San Diego Election : Going for Broke in 78th Assembly District : Republicans Wage Battle for Coveted Seat Held by Democrats for 16 Years

Since the early 1970s, San Diego’s 78th State Assembly District has been a maddening political puzzle for the Republican Party. The kind of puzzle where a piece or two always seems to be missing, driving the person trying to put it together to distraction.

From the Republicans’ perspective, the 78th District is a Republican district represented by a Democrat. With 16 years of political history on their side, the Democrats believe--and have consistently proved--otherwise.

By the Nov. 8 election, the two sides are expected to spend a combined total of more than $1 million to prove each other wrong, which would make the 78th District race the first Assembly campaign in San Diego political history to cross the seven-figure threshold.

The 78th District is the most heavily Republican Assembly district in the state held by the Democrats--a situation that chagrined GOP leaders’ hope, as they do every two years, to rectify this fall via the candidacy of public relations official Byron Wear.

“On paper, the 78th should be a Republican district,” said San Diego County Republican Party Chairman Earl Cantos Jr., who has a unique perspective on the subject, having been his party’s unsuccessful candidate in the 78th District race two years ago. “This may be the year it finally is.”

The Republicans, however, have been offering up that “it’s-only-a-matter-of-time” refrain biennially since 1972 without success. With that in mind, Assemblywoman Lucy Killea (D-San Diego) only chuckles when she hears Cantos and other Republicans argue that, in Wear, they may have finally found the missing pieces to the 78th District puzzle needed to block her bid for a fourth two-year term.

“Given the nature of this district, I know every time that this is going to be a very tough, competitive campaign,” said Killea, who was elected to the Assembly in 1982 after serving four years on the San Diego City Council. “But the funny thing is, even though the Democrats have held the seat for 16 years, the Republicans still call it their district. And when this race is over, the Democrats will still hold it and the Republicans probably will still be saying the same thing.”

The 78th District

Somewhere between Republicans’ optimistic predictions and Killea’s confidence lies the true nature of this year’s race in the 78th District, which stretches along the coast from Ocean Beach to Pacific Beach, extending inland to the Miramar Naval Air Station in the north, south to downtown San Diego and east to East San Diego.

In recent years, Democrats have held a small registration edge in the 78th District--a fact that, coupled with Killea’s popularity among independents and Republicans throughout her political career, enabled her to win comfortably in her three previous Assembly races. In 1986, she defeated Cantos, 57%-40%, and two years earlier defeated former county Supervisor Patrick Boarman by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

As the 78th District race enters its final two weeks, both Wear and Killea can point to various factors that, by conventional political yardsticks, appear to strengthen their respective campaigns. Killea, for example, will benefit from an aggressive voter registration drive by local Democrats that transformed the party’s razor-thin 43.6%-43.4% edge in 1986 to a slightly more than 5 percentage point advantage this year, 46% to 40.9%--a lead still considerably slimmer than the lopsided margins found in San Diego’s other legislative districts.

The Republicans, meanwhile, regard Wear as perhaps the most formidable opponent that Killea has faced since she succeeded Democrat Larry Kapiloff in 1982 following Kapiloff’s resignation to accept appointment to a Superior Court judgeship.

Name Recognition

A longtime Republican activist, Wear began the race with relatively high name recognition and a campaign organization already largely in place--the residual effects of a strong though unsuccessful race in last year’s San Diego City Council election. Wear, 34, a partner in a public relations firm, won last year’s 2nd District primary--outpolling two better-known, better-financed candidates in the process--but lost the citywide runoff to Ron Roberts, 54% to 46%.

In contrast, Cantos, an aide to state Board of Equalization member Ernest Dronenburg, was an unknown Assembly committee consultant when, at the urging of state Republican strategists, he launched his 1986 race against Killea.

“While Earl had to start at square one, I have the benefit of starting a few steps ahead,” Wear said.

As they did in 1986, state Republicans leaders have targeted the 78th District race, viewing it as, in the words of Chris Jones, executive director of the Assembly Republican Political Action Committee (ARPAC), “close to an even-odds shot” at picking up one of the five additional seats needed to control the Assembly. State Democratic officials have done the same, realizing that Killea’s victory is critical to retention of their majority in the Assembly.

Aware that the Assembly’s partisan balance could dictate the reapportionment that will follow the 1990 census, both major parties have already pumped tens of thousands of dollars into the 78th District contest. As of Sept. 30, Killea had raised $398,462 and Wear, $276,337, with about half of their combined $675,000 contribution total coming from their respective statewide and local party organizations. By Election Day, Wear expects to spend about $600,000, while Killea predicted that the final price tag of her campaign would be “slightly less.”

Libertarian Kurtis McMillen, a computer software consultant, also is on the ballot in the 78th District. Like other Libertarians, McMillen espouses his party’s guiding tenet that government generally does more harm than good and, therefore, should be seriously curtailed.

Campaign Strategy

Throughout the campaign, Wear has sharply attacked Killea’s six-year record in the Assembly while being careful not to criticize Killea personally. That distinction, however, sometimes get blurred, as when Wear describes Killea as one of Assembly Speaker Willie Brown’s “cronies.”

Wear’s strategy is based on a GOP survey conducted early this year showing, Wear explained, that while Killea is personally popular, most voters are largely unfamiliar with her record and react negatively when it is detailed for them.

“I think Lucy Killea is a very nice lady who just hasn’t done much for the district,” Wear said. “In fact, I think she’s so nice that I’d like to give her the opportunity to come home and retire with her husband. . . . She’s more liberal than the district realizes and has supported a lot of special-interest legislation that people in the 78th District don’t like. What we have to do is educate people about her record.”

One candidate’s “education,” however, is often another’s distortion, a political maxim that explains why Wear and Killea have spent much of the campaign sparring--in both forums and, more frequently, newspaper stories--over the veracity of Wear’s charges.

In his campaign mailers and standard stump speech, Wear accuses Killea of, among other things, voting to tax Social Security benefits, for pay raises for state legislators, to provide Medi-Cal benefits to illegal aliens, against efforts to strengthen or implement the death penalty in certain cases, against lowering credit card interest rates and for “special-interest legislation” that would have curtailed local governments’ control over growth.

Rather than allowing herself to get bogged down in a point-by-point rebuttal of Wear’s charges, which Killea noted would be “playing into my opponent’s hands,” the assemblywoman generally dismisses the accusations en masse as “distortions, twisting of facts and deliberately taking things out of context.” Some of the other votes that Wear cites, Killea contends, were procedural ones in which she resisted GOP efforts at legislative shortcuts, while in other cases he has “taken what happened and turned it completely upside down.”

“As an incumbent, you get used to that happening in campaigns,” Killea said. “It does create problems, because you can’t ignore it, but if you start responding to charge after charge, you’re always on the defensive.”

To address that problem, Killea’s campaign plans to send out its own mailer providing its explanation of some of the votes highlighted by Wear. In particular, because of the issue’s volatility, Killea goes to special lengths to emphasize that she believes the death penalty is justified “in some cases.”

“But this is not an issue where I automatically push the yes or no button,” she added.

Killea’s own campaign, meanwhile, has, at times, more closely resembled a United Way appeal than it has a political race. Built around the theme “Representing the best in people,” Killea’s campaign has been carefully packaged in a low-keyed style uncommon for politics at any level--much less for a million-dollar campaign.

Were it not for the briefest of mentions of the fact, viewers or listeners of Killea’s TV and radio ads probably would not realize that she is a politician running for reelection. Instead, her ads have the look, feel and texture of public service announcements commending community do-gooders.

The Killea ads, as well as a glossy 32-page color brochure mailed to voters, feature San Diegans, most of them decidedly non-public figures, who provide valuable community service either through their jobs or volunteer work. Amid praise for people ranging from doctors, teachers and fire fighters to race organizers, hospice volunteers and advocates for the disabled and homeless, Killea slips in a soft, soft sell, saying that she views her service in the Legislature as “representing the best in people.”

“Representing these good people, standing up for the ideals they are working for, fighting for what they believe in--that’s what service in the public interest means to me,” Killea says.

Killea argues that her campaign theme stems in part from her disdain for what she describes as most politicians’ “look-what-I’ve-done style.”

“It sounds self-serving, but I’m really not comfortable talking about myself all the time,” said Killea, a 66-year-old former Central Intelligence Agency researcher. “I am comfortable with this approach, because it reflects how I go about my job and build my legislative agenda. At a time when other politicians are appealing to people’s baser instincts, I’ve tried to set a positive tone without sounding pious.”

Derisively characterizing Killea’s ads as “nice, warm, mushy things,” Wear notes, as others do, that the ads do not mention her legislative record, accomplishments or goals.

“She has such a dismal record that she has to do puff stuff like this,” Wear charged. “People want substance, not just nice pictures and words.”

Michele Blair, Killea’s campaign coordinator, also points out that Killea’s legislative agenda overlaps with the activities of some of the people featured in the ads. Two nurse midwives in the brochure, for example, are honored for their work in prenatal care, an area where Killea has fought for increased state funding.

In addition, San Diego political consultant David Lewis, who is not involved in the 78th District race, commended the ads as an effective means of reinforcing Killea’s “warm, grandmotherly image.” In so doing, Lewis argues, the ads can help to blunt Wear’s criticisms.

“When someone has a warm, positive image, it’s tougher to make an attack stick,” Lewis said.

To the limited extent that she does talk about her record, Killea cites as highlights her sponsorship of various anti-drug bills, including ones aimed at curtailing production of methamphetamine; a recycling bill that was vetoed by Gov. George Deukmejian but which she plans to reintroduce; her efforts to encourage international trade opportunities for small businesses through loan guarantee programs, and her success in securing “three or four times the amount other comparable areas got” in park and recreation funding for San Diego.

Wear, however, often reminds campaign audiences that San Diego ranks 57th out of the state’s 58 counties in terms of the per capita revenue it receives from Sacramento. That imbalance, county supervisors allege in lawsuits filed against the state, has cost San Diego tens of millions of dollars annually.

Noting Killea’s close alliance with Assembly Speaker Brown, who appeared at a Killea fund-raiser here last week, Wear attempts to saddle Killea with much of the blame for San Diego’s shortchanging.

“You’d think having Lucy Killea be part of Willie Brown’s gang would get us something in return,” Wear argues. “But it’s clear that it hasn’t.”

Killea, though, blames San Diego’s inequitable position not on the local state legislative delegation, but rather on the failure of past Boards of Supervisors’ to effectively lobby for state funds.

Under their scenario for a Wear victory, Republicans argue that the presidential race’s traditional boost to turnout could benefit Wear more than Killea. Despite the Democrats’ slim registration edge, the GOP argument goes, Republicans’ historically higher turnout could shift the balance to Wear.

“It’s only a matter of time before the 78th is a Republican district, and this could be the time,” said ARPAC executive director Jones, echoing Republicans’ traditional optimism about their prospects in the race.

Killea’s strength at the polls, however, traditionally has cut across party lines. In 1984, amid President Reagan’s landslide victory, Killea even outpolled Reagan in her district.

As that fact demonstrates, it is Killea who, for the past six years, has been able to put together the political puzzle posed by the 78th District. In predicting that the result this year will be the same, Killea also provided a snappy retort to Jones’ optimistic assessment.

“This isn’t the time . . . for the Republicans,” Killea said. “And this isn’t the district.”