Democrat Puts Herself Into GOP’s 40th District Feud

Democratic congressional candidate Lida Lenney on Monday night called upon Republican C. Christopher Cox to apologize for sending voters in the 40th Congressional District a pair of so-called “hit pieces” against two of his GOP primary opponents.

But Cox, a former senior associate White House counsel and one of the leading candidates in the race, declined, saying he had nothing to apologize for.

In the sharpest exchange to date in a campaign with two weeks to go, Lenney, a Laguna Beach councilwoman, labeled as “deplorable” two mailers sent to 110,000 GOP households by Cox, a Newport Beach attorney and a leading contender in the June 7 Republican primary. The two mailers attacked his chief rivals: Irvine Councilman C. David Baker and Newport Beach businessman Nathan Rosenberg.

In the mailers, Cox accuses both Baker and Rosenberg of “distorting” their records: Baker on raising taxes in Irvine and Rosenberg on his relationship with his brother, Werner Erhard, founder of est.

In the mailer on Baker, Cox says the councilman on at least one occasion voted to increase taxes in Irvine, a charge that Baker denies. In a separate mailer on Rosenberg, Cox says his challenger has tried to conceal his involvement with Erhard and his self-improvement seminars, including The Forum.

The Cox mailer quotes a recent Los Angeles Magazine article in which Erhard’s programs are described as “destructive” and “cultlike.”

Lenney issued her plea for an apology at a candidate’s forum at the University Club on the UC Irvine campus. The forum was sponsored in part by the OC League of Women Voters.

At a break in the forum, Cox said the circulars were “fact sheets” and there was nothing to apologize for.

“I don’t know what else to do when my opponents distort and conceal their true positions,” Cox said.

During the forum, Rosenberg held up the Cox mailer that attacked him and said it “tested the limits of decency.” Of Cox, he said: “The man who wrote this kind of trash showed what kind of man he truly is.”

After Monday night’s forum, Cox said that before he sent the mailers Rosenberg and his political consultant, Dave Vaporean, threatened to “ruin my professional career if I raise the est issue. I think that stuff (the threats) has no place in this race.”