Calling Congressman Richard Pombo (R-11th) “a liar you cannot trust,” former Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey Wednesday joined a Democratic Party rally to endorse Pombo’s opponent Jerry McNerney in the Nov. 7 General election.
McCloskey, who represented the Peninsula as its congressman for 15 years starting in 1967, moved to Lodi earlier this year to run against Pombo in the June 6 Republican primary. Although campaigning among both Republican and Democrat Party groups, he lost the primary election, winning only 32 percent of the votes to 62 percent for Pombo.
McNerney, who has never held political office, won the Democratic primary in a three-man race. A Pleasanton resident, he ran without the endorsement of the Democrats in the 2004 primary when he learned that the Democrats had decided against fielding an opponent to Pombo. The lukewarm support the party gave him in the November election that year has turned into a full-fledged campaign in 2006.
“This is going to be a very vicious campaign,” McCloskey said. “In his (primary) campaign against me, he didn’t hesitate to stretch the truth. I came into this November campaign for two reasons: I believe Jerry McNerney is an honest man. I know that Richard Pombo is not.”
About 30 attended the press conference to hear McCloskey’s announcement and remarks by McNerney at a campaign office in Dublin. Tom Benigno of Tracy, who also competed in the June Republican primary, is another Republican signed on to help McNerney defeat Pombo. Benigno did most of the speaking at the half-hour media event, arguing, too, that it was time to vote Pombo out of office.
McNerney, 55, who holds a doctorate in mathematics and is a well-known consultant on alternative energy resources, said that if elected, he would work to move the country away from energy dependency on oil and to alternative and renewable energy resources.
“I have a plan to make our district the Silicon Valley of new energy technology,” McNerney said. “We will create good jobs throughout the country and erase the grip that foreign governments have on our nation.”
McNerney said he also will work to put into place a health care system that serves all Americans.
“The health care system in this country is broken,” he said. “We are paying about twice per capita for health care than any other industrial country and we still have 45 million Americans who are uninsured. We need a health care system that works, and I will not stop until we have a health care system that makes sense for this country.”
McNerney plans a grassroots campaign with his wife Mary at his side throughout the district, which includes the I-680 corridor cities north to Danville and most of the San Joaquin Valley, Pombo’s home base and political stronghold.
He said he was talked into running in 2004 after his son Michael, who had joined the Air Force after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, noted that no one was running in the Democratic Party nomination in the 11th Congressional District.
“We both felt that wasn’t right and that it was my responsibility as a concerned citizen over the direction this country is going to jump in the race and work for the progressive values I believe in.”
McCloskey said it wasn’t an easy decision to join a Democratic Party race.
“Frankly, I never thought I’d be doing this,” he told McNerney’s supporters. “I’ve been a Republican for 57 years. My family has been Republicans for four generations. This doesn’t mean I will support all Democrats.”
“But when it comes to the Republican majority now in the House of Representatives who remain corrupted by the money and desire to retain their majority with money from lobbyists,” he added, “I’m for removing them from power. That would be in the best interests of our country and the Republican Party.”
