The second wind of a citizen politician The second wind of a citizen politician (January 27, 2006)

Former local Congressman Pete McCloskey puts 'corrupt' Republicans in his sights

By Jay Thorwaldson

Paul N. "Pete" McCloskey, who for eight terms served as the Midpeninsula's maverick Republican congressman between 1967 and 1983, doesn't really want to run again for Congress.

"I'm kinda sorry to do it," he said recently in a telephone interview from his retirement ranch in Yolo County. "It's a beautiful sunny day. I ought to be out picking oranges."

But, he said, "I can't believe conservative Republicans believe in dishonesty."

He formally announced his candidacy for the 11th Congressional District on Monday in a restaurant in Lodi, where he has rented a studio apartment and said he will be looking for a house. He characterizes his campaign as a battle "for the soul of the Republican Party."

McCloskey is running against conservative Congressman Richard Pombo (R-Tracy) in Pombo's sprawling congressional district, which crosses mountain ranges to link communities as diverse as Pleasanton and Lodi, Morgan Hill and Tracy. Up to then, he said he had been trying to find a good Republican candidate to challenge Pombo in next June's primary election. He has challenged Pombo to a series of debates.

Pombo could not be immediately reached for comment, but a longtime campaign consultant, Wayne Johnson, dismissed McCloskey's campaign and said he was a "stalking horse for the Democratic Party" who endorsed John Kerry for president.

"This guy was never close to the mainstream of the Republican Party and he is even farther away now," Johnson was quoted as saying by the Los Angeles Times . "We are not going to debate Pete McCloskey. We don't consider him a serious candidate or a serious Republican."
A hellish district

McCloskey acknowledged the challenges. "It's a hellish district" in which to campaign, he says, due to the scope and diversity of the region covered -- about 45 percent of which is east of the Altamont Pass and the rest scattered among the mountains and valleys east and south of the Bay Area.

"We've identified 24 separate communities, several separated by mountain ranges. How do you hope to run in a district like that? Drive is the better word, but one of great problems is rush-hour traffic on [Interstate] 580," where it can take hours to get from town to town, he said.

McCloskey, now 78, said he is aware he will be viewed as a "carpetbagger" and that his age will be a factor in his almost Quixotic challenge to an entrenched politician more than three decades younger. He said he knows only a few dozen people in the district, and needs to do serious homework on problems other than traffic congestion that worry area residents -- such as potential flooding in valley areas protected by levees and a serious air-pollution problem that has caused high levels of asthma in children.
Slim chances?

But the issues facing the district, California and the Republican Party, he said, are more important than any perception about him, his age or his chances of winning -- which he acknowledged may be slim.

As for his age, he said, "I would like to think that the values of honesty of our generation might well be passed on to this generation of Republicans."

Pombo also has been a leader in Congress in attacking the Environmental Protection Act, which McCloskey helped write, and other environmental protections McCloskey championed during his years in Congress.

McCloskey provided specifics in his formal campaign announcement: "My wife 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.

"It is not comforting to have Congressman Pombo named as one of the 13 most corrupt members of Congress. The issues are those of ethics, honesty, influence by big money lobbyists, and the historic Republican principles of fiscal responsibility, limited government and environmental balance," he said.

Pombo, he said, "is a classic DeLay-Abramoff Republican. He's received more money from Abramoff than anyone in California. These guys are not your ordinary honest Republicans."

He said he doesn't believe that mainstream Republicans, or even conservative Republicans, truly realize the full extent of the special-interest connections, which he described as "Seamy. Distasteful. They indicate Republicans are for sale."
Happily a maverick

McCloskey readily accepts his "maverick" label.

"Sure. Just like John McCain. ... Whenever you break away from the party line you're deemed a maverick. In the 1974 June primary, most Republicans thought Nixon was innocent. It wasn't until July and August that the whole world woke up to find out Nixon was indeed a crook."

McCloskey, who had confronted Nixon, was saved from defeat in the June primary by about 2,000 Democrats who re-registered as Republicans to vote for him -- he won by about 800 votes, he recalled.

"I think you would say the DeLay Republicans were corrupted by power. Both Pombo and ... [Congressman John] Doolittle, who represents eight northeastern counties of California, fall into that camp." But he said Mayor Mike Holmes of Auburn will be "an excellent candidate" to challenge Doolittle in the June 6 primary.

"There's another district where people will need to be educated about what's really happening."

McCloskey and his wife, Helen, still keep a studio apartment in Portola Valley, and he maintains a part-time law practice. They moved to Yolo County in 1989, where they raise horses, olives and oranges.

He served in the U.S. Navy in 1947 and in the U.S. Marine Corps in the early years of the Korean War, 1950-52, for which he received the Navy Cross, two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star. In the early years of the Vietnam War, he tried to re-enlist -- and was the purported model for the chapter in Gail Sheehey's best-selling 1976 book, "Passages," called, "The Second Wind of the Citizen Soldier."

McCloskey has written two books, his 1972 direct challenge to Nixon, "Truth and Untruth: Political Deceit in America," and "The Taking of Hill 610: And Other Essays on Friendship."

A native of Loma Linda, California, McCloskey attended Occidental College and the California Institute of Technology before graduating in 1950 from Stanford University, from which he received a law degree in 1953. In the early 1960s, he provided legal assistance in the formation of the Palo Alto-based Committee for Green Foothills.
This story originally appeared in the Palo Alto Weekly, the Voice's sister paper.

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