could sink $2 million to $3 million into the race,

Orr said he didn’t believe Cunningham’s woes will rub off on the
Republican candidates.

“Cunningham will be so forgotten so fast, he will be a footnote with
a small asterisk,” Orr said. “The attention will shift and shift
dramatically to the candidates who are up there slugging it out for
the nomination.”

In or eying a run for the 50th Congressional District GOP nomination
are:

Brian Bilbray, former congressman and current lobbyist

Richard Earnest, former Del Mar City Councilman

Steve Francis, San Diego mayoral candidate

Susan Golding, former mayor of San Diego

Howard Kaloogian, former state assemblyman

Brian Maienschein, San Diego City Councilman

Bill Morrow, state senator

Lori Pfeiler, mayor of Escondido

George Plescia, state assemblyman

George Schwartzman, former gubernatorial candidate

Pam Slater-Price, San Diego County Supervisor

Mark Wyland, state assemblyman

Charlene Zettel, director of California Division of Consumer Affairs

Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760)
740-5426 or wbennett@nctimes.com. Contact staff writer
Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.