Monday, November 3, 2008

Congressional candidates battle to the wire

The Times spent a day in the final week leading up to Election Day shadowing each of the congressional candidates in the high-profile contest between Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, and GOP challenger Dean Andal of Stockton.

It illuminated a grueling schedule and the candidates' disparate — much like their politics — personal styles.

McNerney possesses an extraordinary level of curiosity about the world around him.

Self-effacing and quietly confident, the Ph.D. mathematician asks his constituents — and reporters — one question after the other. He genuinely wants to know how things work.

Andal, a tall and gregarious man with a long stride, has an endless supply of energy.

The former lawmaker who works for a major Central Valley developer is highly disciplined, focused and wastes no time. He even analyzes campaign strategy and formulates public policy as he walks from house to house.

Here is a look at how each day unfolded.

Jerry McNerney

What a difference incumbency makes.

Two years ago, McNerney was an upstart challenger.

Only his most loyal followers believed he would beat seven-term incumbent Republican Richard Pombo. Even McNerney's own party wrote him off.

Fast forward to life on the 2008 campaign trail, where people deferentially call the 57-year-old wind energy consultant "Congressman McNerney."

He gets prominent Advertisementseats at the head table and good parking spots. Local elected officials cross the room to shake his hand and people want to meet the congressman even if they wouldn't necessarily vote for him.

His campaign staff and volunteers have an unmistakable air of confidence commonly found among people who work for an incumbent.

It also helps that the only independent poll in the race shows McNerney with a comfortable 11-point lead.

But days before the election on an unusually warm fall morning, McNerney cautions his supporters against complacency.

"It looks good for us but we can't stop now," he urged a group of precinct walkers gathered in his campaign headquarters, a small Dublin strip mall space sandwiched between a dog groomer and a nail salon.

As he leaves the campaign office and heads for the Alviso Adobe Park grand opening ceremony in Pleasanton, where he will present a congressional recognition certificate, McNerney is far more relaxed than he was in 2006.

For one, his campaign operation is less chaotic and better funded.

Unlike 2006, the Democratic Party is giving him technical and tactical advice while its national political action committee is flooding the district with mailers.

And there's nothing quite as nice as hearing people say they like you.

"I'm voting for you," uniformed VFW Post 6298 Senior Vice Commander Herb Constant told McNerney a few minutes before the ceremony. "I have one of your signs in my yard, which probably annoys some of my neighbors."

After official park dedication duty, McNerney changes out of his suit jacket and slacks into a pair of jeans and worn white tennis shoes.

With a heavy workload as a congressman, he hasn't had much time to knock on doors. On his way to stump at the Danville Fall Crafts Festival, he stops in San Ramon.

The neighborhood around Heritage Place is abuzz. Kids fly past on bikes. Rudy Ortiz is polishing his classic car. Chris Ogburn hauls and stacks firewood.

McNerney works from a list of voters his staff prepared and knocks on one door after another.

Jerry "The Plumber" Flores tells McNerney he has already voted for him.

Laura Ghereben, her hands sticky with chocolate chip cookie dough, calls her young sons to come to the door to meet the congressman.

"I wrote to you, I was so mad about the bail-out bill," Sally Bates tells from her front doorstep. "I'm voting for you."

The one-term congressman is not exactly a household name, though.

At Brentwood's annual Halloween street fair later that night, McNerney drops candy into the bags of hundreds of costumed children and campaign brochures into the hands of their voting-age parents.

A woman holds up the flier with its picture of McNerney and raises it up next to his face.

"That is you!" she exclaims.

Dean Andal

Challengers have to work harder.

Andal drove an hour from his Stockton home early last Tuesday morning for a chance to spend just six minutes in Concord speaking at a weekly breakfast meeting of Contra Costa Realtors.

It's unclear how many of the 50 or so people in the room live in his district or are open to persuasion.

But with a week left before the election, Andal is competing for the ever-shrinking pool of voters who have not already cast their ballots by mail.

The National Association of Realtors had already sent someone to lobby for McNerney, and Walnut Creek Realtor Chris Moulis insisted the Republican challenger receive equal time.

Andal delivers a truncated stump speech but does not linger. He has an event at noon at Delta College back in Stockton, where more than a third of the district's voters live.

There are fund-raising calls to make and his 16-year-old son Patrick's water polo game starts at 4:30 p.m. He wants to walk precincts before it gets dark.

It's tough to keep up with the 49-year-old Andal.

He drives fast. He walks fast. And his brain seems to work one step ahead of everyone else.

But halfway to Stockton, he veers into one of Brentwood's suburbs.

This close to the election, he is willing to share one of his strategies.

Andal identified 10 precincts in each of the district's four counties where the largest gap existed between the number of votes cast for Richard Pombo and those cast for 2006 GOP lieutenant governor candidate Tom McClintock and President Bush in 2004. The spread was 20 percentage points in some precincts.

He theorizes that voters who failed to mark the ballot for Pombo but cast votes for McClintock and Bush will choose Andal.

"Four of the top 10 precincts in Contra Costa are right here in Brentwood," Andal said. "I walked all 40 precincts. That's what I did this summer. I lost 15 pounds!"

Back in Stockton, where Andal has lived for 31 years, he makes a quick stop at his campaign office. It is far smaller than that of his competitor — Andal hates overhead.

Then, he is off to a restaurant near Delta College for lunch with longtime neighbors Nabil and Amal Elayyen. Andal has agreed to speak during the Elayyen's 17-year-old daughter Amalee's political forum on partisanship.

Walking through the campus where he attended school, Andal reminisced about singing in the choir and awakening to the world of politics.

"I was an antsy student," he said. "But I was good if I was interested!"

Most of the audience in Atherton Auditorium is too young to vote, but he delivers a full-scale speech about tax policy, the Iraq War and immigration.

He earns a hearty laugh at his now oft-told story of walking a precinct in Pleasanton where Andal startled a large man seated in his garage wearing only underwear and holding a beer.

Andal finishes the day with a familiar task: Walking precincts.

He and his wife, Kari, choose a neighborhood near Bear Creek High School in Stockton, since that allows them to watch Patrick's water polo match.

Kari carries the clipboard with details of the household's occupants such as party registration. In a classic Andal calculation, he estimates his wife's help allows him to walk neighborhoods 30 percent faster.

But he hopes a big percentage of voters will follow the lead of Cara Ochsner, a Vancouver Circle resident doing yardwork when the Andals came by.

"You've got my vote," she said.



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