Former Rep. Pombo Heading Back to the Ranch

John Doolittle isn't the only former Abramoff-tainted Congressman from the Golden State in the news. His buddy, the almost equally disgraced former Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), has also been in the news lately because Republican voters in the 19th Congressional District of California had the good sense to nix his attempt at a political comeback.

Mr. Pombo finished third in a four-way race for the GOP nomination to succeed a retiring GOP Congressman, Rep. George Radanovich. Now I know its been a couple of weeks since the California primary elections were held on June 8, but here are the final results according to the California Secretary of State:

37.2% Jeff Denham
29.5% Jim Patterson
20.9% Richard Pombo
12.4% Larry Westerlund

I first wrote about Rep. Pombo back at the old place on June 6, 2006, the date of the 2006 California Primary:

Richard Pombo is tightly linked to both Abramoff and DeLay. But his race is a little different. Instead of an unknown, Pombo's opponent is former liberal Republican Congressman Pete McCloskey. This will test the Integrity Republicans. Will they back Pombo because of his conservative ideology, or will they be able to stomach sticking it to Pombo due to his ethical stains even if that means voting for a liberal?

Although Mr. McCloskey pulled almost a third of the GOP vote in 2006, Mr. Pombo survived his primary challenge. I next wrote about him on October 19, 2006 as we approached the General Election:

[Richard Pombo] had a narrow 48-46 lead over his Democratic challenger. Pombo's district is a ruby red district in interior California (east of San Francisco Bay). This should be a cakewalk for any Republican candidate, but like TX22, not one associated with Abramoff

.

Of course not only did Mr. Pombo lose to a completely unknown Democrat in 2006, but it wasn't even close. Since then, we've written extensively about Mr. Pombo's ties to Messrs. Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Grover Norquist, Jack Victory, Dennis Stephens, Mashpee Chief Glenn Marshall, and the assorted lot of scandal figures associated with Rep. DeLay's K Street Project (e.g. Susan Hirschman and Barbara Bonfiglio). You may type "Pombo" into the search field in the upper left corner of the blog if you care to learn more about these connections. There are plenty more as well, but like the media, even I have lost interest in exposing them.

OK - let's fast forward back to 2010. In a year of voter disgust with Washington, Mr. Pombo's electoral strategy seemed to be to remind voters of his ties to Mr. Abramoff by featuring pictures of himself on his campaign website in ill-fitting clothes with disgraced Washington insiders like Grover Norquist. Brilliant, huh? But it does illustrate how out of touch these guys are with us folks out here in the hinterlands.

So now that Pombo has been soundly defeated a second time, what will he do next? According to the Stockton Record:

Pombo, 49, made it sound unlikely he would run again for office.

"I didn't plan on running this time," he said. "It was just a lot of people who approached me about getting in this race. ... My intention is to go back to my ranch."

Good. If the Republican party really wants to move forward, it can't nominate disgraced, morally-bankrupt, Abramoff-tainted, big-spending pseudo-conservatives who will remind voters of how we lost our way. Fortunately, smart Republican voters like those in CA-19 seem to understand this - that nominating losers like Rep. Pombo would probably have cost the GOP a second "safe" House seat from California. Even if Pombo can't think clearly, at least the voters can.

Mr. Pombo is not the first former Abramoff stooge to fail in his attempt at a political comeback. Let's not forget former Rep. Bob Shaffer (R-Colo.), who failed to win a Colorado Senate race in 2008 after pictures of him "investigating" Mr. Abramoff's sweatshops in the Mariana Islands on a sailboat appeared in the Denver Post.

But Mr. Pombo will probably not have the distinction of being the last either. After all, Abramoff-tainted former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) is attempting to make his political comeback by challenging incumbent Senator John McCain in the Arizona primary. While I've always said I'm not the smartest blogger out there, I'm fairly confident in my prediction that Mr. Hayworth will not be successful.

What disgraced Reps. Doolittle and DeLay will do in the future is anyone's guess.