GOP Mistakes in Ca.'s District 50 Election

SAN DIEGO -- Common sense and conventional wisdom can be valuable in politics. But here in California, there is a place where those things go to die.

It's the Republican-leaning 50th Congressional District, where 18 candidates -- Republicans, Democrats and independents -- are vying for the chance to fill out the term of former Rep. Randy ``Duke'' Cunningham in a special election April 11.

The ex-congressman, who resigned last year after pleading guilty to accepting $2.4 million in bribes, was sentenced to more than eight years in prison.

Common sense was the first casualty in this race. The Cunningham scandal was about greedy scoundrels buying access to the political process. So you would think that Republicans would want to keep their distance from someone who makes a living selling access to the political process.

And yet, according to polls, the front-running Republican in the race is former Rep. Brian Bilbray -- a Washington, D.C.-based political retread who turned an earlier stint in Congress into a second career as a lobbyist. Bilbray has already proved to be a nice target for his opponents. Some of them say they want to end the ``revolving door'' of politicians who serve as lobbyists and then remake themselves as politicians.

When I mentioned to a conservative Republican that Bilbray could well be the GOP nominee, it took him only a few seconds to dream up a biting political ad that other candidates could use to fire away at the politician-turned-lobbyist-turned-politician:

``Duke Cunningham sold his office to lobbyists and special interests. This time, let's cut out the middle man and elect the lobbyist.''

Given the corruption to which this district has been witness, there is a built-in advantage for ``the money guys'' -- Alan Uke, Bill Hauf, Richard Earnest and Eric Roach, four self-made millionaire businessmen who you would assume can't be bought. All four Republicans are funding all or part of their campaigns, and most have sworn off accepting PAC money and other special-interest contributions. Two have invested more than $1 million in the race.

The rap against the four businessmen is that they don't understand the political system. But in this district, that's a good thing. The political pros have made a mess of things. We could use a novice.

At least that's the conventional wisdom. Of course, that's something else that is taking a beating in this race. The conventional wisdom suggests that Republicans should tread lightly with the immigration issue so as not to alienate Latino voters.

That goes double for California Republicans who should have learned their lesson in 1994. That's when the state GOP, under the guidance of former Gov. Pete Wilson, helped push through Proposition 187, a spiteful ballot initiative that would have denied education and other services to illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born children. (It was struck down by a federal judge.) The initiative was bad enough, but the campaign to pass it quickly became racist and repugnant with television commercials showing stampedes of Mexicans running across the border. The result: Latinos turned toward the Democratic Party, and Republicans in California nearly wound up on the endangered species list.

As it turns out, the 50th Congressional District is now about 20 percent Latino, a fact that doesn't seem to concern the many candidates -- particularly Republicans -- who are trying to exploit the illegal immigration issue for their own political gain.

Several say they want to build a 2,000-mile wall along the border with Mexico. Others want to deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants. A few want to deport people.

But, being Republicans, one thing you don't hear them talking about is fining and arresting employers -- an approach that one of them told me would come across as hard-hearted.

It's become a cartoon: Two of the candidates have actually been arguing over which of them is endorsed by the Minuteman Project. You know things are bad when politicians are fighting over the vigilante vote.

And then there's Jeff Newsome, a second-tier Republican candidate who happens to be a law enforcement officer and likes to brag at debates that he's the only one in the race who has ``ever arrested an illegal immigrant.''

It's a curious image given that there wouldn't be a special election had the person who once held this seat -- and a U.S. citizen, at that -- not been hauled off in handcuffs.