ENVIRONMENTAL PUSH AND PULL CHALLENGER:Pete McCloskey says he's running to restore Republican values

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 6/4/6 | Greg Lucas

[SmithL]

The Real Republican Values Express -- a boxy red, white and blue striped motor home -- pulls cautiously into the parking lot of Julia Morgan Elementary School.

A Republican candidate for the 11th Congressional District has come to town to thank a sixth-grade teacher for helping him win the endorsement of the California Teachers Association, which rarely supports GOP candidates.

The side door opens. Stepping firmly down to the curb is a fit 78-year-old ex-Marine with merry, blue eyes and brush-cut silver hair. Although he says he was scared each time, he led six bayonet charges in the Korean War. He also co-chaired the first Earth Day in 1970 and helped write the federal Endangered Species Act.

As the candidate's friend, the actor Paul Newman, says, despite a war record that includes the Navy Cross, a Silver Star and two Purple Hearts, this is a man who has spent most of his adult life fighting for peace.

He's Pete McCloskey, former Peninsula congressman. From 1967 to 1983 he represented a district that included San Mateo County and Stanford University, his alma mater.

A maverick then, McCloskey is still a maverick. He is bucking his party and running against seven-term incumbent Republican Rep. Richard Pombo of Tracy.

Unlike Pombo, McCloskey refuses contributions from political action committees, which lengthens the odds his quixotic candidacy will succeed.

Fiercely opinionated -- his critics brand him anti-Semitic for praising the late Yasser Arafat and calling for a Palestinian homeland since the early 1970s -- McCloskey can also gleefully poke fun at himself.

When his wife asks him what he will say in a letter that she wants him to write to Republican voters, McCloskey offers simply:

"I'm a carpetbagger, I'm a dumb ass, but I'm honest."

[SmithL]

Wishful thinking by the Comicle.

[SmithL]

[Poundstone]

McCloskey is pretty much a terminal weirdo. A 78-year old has no business running for Congress, in my opinion. McCloskey ran in the GOP primaries in 1972 against Nixon, and got shellacked as a result.

He'll get beaten like a gong in Pombo's district, but I'm sure McCloskey will get tons of favorable media attention before then.

[RhoTheta]

Thanks for this article. I was wondering what would bring McCloskey out of retirement. This, and your companion post answer the question. Pombo, a conservative Republican fighting the environazis, is being challanged by McCloskey, a RINO.

This clarifies it, as well as the avalanche of McCloskey adds.