I owe a note of thanks to the Republicans of Morgan Hill. Santa Clara County was the only one of the four counties of the 11th Congressional District where I defeated Pombo in last June’s primary election.
Many political pundits are puzzling over this anomaly, which, even now, analysts of both parties are trying to figure out.
Pombo’s loss in Morgan Hill was certainly not due to the official Republican establishment- far from it. The California Republican Assembly, County Central Committee and conservative Lincoln Club were all unanimously for Pombo.
What happened then to make Morgan Hill so unique?
Could it have been Pombo’s well-publicized family RV vacation at taxpayer expense and abuse of the franking privilege? Or the more than $350,000 he paid to enrich his wife and brother for alleged “services?” Was it his lying to the Senate Committee about how a habitat designation for the kit fox made his property worthless, or perhaps his intervention into the federal investigation of that great clear-cutter of California’s old-growth redwoods, the infamous Charles Hurwitz? Could it have been his contribution of thousands of dollars to the Legal Defense Fund of the disgraced Tom Delay, or the fact that he took more than $40,000 from Indian gaming lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates, and nearly $250,000 from Halliburton and other energy corporations? Did his stated disbelief in global warming play a role, or his insistence that there is no need to require U.S. automobile manufacturers to increase gas mileage standards? Was it because on the day gasoline prices reached a zenith of nearly $4 per gallon in May, he was down in Houston raising money from oil companies?
Maybe, but all of these things were known to the voters of his home county of San Joaquin who voted for him overwhelmingly.
From my contacts with Morgan Hill voters, I am inclined to believe that there were four primary factors in his rejection by Republicans here.
First, was his refusal to engage in public discourse. Pombo steadfastly declined to debate or to appear at public meetings where he might have to answer pointed questions. He wouldn’t even accept my challenge to a race up El Toro in Morgan Hill’s annual spring climb. Unlike Congresspersons in adjacent districts, he simply doesn’t hold public, give-and-take meetings, and speaks to the press and public generally only through “spokespersons.”
Second, Morgan Hill veterans, from World War, Korea, Viet Nam and the Gulf, were keenly aware of Pombo’s 14 straight votes against health benefits for disabled veterans, and in particular, his deciding vote against prosthesis research for amputees in May, 2005. Those votes, from one who never elected to serve in the military, didn’t sit well.
Third, I found Morgan Hill Republicans still angry over the egregious gerrymander of 2002, in which, to help Pombo, Republican leaders agreed to drive a sliver of Democratic voters all the way north into the heart of Stockton in exchange for jumping across a mountain range to pick up 25,000 voters around Morgan Hill, a majority of whom were Republicans. In no way do the problems of Morgan Hill relate to the problems of San Joaquin County. Pombo’s rather disdainful attitude towards Morgan Hill’s voters may have been returned in kind.
I believe the truly crucial factor, however, lay in the attitudes of the high school and Gavilan College students with whom I met on several occasions. They were nearly all passionate conservationists, fully familiar with the benefits of wilderness backpacking, clean air and water and endangered species. It is no wonder Pombo did not want to come to Morgan Hill to defend his proposals to sell off l5 national parks, turn over millions of acres of public lands for private development, put facilities on the Farallone Islands, build a highway across Mount Hamilton, and strangest of all, resume Japanese hunting and killing of endangered whale species.
My guess is that a lot of Morgan Hill young people persuaded their parents that a vote for an aging relic of old Republican values like balanced budgets, environmental protection and freedom from big money lobbyists was preferable to voting for a seven-term incumbent designated by one non-partisan Washington watchdog group as “One of the 13 Most Corrupt Members of Congress.”
All of this gives me hope for the future. In any event, thank you Morgan Hill. I am humbled by your support of my ill-fated attempt to return to Congress. It would have been an honor to represent you.
Pete McCloskey served in the U.S. Congress House of Representatives from 1967 to 1983. He ran on an anti-war platform for the Republican nomination for president in 1972 but was defeated by incumbent President Richard Nixon. One of Pete McCloskey’s enduring legacies is his co-authorship of the 1973 Endangered Species Act.
