Ethics Issue May Not Rouse 11th District

Pombo and his campaign aides have steadfastly maintained that the chairman has done nothing illegal or unethical.

"I'll say this to my family, to my friends, to my neighbors, to my three kids," Pombo said last month at a candidates forum in Tracy, Calif., his one and only face-off with McCloskey. "I never broke any rules in the House. I never broke any laws. All I've done is fight for the things that I believe in."

But McCloskey, who gained fame and a following for his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War and his early call for Richard M. Nixon's impeachment, has excoriated Pombo on the ethics issue throughout his vast district, from the steaming Central Valley town of Lodi to the posh San Francisco suburbs of Danville and Blackhawk to the rural reaches south of San Jose.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ran a slogan contest that produced a mobile billboard for Pombo's home town of Tracy, saying, "Rep. Richard Pombo went on vacation . . . and all we got was the $5,000 bill."

National environmental organizations have poured money into the contest, attacking Pombo over his stands on the environment. McCloskey has collected $397,000 for his long-shot campaign, virtually all of it from donors outside the district who have never given to a Republican before. Expenditures from anti-Pombo interest groups will exceed $1 million.

In all, nearly $3 million has already flowed into a congressional district that has not seen a serious race since Pombo's first win, in 1992.

To what end? The Tracy Press, in its endorsement of Pombo, dismissed McCloskey's ethics campaign as "distortions and, quite frankly, a lot of hogwash."

Research database editor Derek Willis contributed to this report.