50th District campaigns hit home stretch

By: WILLIAM FINN BENNETT - Staff Writer | Sunday, April 9, 2006 6:32 AM PDT ∞

NORTH COUNTY ---- On Tuesday, voters will cast their ballots in what could turn out to be the first of four elections for the 50th Congressional District seat, which has been vacant since disgraced former U.S. Rep. Randy Cunningham resigned in late November.

Special Election Coverage

Tuesday's special election could determine a replacement for Cunningham through the end of the year if a single candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote.

However, if no candidate gets a majority, a June 6 runoff election will determine the winner. That election will be held in tandem with the regularly scheduled primaries in June, when each party will pick its candidate to run in the November general election. The winner of that election will then serve a full two-year term in Congress, starting in January.

As if four elections were not enough to confuse some voters, they will have to choose from no fewer than 18 candidates who will be on the ballot Tuesday ---- 14 Republicans, two Democrats, one Libertarian and one independent.

The large field has made it a challenge for voters to sort through the qualifications, platforms and personalities of the candidates. It also has created a series of logistical problems for pollsters ---- who struggled to keep respondents on the line long enough to complete surveys ---- and for those who have organized candidate forums and have been forced to limit the amount of time each candidate could speak.

Friday poll results showed Busby leading the field with 39 percent of likely voters surveyed saying she was their choice for the seat. Busby campaign officials have said they believe that in light of the Cunningham scandal, the seat is ripe for an upset and she will end up closing the 11 percent gap the poll shows separating her from victory.

Of the Republican candidates, Rancho Santa Fe businessman Eric Roach and former Congressman Brian Bilbray are locked in a statistical dead heat for second place at 17.5 percent and 16.4 percent respectively. The same poll shows former state Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian at 9.5 percent.

Some pundits have said that given the Republican majority in the District and the fact that Republican candidates will be splitting the conservative vote, Busby's best hope of winning the seat lies in Tuesday's special election. They say that once Republicans have chosen their own candidate in the June primary elections, and resources and support coalesce around a single GOP candidate, the going may get decidedly tougher for Busby.

Key issues


No matter who wins, polls show the No.1 issue many voters want their representative to tackle is illegal immigration.

That issue ---- not the war on terror, not the skyrocketing federal deficit, not freeway gridlock ---- has surged to the forefront in recent weeks as the U.S. Senate has debated major immigration reform legislation. In North County, as in the rest of the nation, the last couple of weeks have brought scores of protests in support of a bill that would allow many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in this country to eventually become U.S. citizens.

Almost all of the candidates in the race have staked out tough-on-illegal-immigration stances.

Even Busby, the Democratic front-runner, has made illegal immigration a top plank in her campaign platform.

She has expressed support for a bill that would allow many immigrants to eventually earn their citizenship and has called for a beefed-up electronic surveillance system along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Libertarian candidate Paul King went so far as to call for an "overthrow" of the Mexican government because of the illegal immigration problem.

A March poll showed ethics in Washington running a close second to illegal immigration as a top issue for most voters in the district. Part of the reason for that lies with the Cunningham scandal having made the 50th District the seeming epicenter of a congressional ethics crisis.

The district seat has been vacant since late November, when the decorated Vietnam War ace and staunch Republican pleaded guilty to tax evasion and having taken more than $2.4 million in bribes in exchange for steering tens of millions in government business to two defense contractors. In March, he was sentenced to an eight-year, four-month sentence in federal prison for those crimes.

Cardiff School District board member Busby ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic candidate against Cunningham in 2004. In her current efforts, she has made ethics reform in Washington her No.1 campaign issue.

Several Republican candidates also have called for ethics reform in Washington.

Republicans dominate landscape


The 50th District stretches from Escondido, San Marcos and Carlsbad in the north, down to northern portions of San Diego, including La Jolla, Clairemont Mesa and Mira Mesa. It has 353,000 registered voters, of whom about 105,000 are registered Democrats and about 157,000 are registered Republicans. Because Republicans dominate the district, the seat has long been considered a safe one for the GOP.

That may explain the fact that following Cunningham's resignation, the number of Republican candidates swelled to 14.

However, the district also has about 76,000 registered voters who have no declared party affiliation.

Those so-called independents could play a key role in determining the outcome of Tuesday's election.

Importance of absentee voters


Officials with the nonpartisan organization the California Voter Foundation said last week they believe that absentee ballots will be a deciding factor in who will win the seat. The county registrar of voters office has sent out about 110,000 absentee ballots for Tuesday's election. That number represents nearly one-third of the district's registered voters. Registrar officials reported that nearly 40,000 completed absentee ballots had been mailed in by voters as of Tuesday.

Knowing just how important those absentee voters are, campaign officials for three candidates said last week they have been focusing a large part of their campaign efforts on absentee or potential-absentee voters.

Some candidates' officials said that strategy was partially motivated by the much higher costs of television advertising. They said targeting absentee voters is one of the most efficient and cost-effective ways of reaching people who are almost certain to vote.

Bucks and mudslinging


For many of the candidates, running in the 50th District race has not been cheap. Campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission for the last quarter show that candidates took in a combined $6 million. And about two-thirds of that amount came from four Republican candidates themselves, who donated or loaned their campaigns about $4.2 million. Leading the self-funding pack was millionaire Roach, who injected $2.3 million of his own money into his campaign.

As the race has heated up over the past couple of months, mudslinging and political attack pieces have proliferated. Two of the first pieces surfaced in late January and early February.

One targeted Bilbray for his alleged ties to Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who recently pleaded guilty in federal court to charges of fraud, corruption and tax evasion. Bilbray denied the allegations. Another piece targeted 50th District candidate and state Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside, accusing him of supporting embryonic stem cell research, allegations which he vehemently denied.

In recent days, Morrow and Kaloogian exchanged accusations of inappropriately using either photos or endorsements from earlier campaigns with the supposed intention of fooling voters.

The Republican Party of San Diego County also has been running attack pieces against Democrat Busby on its Web site. And last week, the National Republican Congressional Committee began an advertising campaign on several local television stations. The ads, which attack Busby, are scheduled to run through Tuesday's special election, station officials have said.

But national Republicans are not the only ones who have jumped into the 50th District fray. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently sent Washington operatives to San Diego County to help with the Busby campaign. And the committee has invested more than $200,000 to help pay for ads for Busby, in which she attacks the Republican Party and touts herself as the candidate for "change."

Political pundits have said both parties see Tuesday's special election as a bellweather for November's national congressional elections, and that the national parties are focused on the race because of that.

Last minute preparations


Late last week, candidates, their staffers and volunteers were feverishly making last-minute efforts to mobilize their base and get out the vote.

Bilbray campaign spokesman Steve Danon said that more than 100 volunteers would be working phone banks and walking door to door in precincts, hanging campaign pieces on the front door handles of likely voters. In addition, Bilbray himself will be attending weekend street fairs and making phone calls to 50th District homes to drum up as much support as possible, Danon said.

"One of the biggest responses we get is when Brian is calling voters on his own," Danon said.

Similarly, Busby campaign spokesman Brennan Bilberry said Busby will be working throughout the weekend, meeting "face to face with as many voters as possible." Also, hundreds of campaign volunteers will be manning phones and going door to door to all over the district, "through Tuesday at 8 p.m."

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