Prospects Bright for Assembly’s Youngest Old Guard Republican

He supported the politics of Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater as a third-grader, he said. In junior high, he liked watching William F. Buckley on television. And when most 14-year-old boys were playing sandlot ball, he was writing letters to the local newspaper defending President Richard M. Nixon’s Vietnam War policies.

Meet Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), at 30, the Assembly’s youngest member. He has been described as more conservative than state legislators twice his age--which apparently suits his heavily Republican Ventura County district just fine.

“He’s an excellent reflection of his district,” said state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia), McClintock’s mentor, who six years ago gave him a job as an administrative assistant. Before that, McClintock had been chairman of Ventura County’s Republican Central Committee.

The 36th District that McClintock first won four years ago cuts along the Pacific Coast from Ventura to Port Hueneme, then northeast to the largely upscale cities of Camarillo, Thousand Oaks and Moorpark--deliberately excluding Democratic strongholds such as Oxnard and Santa Paula.

‘Severely Gerrymandered’

It was “severely gerrymandered” in 1982, McClintock said, registering disgust even though the redrawn boundaries give him a safe district. Republicans outnumber Democrats 5 to 4.

McClintock’s two opponents are Democrat Frank Nekimken, a retired salesman from Newbury Park, and Libertarian H. Bruce Driscoll, a Woodland Hills dentist who lives in Thousand Oaks. Both are running minimal campaigns and concede it will take an election-day miracle to unseat the incumbent.

“In a district as lopsided as this, any opposition is token opposition,” McClintock said, sitting behind a desk in a small office at his Thousand Oaks campaign headquarters.

Given these facts, why does McClintock repeatedly admit to being frustrated, even as he heads toward certain victory on Nov. 4?

The answer lies both in the past and the future.

For one thing, McClintock, who maintains that he was bitten by the political bug at age 4, when his mother took him to see President Dwight D. Eisenhower speak on behalf of Nixon’s presidential campaign in 1960, says he blew a chance at becoming congressman from the 21st District by dropping out of the race earlier this year.

For another, McClintock does not mask his frustration at having the GOP political agenda consistently shot down in a state Assembly where Democrats outnumber Republicans 47 to 33.

McClintock withdrew from the congressional race mainly because he concluded that he could not overcome the advantages of opponent Tony Hope, son of entertainer Bob Hope, who had name identification and immense fund-raising capabilities. But Hope was upset in the primary by Simi Valley Mayor Elton Gallegly.

“Every day, I regret that decision,” McClintock says now of his dropping out of the race, adding that he could have “breezed past” Gallegly in the primary. Gallegly is expected to easily win the seat being vacated by Rep. Bobbi Fiedler (R-Northridge).

“Although the decisions made in the state Legislature are important, in Washington, D.C., they are deciding the future of the nation and the future of the free world,” said McClintock. “It’s frustrating to me not to have a voice in those decisions.”

But the assemblyman’s immediate frustrations are much closer to home, in Sacramento. He said the Democratic majority can kill important legislation sponsored by Republicans and supported by a state electorate that has become increasingly more conservative.

McClintock wrote a number of those bills, including a proposal to repeal the supplemental property tax and one to ban strikes by public employees such as teachers, police and firefighters. Both bills quickly died by committee votes along party lines.

Predicts GOP Majority

He said he believes that the Republicans will gain a majority in the Assembly within the next few years.

If they don’t, he won’t stick around. “There is not a great feeling of satisfaction looking back at the tattered remains of the Republican agenda,” he said.

For now, however, McClintock in four years has earned a spot as one of two Republican whips for Assembly Minority Leader Pat Nolan (R-Glendale). He also sits on two key committees--Ways and Means, and Revenue and Taxation--giving him an important voice in deciding the fate of any fiscal proposal that comes before the Assembly.

Nolan respects McClintock so much that he pleaded in person with him to abandon the congressional race and stay on in the Assembly.

“He’s the only legislator that I’ve ever done that to, and I did it because I need him on my team,” Nolan said.

McClintock also receives praise, albeit backhanded, from groups that are worlds apart from his conservative politics.

Marc Brown, staff attorney for the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, a Sacramento group that lobbies on behalf of low-income people, said McClintock voted for legislation supported by the group 25% of the time.

“The fact that he voted for us 25% of the time means that he is not unreachable,” Brown said. “He’s bright, young and occasionally persuadable.”

Choosing her words very carefully, Daphne Macklin, a legislative advocate for the American Civil Liberties Union, said McClintock is “considered a bright light of the conservative cause, and he’s found to be very sincere in his beliefs.

But McClintock’s conservative agenda has cost him in his district.

The assemblyman’s efforts to ban strikes by public employees have not won friends in unions representing those workers. “He’s been a terrible representative for public employees,” said Barry Hammitt, executive director of the Public Employees Assn. of Ventura County, which represents 6,500 workers.

Opponents’ Support

Nekimken, 72, who is active in senior and housing issues, has the endorsements of labor, including teachers in the Conejo Valley. He said he is “far more in touch with the people in this district” than McClintock, but is hampered by a lack of money to run an effective campaign.

“Tom doesn’t believe in a lot of things that will help people protect themselves in the clinches,” he said, adding, “If I had as much money as Tom, I think I’d shove him right out of the state.”

McClintock’s other opponent, Driscoll, 44, admits that the main reason he is running for the Assembly is to use the campaign as a platform to espouse his Libertarian beliefs. “I’m a very serious candidate, but realistically, I know that I’m not going to win,” he said.

McClintock said he is not about to sling mud at his opponents because he likes them too much. Besides, he said, “We have some fairly clear-cut differences on the issues.

“Most people in this district know where I stand and what I’ve done,” he said.

36th Assembly District at a Glance Party Registration:

Total 178,163

Democrats 69,238 (39%)

Republicans 88,136 (49.5%)

Other 4,670 (2.6%)

Decline to State 16,119 (9%)

Communities: Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Camarillo, Ventura, Newbury Park, Port Hueneme, the Ventura County portion of Westlake Village and portions of Oxnard. Incumbent: Tom McClintock, 30, a Republican. First elected in 1982 at 26, he was one of the nation’s youngest state legislators.

Challengers: Democrat Frank Nekimken, 72, retired sales manager, of Newbury Park. Libertarian H. Bruce Driscoll, 44, dentist, of Thousand Oaks.

Outlook: This should be an easy win for incumbent McClintock, who has $35,000 in his campaign fund and another fundraiser set for Thursday. His two challengers have little money. McClintock won the last election in 1984 with 71.3% of the vote. Neither Nekimken nor Driscoll has run for public office before.

Notes: Residents of the district are well-educated and middle class. District tends to have more white-collar workers than blue-collar ones. It is a fast-growing area that is generally conservative.