Not Exactly Surf City, but Getting There

WASHINGTON —  In one corner of the cavernous office of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, just to the left of his vast desk, stands a four-foot trophy proclaiming the four-term Huntington Beach Republican “Best Surfer in Congress, 1994.”

“Hmmm,” replies a visitor invited to peruse this prize. “Weren’t you the only surfer in Congress?”

“I’m afraid so,” admits the congressman, ever candid.

But 1995 brought more than just a change in the majority party around here. That voter tsunami not only flooded the federal city with new Republicans, it deposited at the Capitol steps another surfer, bringing to two the number of long-boarders now serving in this 104th Congress.

And yes, they are both from California--the latest arrival being freshman Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-San Diego), a former lifeguard who manages to maintain a tanned California glow even in this 40-degree weather that Washingtonians consider mild but is subarctic by Southern California standards.

It remains to be seen what this newly formed “Surf Caucus” will do to California’s image on the East Coast. The local media have already pointed to the above-the-knee skirts worn by O.J. Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark as further evidence that ours is a state of protocol breakers who need to settle down and get serious.

What will they make of surfing congressmen? On the other hand, who cares how we’re regarded by a city that just reelected a convicted felon as mayor? Certainly not Rohrabacher and Bilbray, who wear their membership to this exclusive group of two on their lapels, literally, in the form of little gold stickmen catching a wave.

In the corner of Bilbray’s office is a green, 1960s-vintage surfboard given to him when he stepped down from the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. The campaign T-shirts that helped him beat incumbent Democrat Lynn Schenk in November were emblazoned with a big board and the words “Bilbray for Congress--cuz Schenk Don’t Surf.”

Rohrabacher’s Huntington Beach campaign headquarters is in the back of the Water and Sea surf shop. As a congratulatory memento, he sent newly elected Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich a full-size board decorated with a congressional seal and two crossed American flags. He did this even though, as he concedes in that halting way Republicans do when asked to critique one of their own: “Admittedly Newt, well, Newt, well, quite frankly, Newt really can’t surf.”

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When Bilbray decided to run for the House, the veteran Rohrabacher agreed to help him on the condition that they ride some waves together. Bilbray was nursing 13 stitches in his head from a mishap involving a bungee cord and some campaign signs, but he taped the wound and went anyway.

Somehow the images seem at odds--two conservative, family values, get government off our backs Republicans ditching Gov. Pete Wilson’s speech at the state party convention in San Diego to hit the surf. (No kidding, they did that.)

But we may be seeing yet another sign of the new Republican breed, the hip conservative revolutionary. No longer does conservative necessarily mean Establishment.

“I have a beard. I am a writer. I make no bones about the fact that I like tequila and have friends who are rock ‘n’ rollers,” says Rohrabacher, who was dubbed by the Boston Globe in 1988 the “rock ‘n’ roll Republican.” In his office are side-by-side autographed pictures of Ollie North and Van Halen’s Sammy Hagar.

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Lest we leave the impression that this sport is some sort of airheaded lark, it should be emphasized that the congressmen have found in surfing certain philosophies that apply nicely to politics and may even have helped equip them for the job.

“Once you catch the great wave and have ridden it and kicked out of it, if you sit there celebrating you will get caught in the inside (surfspeak for when another wave slams you from behind),” Bilbray said. “That’s what happened to a lot of freshmen last year.”

Rohrabacher, who spends 10 hours a week flying to his district and back, has used the time to write a book, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Surfing,” which he describes as “my adventures from high school to running for Congress. I have 360 pages so far.”

He says surfing is all about positioning, just like politics. “You look for the outside wave, not what is breaking on you right now, but where the swell is coming from. . . . It deals with the experience of the here and now, but to have it, you have to look at the way things are flowing.”

If Rohrabacher has it right, there are times when surfing transcends even politics, particularly at sunset when the wind dies down and the water reflects like glass and the sound of a hand rubbing on the belly of a board brings out the porpoises.

“It’s one of the most spiritual experiences you can have, short of actually talking directly to God,” the congressman said. “It’s much nicer to have a conversation with porpoises while sitting on the board than to discuss politics while sitting in Washington, D.C.”

Anyway, porpoises are rarely sighted in this town. Plenty of sharks, though.