Fresh on the heels of Vice President Dick Cheney’s stopover in Stockton this week to boost the re-election campaign of U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo (R-11th), former Congressman Pete McCloskey has stepped up his efforts to unseat Pombo in the June 6 Republican primary.
Calling Pombo “one of the most corrupt members of Congress,” McCloskey, who served as the Peninsula’s congressman for 15 years starting in 1967, has moved to Lodi to challenge Pombo, who is seeking re-election to his eighth term. The 11th Congressional District includes Lodi, Pombo’s hometown of Tracy, Danville and Pleasanton and much of the I-680, I-580 and I-5 corridors.
Besides McCloskey, retired businessman Tom Benigno of Tracy also is seeking the Republican nomination, although neither his candidacy nor campaign has generated much support.
In an interview with editors of the Danville Weekly and Pleasanton Weekly, McCloskey said he relocated to the 11th District specifically to “move Pombo out of office and restore ethics to Congress.” He also has been encouraging Democrats to switch their registration for this election to the “Decline to State” category so that they can vote for him in the Republican primary to unseat Pombo.
With Congress adjourned for a Memorial Day recess, both Pombo and McCloskey will be crisscrossing the district over the next 11 days with talks planned at major Republican fundraisers and public events. What they won’t be doing is appearing together on the same platform as they did May 15 in the only public forum both agreed to.
“That clearly was not a debate,” McCloskey said. “Mr. Pombo ignored my charges about the money he has taken from disgraced members of his own party, including Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff. He won’t debate me because he doesn’t want to answer those questions.”
McCloskey, who has addressed local Democratic Party organizations to solicit their support in defeating Pombo, said the three Democrats appearing on that party’s primary ballot on June 6 “are basically too weak” to defeat the Tracy congressman. Those candidates are Jerry McNerney, Steve Filson and Steve Thomas.
“I would not have run had we been able to find a Democrat with a chance of challenging Pombo,” McCloskey said. “I’m convinced that the only way to get this man out of office is to take him on in the primary, which I am doing.
“My wife Helen and I have moved to Lodi because we feel that Congressman Pombo, by reason of his voting record and close ties to Indian gaming lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, has become an embarrassment to the Republican Party.”
McCloskey said the 11th District is about 47 percent Democrat, 46 percent Republican and 16 percent “Decline to State,” which allows them to vote in either the Republican or Democrat party primaries.
“We have found that of those voters who registered “Decline to State” that seven out of 10 of them are former Republicans who have left their party because of abortion issues or their distaste for President Bush,” McCloskey said. “We have always thought it would be impossible to win a straight Republican vote against Pombo,” he added. “So if we can get these dissatisfied Republicans along with some of the Democrats who are registered the same way to cast Republican ballots in the primary, I’m sure enough of them will vote for me to defeat Richard Pombo.”
McCloskey, who helped write the Endangered Species Act when he was in Congress, said he is particularly incensed by Pombo’s efforts to dismantle it.
“He wants to gut the Act and sell off 15 national parks in order to satisfy the president’s request to reconcile the administration’s huge budget,” McCloskey said. “He even wants to sell off the national historic site in the hills above Danville that includes the Tao House, built by Eugene O’Neill. It’s unconscionable.
“If he’s re-elected, Mr. Pombo would likely chair the House Committee on Natural Resources two more years and wreak even more damage on our environment,” McCloskey said. “He must be stopped.”
McCloskey’s campaign centers on the theme, “Restore ethics to Congress.” He said Pombo is surrounded by lobbyists and fellow members of Congress who have been indicted or are under investigation for ethics violations, or like former Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham are in jail.
“Mr. Pombo has been designated by the nonpartisan watchdog group, Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, as one of the 13 most corrupt members of Congress,” McCloskey said. “I want to see him voted out of office so that we can restore ethics to Congress.”
While criticizing Pombo and the Republicans in Congress generally for losing the “real Republican values” the party had in the 1970s and 1980s, McCloskey said the Democrats have been just as corrupt when their party was in power.
“We say the Republicans are crooked, but we have to ask the Democrats if they know where they are on the issues,” he said. “What do they stand for? If I’m elected I will work for an honest ethics committee, an oversight committee that will stop this corruption. I will work for a balanced budget. And, I will work to get Republicans and Democrats–both sides of the aisle–speaking to each other again.
“I think it is a disaster for the country when the Republicans or Democrats control the House, the Senate and courts and the executive branch,” he explained. “You need balance to make sure there’s oversight on abuse by any of those.”
A fourth generation Californian, McCloskey was first elected to the House of Representatives in a special election in 1967 and re-elected seven times to represent the Peninsula and Silicon Valley. A Marine who served in three wars and in combat in Korea, he received the Navy Cross and Silver Star for heroism and two Purple Hearts for wounds suffered in the Korean War.
Later, as a congressman, he initiated the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1969, earning the wrath of opponents who labeled him anti-war, and he made the first House speech suggesting the impeachment of Richard Nixon for obstruction of justice in 1973.
On Iraq, McCloskey said the issue facing the country today is not whether we were lied to in going into Iraq, but how long our troops must stay there.
“Having toppled Hussein, the real issue today is how long can we occupy a Muslim country to our benefit?” McCloskey said. “My own opinion is that you cannot occupy a foreign country very long; they have to rebuild it themselves. We have given Iraqis a reasonable chance to go through the electoral process and select their leaders.
“But there comes a time when Iraqis have to govern Iraq, and we can’t tell them how to do it,” he added. “I don’t think it’s worth one more 20-year-old’s life unless we know why we are staying there. And the question I want answered when I’m elected back to Congress is why we are there. Frankly, that’s no longer clear to me or most Americans.”
