Just a week before the primary, the once-subdued campaign for the U.S. Senate turned nasty Tuesday as Republican hopefuls Matt Fong and Darrell Issa traded heated accusations over new disclosures about millionaire Issa's business career.
Fong, facing a throng of cameras at a midday news conference, said Issa owes voters a detailed explanation about "shocking" legal and ethical issues raised in a Times story that detailed Issa's tumultuous start in the business world.
A Fong spokesman cranked up the tensions further, accusing the San Diego County businessman of "thuggery" in his corporate dealings. If Issa wins the nomination next Tuesday, Fong spokesman Stephen Schmidt said, "it will be the single biggest embarrassment to the Republican Party since David Duke ran for governor of Louisiana" in 1991.
Issa's aides, camped outside Fong's Los Angeles news conference to deliver their response, appeared dumbstruck by the comparison to the former Ku Klux Klan member.
"Wait, are you comparing us to David Duke?" an incredulous Matthew Cunningham, Issa's communications director, asked Schmidt. To erase any doubt, the Fong aide repeated the Duke comparison for the TV cameras.
Issa's aides countered with several broadsides of their own, accusing Fong of breaking his promise not to engage in negative campaigning. "It borders on slander what Matt Fong is doing," Cunningham said.
Issa did not schedule any campaign appearances during the day to answer Fong's charges. Cunningham said it is "beneath [Issa's] dignity to respond."
At a public television appearance Tuesday evening, Issa denounced the allegations as baseless and said he believes he still has the momentum in the campaign.
The day's flurry of dueling news releases and press conferences brought an eleventh-hour dose of turbulence and more media exposure for the two candidates vying to face Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in November's general election. A Times poll last week showed the two in a near dead heat.
At the center of the storm were revelations in The Times on Saturday contrasting some of Issa's key early business dealings in Cleveland with the Horatio Alger image that he has presented in his political ads.
Among other issues, the story reported that Issa got his start in the car alarm business by seizing control of an associate's business through an unusual court maneuver; that he left behind a trail of spurned associates in other dealings; that he was questioned about a suspected arson at his Cleveland manufacturing plant in 1982; and that he was arrested at age 18 on car theft charges that were later dropped.
