Democrat charges uphill

Steve Young says if district’s 109,000 Democrats vote Tuesday, ‘they’re not irrelevant.’In a political battle that could have been brutal for all involved, Democratic congressional candidate Steve Young has fired his shots carefully, aiming at issues rather than opponents.

Registered Democrats are far outnumbered by Republicans in the district, so Young’s campaign may look like an uphill battle. But that may not be a huge liability, since few voters of any stripe -- less than 23% -- cast ballots in the primary, and even fewer are expected to vote Tuesday.

Young doesn’t think he needs to woo the other side.

“I haven’t even looked at crossover votes. We’ve just been focusing on our Democratic base,” he said. “We have 109,000 registered Democrats in the district, so if Democrats vote, they’re not irrelevant.”

Another target of Young’s campaign is the middle class, which he cautions is disappearing as America loses jobs with living wages.

“We’ve lost 12 million manufacturing jobs in the last 10 years, and these are what I call family jobs -- jobs where a worker can have a spouse and have a car and have children,” he said.

What remain are jobs at Wal-Mart and Blockbuster Video, for example -- jobs Young calls anti-family because they don’t offer workers enough pay or benefits to ever get ahead.

His answer is a five-point economic plan that includes creating a business-friendly environment, encouraging education and training for workers and cutting wasteful federal spending.

To trim the federal budget, Young suggests rescinding the $260 billion transportation bill and putting the money instead into rebuilding infrastructure in areas at risk from natural disasters, such as levees in the Sacramento delta that could be damaged in an earthquake.

He’d also cut the billions fueling the Iraq war by bringing in the Arab League -- an organization that in 1989 helped end a lengthy civil war in Lebanon -- to negotiate a peace plan so the U.S. could withdraw its troops.

Finally, Young suggests money to shrink the deficit could come from a much-maligned but untapped source: immigrants. He proposes having people pay the U.S. government instead of smugglers to come across the border, so they could be registered and fingerprinted.

Once here, immigrants would pay a fee every six months to renew their legal status. He projects the plan could raise $90 billion in six months. He’d also crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants.

But in spite of his detailed plan, Young doesn’t believe illegal immigration is the massive, immediate problem some politicians make it out to be.

“They [illegal immigrants] have been targeted as a boogeyman that is convenient and defenseless and has no way to fight back,” he said.

“You get more people out to vote for anger and fear than for other issues, and I think that’s what is happening here.”

Young is disappointed that Campbell and Gilchrist haven’t shown up to the last few candidate forums and debates. While they’ve been attacking each other, he said, his focus has been talking about issues.

Getting away from partisanship and attacks on Republicans is what Young believes will be the key to success for Democrats in 2006 elections. Some voters have lost their trust in the Bush administration, but that alone won’t make them change their votes, he said.

“Simply standing up and attacking the other side is buying into the politics of hatred, and it’s not different than what we have now,” Young said. “Why should they change if we don’t offer a difference?”

STEVE YOUNG

Age: 51

Residence: Newport Beach

Party: Democrat

Family: Married to Solange, with four children

Education: Bachelor’s degree in English from University of Utah; legal degree from Pepperdine University

Career: Trial attorney