Bill Saracino
February 20,  2004

The attempts by Bob Dornan and Dan Lungren to return to Congress are easily written  off as “silly season” being visited upon California GOP politics.

Dornan is running against Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (and Rohrabacher’s 100% rating from the American Conservative Union) on the basis that the incumbent isn’t conservative enough.  Lungren is running against St. Senator Rico Oller on the basis that, well, when you get right down to it on the basis that Dan’s bored with his current job and heck, he was in Congress once and wouldn’t it be swell to join the club again and visit all the old pals.

The conservative movement’s need for effective leaders – most especially in Congress – is too dire for games or silly seasons. The contrast between Lungren and Oller is most stark on the two issues that matter most in the current hyper-partisan atmosphere  perpetrated by the Democrats in Washington– leadership and willingness to fight.

Lungren is by nature a negotiator, an appeaser, a truce seeker.  Oller is a smash mouth fighter who eschews appeasement and truces in favor of strategies that lead to clear cut victories. Lungren abhors confrontation.  Oller believes that ideological confrontation is essential to drawing clear contrasts between the parties in political combat.  Using a military analogy, Dan Lungren is a long out of service, retread-filled reserve brigade.  Rico Oller is the Marines and Special Forces, troops who have been honed by constant combat, who will accept only one outcome from combat - victory.

Because of this, Oller wins by a TKO the question of who would be most effective in combating Nancy Pelosi, Charlie Rangel, Diane Watson and the rest of the hard left Democrat leadership in Congress.  The bloated budgets passed by the House, and the paralysis on judicial nominees in the Senate show vividly the need for more audacity, boldness, and yes – confrontation – on the part of the GOP in D.C. 

Republicans are getting their clock cleaned in Congress. More of the same  - the essential promise of the Lungren record and candidacy - is precisely what is not needed.  Innovative, aggressive tactics to fight the Democrat’s every day – the essential promise of the Oller record and candidacy – is precisely what is needed.

This difference shines brightly when comparing endorsements of the two.  Lungren’s are mostly D.C. centric, the GOP “old boys” network helping one of their own.  Oller’s cover the gamut of action oriented conservative movement figures, from Congressmen Doolittle, Pombo, Herger and Rohrabacher to the Club for Growth, the California Republican Assembly (CRA), Gun Owners of California, the NRA and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Their records as office holders also reflect their different temperaments. While starting his service in Congress as a solid conservative, over the years Lungren slowly drifted – in votes and rhetoric – toward the more “respectable” middle.  As Attorney General he became downright squishy on the 2nd Amendment, and it is no accident that both the NRA and the Gun Owners are enthusiastic Oller supporters. 

Oller’s service in the Assembly and Senate has been a straight line, ideologically speaking.  Starting off as an uncompromising and unapologetic conservative, he has maintained that stance throughout his tenure.  He not only knows what he believes, but why he believes it, and is one of the more articulate spokesmen the starboards have in the legislature today.

No discussion of this race would be complete without mention of Lungren’s disastrous run for Governor. Mike Schroeder, who was GOP state chairman at the time, has this to say about that campaign: “Dan Lungren was a wretched candidate for Governor.  He did immeasurable damage to the Republican Party in general and to the Conservative movement in particular. In the last week of his campaign, he told the Party that he needed the party to borrow $500,000 and donate to his campaign because he was out of money.  When the campaign was over, we were shocked to learn that Dan Lungren ended up with $600,000 in the bank.  Meanwhile, the California Republican Party, which contributed $1.2 million to Lungren, had a $300,000 deficit.”

As a “thank you” for the Party’s willingness to go into debt for him, Lungren refused to pay back any of the money from his surplus, and did precious little to help erase the debt he himself had created.  Lungren ran, in the words of his own spokesman, an “issueless campaign”, and he is apparently proud of that.  Whatever happened to Ronald Reagan’s banner of “bright, bold colors, with no pale pastels”?

I know both Lungren and Oller reasonably well. I’ve known Lungren since before he entered congress, and as a PAC director contributed to both his initial losing campaign and his subsequent successful efforts.  In my previous life as a political consultant I oversaw the campaign of a primary opponent to Oller during his first try for the Assembly. Rico fought hard, he fought fair, and he fought to win – which he did.

Both Lungren and Oller are good men, affable and personable, and would make great neighbors.  But the dire situation in Congress calls for more than that.  The conservative movement needs articulate, hard nosed and innovative leaders. There is only one of those running in this race, and his name is Rico Oller.

Rico Oller offers strategically chosen and tactically wise no-holds-barred battles against the liberals. He promises battles which will raise once again Ronald Reagan’s banner of “bright,bold colors”, and the political vision that will lead that banner to victory.

This is no time for the conservative movement’s retreads.  Send in the Marines!