LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Republican voters in Northern California’s 4th Congressional District responded to state Sen. Tom McClintock’s call for a return to conservative principles, making him their nominee to replace incumbent Rep. John Doolittle, R-Rocklin.
It was California’s most hotly contested congressional primary, but in the end McClintock won easily Tuesday over former Rep. Doug Ose. He survived nearly $3 million in attacks from Ose that sought to portray him as a carpetbagging career politician.
His win sets up a showdown with Democrat Charlie Brown, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who came close to beating Doolittle in the 2006 general election.
In an interview after being declared the victor, McClintock said voters had responded to his message of limited government and renewed personal freedoms.
“There is a growing sense across this district and for that matter across the country that our government is becoming destructive of those freedoms in so many ways,” McClintock said.
Ose, a real estate developer and investor who tried to convince voters his business acumen would help the district, said he couldn’t understand the outcome.
I don’t know exactly what the prevailing or the superior arguments were. I just frankly am stunned, I really am,” Ose said in an interview.
With 85 percent of precincts reporting, McClintock had 53 percent of the vote to 39 percent for Ose, who had been endorsed by former Gov. Pete Wilson.
Doolittle had long been the chief political power broker in the district that sprawls north and east from Sacramento, but was forced to drop his re-election plans after getting caught up in a federal lobbying scandal. His retirement at the end of the year created one of two open seats among California’s 53 House districts.
The other was in San Diego, where Duncan D. Hunter, a 31-year-old Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran, won the nomination Tuesday to replace his father, longtime GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter, who is retiring after a failed presidential bid.
With 87 percent of precincts reporting, Hunter had 73 percent of the vote to defeat three Republican opponents.
“This victory is dedicated to the men and women I served with in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Hunter said in an interview. “That’s the federal government’s No. 1 job ‚Äî national security ‚Äî and that’s what I’m going to fight hard for.”
In November, he will face Democrat Mike Lumpkin, a retired Navy SEAL who won his party’s primary Tuesday.
The McClintock-Ose race in Northern California was a classic Republican matchup: McClintock portrayed himself as the true conservative, while Ose cast himself as the pragmatist who would be the more effective operator.
McClintock, 51, who is being forced from his Southern California state Senate seat by term limits, is a familiar face to California Republicans because of four failed statewide races, including in the 2003 gubernatorial recall. He is admired for his unyielding opposition to tax hikes.
In November McClintock will be favored over Brown, who easily won the Democratic nomination Tuesday over token opposition.
“There will be a clear contrast in this race moving forward,” Brown’s campaign said. “More partisan politics as usual, or battle-tested leadership.”
Elsewhere, former state Sen. Jackie Speier secured the Democratic nomination to compete for a full term in Northern California’s 12th district, where she won a special election in April to replace the late Rep. Tom Lantos, who died of cancer in February.
The 11th Congressional District straddling the Central Valley and the San Francisco Bay area will likely present one of the most competitive general election contests in November but was quiet Tuesday. Republican Dean Andal and Democratic incumbent Jerry McNerney ran unopposed in their party primaries. McNerney ousted a powerful GOP incumbent in 2006.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in her 10th term, easily beat back local Democratic activist Shirley Golub in San Francisco’s 8th Congressional District. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Pelosi had 89 percent of the vote and Golub had 11 percent. Peace activist Cindy Sheehan is making plans to challenge Pelosi as an independent in November but was not on Tuesday’s primary ballot.
Neither of California’s U.S. senators, Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, is up for re-election this year.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.