District 7 Race Comes Down to Style : McCarty, Roache Offer Few Contrasts in City Council Runoff

Judy McCarty and Jeanette Roache, the candidates vying for the District 7 seat on the San Diego City Council, agree that completion of California 52 should be a top priority. Both express opposition to Proposition A, the controversial growth management initiative also on Tuesday’s ballot. They agree that more money should be spent on the city’s police force. And neither would accept a city credit card.

In fact, McCarty and Roache agree on virtually all of the major campaign questions, although McCarty is considered slightly more moderate on growth and social issues.

Because there is little to separate them politically, and because both are Republicans and former political aides in their first campaigns for public office, virtually all of the heavy hitters once poised to throw themselves into the fray that would decide the successor to Dick Murphy have remained on the sidelines. Murphy left the District 7 seat earlier this year to accept a Municipal Court judgeship.

Local power brokers, Democrats and Republicans alike, who had been eagerly awaiting a showdown between McCarty or Roache and the more liberal Evonne Schulze, a Democrat, put their attention--and their money--elsewhere when Schulze, widely regarded as the front-runner and expected to easily qualify for Tuesday’s citywide runoff, was bounced out of the race in the September district primary.

The District 7 runoff, the first City Council race since 1981 that has not involved an incumbent, has been relegated to the background, overshadowed by the shifting fortunes of Mayor Roger Hedgecock, by the controversy over Proposition A and even by the battle between Councilman Bill Mitchell and Abbe Wolfsheimer for the 1st District council seat.

Those who have offered endorsements (among them Councilmen Bill Cleator and William Jones for McCarty and state Sen. Jim Ellis and San Diego school board member Larry Lester for Roache) have not taken active roles in the campaign.

District 7 extends from Interstate 15 to the eastern boundary of the city and from University Avenue to the northern sections of Tierrasanta. It includes the San Diego State University area as well as the communities of Montezuma, Rolando-Redwood, Navajo, San Carlos and Del Cerro.

“Both candidates are occupying basically the same political ground,” said Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego), who has endorsed McCarty, a former member of his staff. “By and large, the active, sophisticated political participants want to go with a winner when there aren’t great ideological or party differences, and it’s pretty tough to figure out who the winner is going to be in this one.”

“Both of the young ladies running are impressive candidates,” said former Councilman Fred Schnaubelt, who favors Roache, once a member of his council staff. “You’ve got two people here who share many of the same philosophies. The contrast--and intense involvement by the local political people--would have been far greater had Evonne Schulze been in the runoff as we all expected.”

Dan Greenblat, a Washington aide to Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego), who several days after the primary suggested that local Republicans ignore this race altogether “rather than pay for two $200,000 campaigns,” now refuses to comment on the race.

Murphy, for whom Roache once worked as a council representative, also has steered clear of the campaign. He and McCarty worked together on many local issues, including the preservation of Cowles Mountain, and the two are close friends, having met when their sons played on the same youth soccer team.

Robert Schuman, chairman of the San Diego County Republican Party Central Committee, is another of the many local political activists who are remaining neutral. “In the minds of conservatives, either candidate will be a good council member,” he said.

Schuman noted that the apathy among those who are usually politically active “has really frustrated Jeanette and Judy. They’ve both had a lot of trouble raising money and the campaign has really been low-key.” Each has amassed a little more than $89,000, making this the least expensive council race featuring two viable candidates in recent memory.

“If it had been Schulze and one of these two,” Schuman said, “District 7 would have been a blood bath along the lines of the Lynn Schenk-Susan Golding supervisorial race--a real big-money campaign.”

McCarty said the reluctance of local politicians, particularly Republicans, to take sides in the race “is extremely shortsighted thinking. They’re thinking only of the Republican Party, not of the City of San Diego,” she said. “Having an ‘R’ by your name does not automatically qualify a person for office. These officials owe it to the City of San Diego to show some interest in this race.”

Both candidates reject the contention that they are cut from the same cloth, and each has been attempting throughout the runoff campaign to establish her own identity. They agree that their differences lie largely in their styles of work and the nature of their political backgrounds.

McCarty, 45, resigned from Stirling’s staff to enter the council race after two years of working on community issues for his office. She stresses her involvement in local issues (she served eight years with the Navajo Community Planners) as her strongest asset, saying it was the critical factor in her impressive primary performance. McCarty got 38% of the vote in the primary, which was restricted to District 7 voters. Roache finished second with 28%; Schulze had 26%.

“The people involved in community politics know me and trust me,” McCarty said. “And people throughout the city are concerned about their communities, so I think the strength I showed in the district in the primary will carry over citywide on Tuesday. I’ve spent eight years making land-use decisions for my community; she (Roache) has never had to do that.”

Stirling, who insisted that McCarty resign from his staff before entering the council campaign, said McCarty’s “community involvement is her greatest asset. We offered her a job because she had demonstrated an unusual ability to deal with community issues. I came to respect her intelligence, her honesty and the fact that the work she did was extremely effective.

“She’s not pro-developer, but she won’t be used by the anti-development people, either.”

Roache, 37, took an unpaid leave of absence from the staff of Assemblywoman Sunny Mojonnier (R-Encinitas) for the campaign. She previously served on the City Council staffs of Murphy and Schnaubelt. She has stressed her years of professional involvement in local politics, saying that, unlike McCarty, “I won’t require any on-the-job training.”

“The key thing is my experience,” Roache said. “My background working in city and state government will enable me to get results right away.”

In the final days of the campaign, Roache and her supporters have hammered away at the differences in the candidates’ styles and have attempted to paint McCarty as a liberal who is wearing conservative’s clothing because she needs to generate campaign donations.

Schnaubelt said that “because the two have essentially the same philosophies, it comes down to who will be the most confident and assertive, the one who will be least likely to buckle to special interests.”

“McCarty strikes me as somewhat naive and subject to manipulations, and she doesn’t even know when she’s being manipulated,” Schnaubelt said. “The people who are supporting her want someone they can call the shots for; she just doesn’t know how rough-and-tumble politics can be.”

Roache said McCarty’s personality was “part Milquetoast, part deception. She flip-flops on issues, notably Proposition A, depending on where the campaign money is. It’s very frustrating to hear her say one thing to one group and then turn around and say completely opposite things to another.”

McCarty, although she does not support the measure, signed the petition to place Proposition A on the ballot because she feels voters should decide about the issue. She said Roache’s recent tactics are “indicative of her campaign, which has been entirely negative. She finds fault with everybody; but to work effectively, you’ve got to be able to disagree without being disagreeable. Look at the acrimony on the City Council now. I intend to be part of the solution of bringing this city back together, not contribute to the problem.”

The difference in the styles of the candidates was underscored at a recent candidates’ forum at San Diego State, at which a student journalist asked how relations between the university and the city, often strained by issues such as inadequate parking and student housing, could be improved.

Roache fielded the question first, and in her characteristically fiery manner, said, “On my first day in office, I’m going to place a call to Mr. (Thomas) Day (SDSU president) and have him come in and see me. I see some real problems there.”

McCarty, characteristically subdued, countered, “Anyone should know it’s Dr. Day, not Mr. Day. And I don’t agree with that method. It’s time we lowered our voices a little bit, simmer down and open lines of communication.”