Tom McClintock

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Tom McClintock

Thomas Miller "Tom" McClintock (born July 10, 1956) is an outgoing California state senator who was the unsuccessful 2006 Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor of California. He ran for Governor of California in the 2003 California recall election of Gray Davis and finished third out of 135 candidates with 13.5 percent of the overall vote. In 2006, he ran for lieutenant governor but lost to the Democrat John Garamendi for the right to succeed Democrat Cruz Bustamante.

[edit] Early life and career

McClintock graduated from UCLA in 1978. He was elected chairman of the Ventura County Republican Party at the age of 23 and served until 1981. He was chief of staff to Sen. Ed Davis from 1980 to 1982. From 1992 to 1994 he served as director of the Center for the California Taxpayer. He was director of the Claremont Institute's Golden State Center for Policy Studies from 1994 to 1996.

McClintock was elected to the California State Assembly in 1982 at the age of 26. He was reelected in 1984, 1986, 1988, and 1990.

In 1992, McClintock lost his bid to incumbent Anthony C. Beilenson for a seat in the United States House of Representatives to represent California's 24th District.

In 1994, McClintock ran for California State Controller and lost by 187,734 votes to the better-financed Kathleen Connell. McClintock won the support of 3,792,997 (46 percent) Californians while Connell had the votes of 3,980,731 (48.3 percent) individuals. Three other candidates split the other 463,152 (5.7%) votes. Connell outspent McClintock by a 3-to-1 margin.

Voters in the 38th State Assembly District returned McClintock to the Assembly in 1996 by a 15.8 percent electoral margin. McClintock was supported by 71,597 (55.6 percent) voters. Democrat Jon Lauritzen obtained 51,274 (39.8 percent) votes. Natural Law Party candidate Virginia Neuman garnered the remaining 6,021 (4.6 percent) people. In 1998, McClintock ran unopposed for reelection to the Assembly.

McClintock won a four-year term in the California's Senate by a 15.2 percent margin in 2000. McClintock won the support of 165,422 (57.6 percent) people in the 19th State Senate District while Democrat Daniel Gonzalez won only 121,893 (42.4 percent) votes.

McClintock ran for State Controller again in 2002 and finished 22,730 votes behind eBay executive Steve Westly out of 7,258,758 votes cast. He logged 3,273,028 (45.1 percent) votes to Westly's 3,289,839 (45.4 percent). Three other candidates won 695,891 (9.5 percent) votes. Westly outspent McClintock by a 5-to-1 margin. McClintock's campaigns for state controller have focused on increasing accountability for the state budget. His ads featured the character Angus McClintock, a fictional cousin and fellow Scottish American extolling Tom McClintock's virtues of thriftiness and accountability with low budget fifteen second ads.

Tom McClintock has a long history of opposing taxes. During the 2000 dot-com bubble, he was instrumental at proposing a two-thirds reduction in the vehicle license fee, or car tax. In 2003 when then-Governor Gray Davis attempted to rescind the rollback, McClintock led the effort to stop the repeal. [1]McClintock has also opposed additional borrowing, making him odd bedfellows with State Trasurer Phil Angelides, who opposed Proposition 57 as well. While McClintock argued for more spending cuts, Angelides favored increasing taxes instead of borrowing.

In the 2003 Gubernatorial recall election, McClintock finished third with the support of only 1,160,182 (13.5 percent) Californians. Fellow Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger won the election with support from 4,203,596 (48.6 percent) people while Democratic Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante won 2,723,768 votes (31.5 percent). Together Republicans Schwarzenegger and McClintock were supported by 5,363,778 Californians (62.1 percent). More than 130 other candidates won the remaining 6.4 percent of the vote.

McClintock was re-elected to the California Senate in 2004 with 61 percent of the vote.

McClintock is married and has two children. He grew up and has a long history in his Ventura County Senate district. His primary campaign issues are cutting government spending, balancing the state budget, reducing taxes and improving road transportation by building more freeways.

Because of his staunchly conservative politics (including his belief that abortion should be outlawed in California), McClintock's performance in the recall debates of 2003 gave him a populist-like appeal to many "far right" voters in California. In contrast to his opponents, he took a hard and unambiguous line against illegal immigration and the rights of undocumented workers, higher taxes, and increased spending. He was the only one of the candidates to support the controversial Proposition 54, which sought to eliminate racial profiling by the state. This ultimately didn't help him as he finished a distant third to the more moderate and charismatic Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democrat Cruz Bustamante in the statewide election that November.

[edit] Electoral history

Source: JoinCalifornia.com Election Archive

1992 Primary Election for United States House of Representatives
- Tom McClintock (R), 34.5%
- Sang R. Korman (R), 23.7%
- Bill Spillane (R), 18.3%
- Jim Salomon (R), 7.5%
- Rob Meyer (R), 4.9%
- Stephen M. Weiss (R), 3.8%
- Nicholas Hariton (R), 3.1%
- Robert Colaco (R), 2.7%
- Harry Wachtel (R), 1.5%
1992 General Election for United States House of Representatives
- Anthony C. Beilenson (D), 55.5%
- Tom McClintock (R), 39.1%
- John Paul Linblad (P&F), 5.4%
1994 Primary Election for Controller
- Tom McClintock (R), 60.8%
- John Morris (R), 39.2%
1994 General Election for Controller
- Kathleen Connell (D), 48.3%
- Tom McClintock (R), 46.0%
- Elizabeth Nakano (P&F), 2.2%
- Nathan Johnson (AI), 1.9%
- Cullene Lang (L), 1.6%
1996 Primary Election for State Assembly
- Tom McClintock (R), 38.2%
- Ross Hopkins (R), 20.3%
- Bob Larkin (R), 13.0%
- Robert Hamlin (R), 11.1%
- Stephen Frank (R), 9.0%
- Peggy Freeman (R), 8.4%
1996 General Election for State Assembly
- Tom McClintock (R), 55.6%
- Jon Lauritzen (D), 39.8%
- Virginia Neuman (NL), 4.6%
1998 Primary Election for State Assembly
- Tom McClintock (R), 100.0%
1998 General Election for State Assembly
- Tom McClintock (R), 100.0%
2000 Primary Election for State Senator
- Tom McClintock (R), 74.9%
- Judy Mikels (D), 25.1%
2000 General Election for State Senator
- Tom McClintock (R), 57.6%
- Daniel R. Gonzales (D), 42.4%
2002 Primary Election for Controller
- Tom McClintock (R), 45.8%
- Dean Andal (R), 35.5%
- W. Snow Hume (R), 9.4%
- Nancy Beecham (R), 9.3%
2002 General Election for Controller
- Steve Westly (D), 45.4%
- Tom McClintock (R), 45.1%
- Laura Wells (G), 5.8%
- J. Carlos Aguirre (NL), 2.4%
- Ernest F. Vance (AI), 1.3%
2003 Recall Election for Governor
- Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), 48.6%
- Cruz Bustamante (D), 31.5%
- Tom McClintock (R), 13.5%
2006 Primary Election for Lieutenant Governor
- Tom McClintock (R), 93.8%
- Tony Farmer (R), 6.2%
2006 Election for Lieutenant Governor
- Tom McClintock (R), 44.9 %
- John Garamendi (D), 49.5 %

[edit] External links

Preceded by: Cathie Wright	California State Senator 19th District 2000–present	Succeeded by: –
Preceded by: Paula Boland	California State Assemblyman 38th District 1996–2000	Succeeded by: Keith Richman
Preceded by: Charles Imbrecht	California State Assemblyman 36th District 1982–1992	Succeeded by: Pete Knight