McClintock, Brown square off at forum

By Ben van der Meer, PolitickerCA.com Senior Reporter

OROVILLE - State Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) and Roseville Democrat Charlie Brown had plenty of areas of disagreement - and even a few where they didn't - in a League of Women Voters forum Thursday night.

The men competing to replace U.S. Rep. John Doolittle (R-Roseville) in the 4th Congressional District painted largely unwavering positions, with McClintock as a small government, more freedom advocate and Brown as the career military officer with an outsider perspective on governance.

Questions covered most of the issues the two men have quarreled over on the campaign trail: energy, economic policy and the Iraq war.

The forum format, allowing one-minute answers to questions from a panel of media and the audience, didn't allow much direct conflict. But both McClintock and Brown veered from the format to frequently give one-minute rebuttals to each other's answers in addition to their own answers.

McClintock said Brown's judgment was in question when he attended an anti-war rally in 2005 where a symbolic soldier was hung in effigy. McClintock's campaign has maintained that Brown was in military uniform.

"Why would you attend a rally where an American soldier was hung in effigy when real soldiers were in harm's way?" McClintock said.

Brown noted that Doolittle made a similar charge when the two men competed in 2006. "You don't want to show the video of the funerals I've been to for veterans.

"There's a big difference between when I'm in my full military dress blues and when I wear a jacket that's in my closet," Brown said, after explaining that the jacket he wore at the rally wasn't part of his uniform.

Brown also called on McClintock, who has represented a Southern California district in the state legislature, to move to the 4th Congressional District now that the legislative session is over.

McClintock said he couldn't do so because of the possibility of a special session, but that he would once elected. He also noted that he lived in the district for three years in the mid-1990s.

McClintock opposed the earmarks that Doolittle had success in bringing to the district; Brown said that while earmarks were bad, bringing back the district's fair share of tax revenues was not.

The Auburn Dam, a long-proposed hydroelectric project within the district, came up more than once, with McClintock calling it a clean-energy boost and a needed water storage unit.

"At a time when Roseville is threatened with water rationing, in one of the most water-rich areas in the country, to ignore this critical project is simply insane," McClintock said.

But Brown pointed out that even congressional Republicans have balked at the project's cost, and said other alternative energy projects, such as a proposed wind farm in Lassen County, held greater potential.

The economic package being discussed in Washington D.C. was also discussed, with Brown saying the plan, while imperfect, needs to be passed to restore lines of credit.

McClintock said the moves Brown advocated for were the same recipe that brought on the Great Depression.

"You are literally making the same mistakes as Herbert Hoover," McClintock said, after Brown spoke in favor of a tighter money supply.

But not all topics were contentious. The two men generally agreed that recent farm bills have been bad, that forest management needs an overhaul, and that unrecognized members of American Indian tribes should be processed more quickly at the federal level.

In closing statements, each spoke again of their background and philosophies.

"This is about getting results," Brown said. "I think it's time to have someone in Congress who's like you, who pays his mortgage, who's put his kids through school here."

McClintock pointed out that Brown's experience as a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel was not the same as McClintock's lengthy political experience.

"If we were running for a position in the military, I would defer to him," McClintock said. "That's not what we're running for.

"I believe our prosperity is based in our freedom. And I believe our problems are based in our public policy."

EARLIER on PolitickerCA.com:

Brown airs TV ad on economy

Ben van der Meer is a PolitickerCA.com Senior Reporter and can be reached via email at noreply@politicker.com.

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