Friendliness, cleanliness in race for House

Politics have become gentlemanly in the 46th Congressional District.

Nine-term veteran Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican, has two challengers on the Nov. 7 ballot, and unlike in some races, the candidates aren’t slinging mud at each other.

Democrat Jim Brandt, a former Marine who also ran in 2004, and Libertarian Dennis Chang, a computer consultant and political newcomer, are hoping to unseat Rohrabacher, who has become one of the blunt instruments the GOP uses against illegal immigration and claims that people are causing global warming. The 46th District includes Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach and all or part of 11 other Southland cities.

The three candidates have different party affiliations, but by no means do they disagree on everything. And where they disagree, they’re not disagreeable.

Though their immigration strategies are different, Brandt said he agrees with Rohrabacher that the U.S. should hire special prosecutors to go after employers using illegal workers.

But Brandt sees the importance of foreign workers, even illegal ones, to the U.S. economy, and he quibbles with Republicans’ math on the issue.

Brandt said that at a debate earlier this week Rohrabacher boasted about the low unemployment and flourishing economy, but then added that illegal workers are taking jobs that unemployed Americans could be doing.

“It’s not just him — all the Republicans are saying that,” Brandt said. “If the unemployment is as low as it can get … then how could it be that you could take 18 million people out of work and you have plenty of Americans to fill those jobs? There’s no logic to it.”

If Rohrabacher brings up the issue of immigration a lot, there’s a reason for it.

“It affects everything, including the national security issue,” Rohrabacher said.

His immigration strategy is to push the House enforcement-only bill, make employers verify their workers are here legally, and build the 700-mile border fence that is part of a bill President Bush is expected to sign today.

Chang said the U.S. should enforce existing immigration laws, but over the long term he’d also like to change those laws to encourage more legal immigration.

If immigration is the biggest domestic issue in this election, the Iraq war is probably the biggest foreign policy question.

Brandt’s strategy is specific: Move several U.S. military divisions to Kuwait and Afghanistan, and seal the border to keep terrorists from moving about freely. He’d also rely on the generals to know what’s safe but try to get our troops out of the middle of what’s become a civil war.

Chang said he didn’t support going into Iraq originally, but now we should finish the job while beginning to “remove ourselves in stages that are unpredictable to the insurgents.”

Rohrabacher believes things in Iraq are going in the right direction — as proof he lists the new constitution, elected government and 300,000 trained Iraqi troops — and he still won’t give a timeline for U.S. withdrawal, maintaining it would embolden our enemies.

“We need to make sure that we do not withdraw in a way that will be interpreted as weakness or as a retreat,” he said.

Overall, the candidates seem to respect each other. Chang remembers Rohrabacher as the only federal representative who responded to his letters personally, and he thinks the congressman has “done a pretty good job.”

Rohrabacher calls Brandt a “worthy opponent,” adding magnanimously, “I think that if he was in a heavily Democratic district he’d have a good shot of winning.”

The incumbent can afford to be generous. With a strong GOP advantage in the district and the name recognition of an incumbent, Rohrabacher likely won’t have to clean out his desk.

But Brandt is banking on what he sees as Republican voters’ frustration with President Bush and GOP legislators who seem to rubber-stamp the president’s policies.

“Having a Republican Congress and Bush in the White House has been a disaster in their minds,” he said.