Maverick former GOP Rep. Pete McCloskey took on his party's establishment — and lost — with a primary challenge to Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, chairman of the powerful House Resources Committee. Now McCloskey, 78, plans to urge Northern California voters who supported him in the state's June primary to vote for Pombo's Democratic opponent, wind engineer Jerry McNerney, in November.
McCloskey won 32 percent of the Republican primary vote June 6 to 62 percent for Pombo. McNerney is "an honorable man that has not and will not seek to enrich himself and his family through his office," McCloskey said in an interview.
His support for Democrats doesn't stop with McNerney. McCloskey, who served in Congress from 1967 to 1982 and was an original author of the Endangered Species Act, said he'd like to see his party lose control of the House of Representatives. "It's essentially the need for legislative oversight — an obligation of Congress under the Constitution which has not been exercised by the Republican House," he said. "Hence a Republican reluctantly finds himself in the belief that the opposing party should have a majority for, say, the next two years."
McCloskey and McNerney scheduled a press conference for Wednesday in Dublin, Calif., where McCloskey planned to make the endorsement formal. Throughout the primary, Pombo aides dismissed McCloskey as a Democratic Party tool. They said they weren't surprised by his endorsement of McNerney and that it wouldn't make any difference. "He was a stalking horse for McNerney all along. Certainly nobody's going to be surprised," said Pombo consultant Wayne Johnson. "We feel very good about the fall race. " |