“Marine Corp officers must be 5-foot-6. I’m 5-foot-3,” retired Marine Corp Colonel Rocky Chavez said. The former Torrance High and El Camino College wrestling team captain was speaking to the Republican Lincoln Club two weeks ago at the Torrance Marriott.

He added, “Never get in a fight with someone willing to lose an eye to take your throat. I’ll fight my way across the state.”

Chavez is a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Barbara Boxer, after 24 years.

Most observers give him little chance. California voter registration favors Democrats over Republicans by 15 percent.

“No disrespect to Republican Assemblyman Rocky Chavez or other candidates for the seat intended, but California reliably votes Democratic. Just look at the November election,” Los Angeles Times editorialist Maria Garza wrote two weeks ago. Democrats won every statewide race last November.

Pollster Paul Goodwin, of Goodwin Simon Strategic Research, whose clients are primarily Democrats, conceded that a moderate Republican like Chavez, could in theory, make a runoff against one of the Democratic contenders, but faces formidable obstacles, not only coming in first or second in the primary, but then winning a runoff in November.

“Suppose he makes it past the primary, what’s his niche? Republican registration has dropped to 28 percent. He would need massive support from Latino Democrats and Independents to have a chance. But his party’s ideology and his electoral base are hostile to Latinos. Unless he refutes his party’s leadership on issues such as immigration, health care, and education funding, he’ll have a hard time earning Latino votes. If he does do that, he antagonizes his base of Republican white conservatives and he he needs to pay for his TV ads. He’s in a box and I don’t see a way out for him.”

Even the Republican leadership is doubtful any Republican can win a California U.S. senate seat.

“[Republican candidates] would all be considered, frankly, to be long-shot candidates by me,” Harmeet Dhillon, vice chair of the state GOP, told the Sacramento Bee in March.

Chavez insists he’ll prove the experts wrong.

“I talked to a Republican contributor. He said I have a one percent chance,” Chavez told the South Bay Lincoln Club. “He said we need to grow the party before we can win a senate seat. I said, ‘I’m a Marine, so I’m a little slow. But you want to give money to grow the party? I’m a former councilman, a state assemblyman and my name is Chavez. Get on board. We’ll win this race.

“‘I’ll invite you to my inauguration. But you’ll get the cheap seats,” I told him.

Chavez was born in Redondo Beach. His family moved to Torrance when he entered the first grade at Howard Wood Elementary.

“I marched in the first Armed Forces Day Parade in 1959 with Cub Scout Troop 211. I marched in it for six years,” he recalled.

“My friends and I learned to drive in the oil and flower fields in Redondo. Del Amo Mall  was open fields, too. My first job was washing dishes at Queen’s Kitchen in downtown Torrance.”

Chavez qualified for the 1968 Olympic Trials while wrestling at Torrance and again in 1972 while attending El Camino College. He graduated from Chico State with a degree in English in 1973 and was commissioned in the Marines in 1974.

He was elected to the Oceanside city council in 2002, shortly after retiring from the Marines. He served on the council for seven years and then was named assistant undersecretary of Veterans Affairs by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 2012, he was elected to the 76th State Assembly seat, which represents Camp Pendleton, Carlsbad, Encinitas, Oceanside and Vista.

“When I was a councilman, every time I went to a chamber lunch, I’d hear one of our Republican assembly members say how they couldn’t get anything done in Sacramento because Republicans were in the minority.

“In the last two years, I’ve introduced 14 bills. Five passed the assembly and are in the senate. Seven more are going over to the senate.

“Assembly speaker John Perez told me, ‘Rocky, become a Democrat and I’ll give you any office, any committee you want.’”

Chavez is able to work both sides of the aisle, he said, because he’s reasonable. “I don’t go weird. I save my breath for cooling my coffee.”

Chavez described senatorial frontrunner Harris as “red meat” for a Los Angeles candidate and said he welcomes having a Democratic Latino in the race.

“Sanchez coming in was part of our strategic plan before I decided to run. It’s clear we’re underfunded and undergunned. And the Democrats control the media,” he said.

“Sanchez means a fight within the Democratic party. If the Republicans can coalesce, we’ll win the primary.

“Think about that. A Republican winning an open primary in California,” Chavez said.

A Republican primary victory, he said, will “put California in play.”

“I met a gentleman from Iowa, a millionaire. He said he’s asked all the time to give money to red states. But red states don’t need it. He wants to give money where the Republicans can pick something up.”

Chavez is counting on the the sizable military veterans’ vote, as well as the Latino vote for support.

“There are 2.1 million veterans in California, with spouses and kids. That’s 4.5 million votes. There are 58 counties in California, each with a director of veterans services. They all know me personally.”

Chavez served as Assistant Undersecretary of the California Department of Veteran Affairs.

under Brown as well as under Schwarzenegger, neither of whom impressed him.

“Both had huge egos,” he said. “Both had gatekeepers so you couldn’t get to them. Both lacked the ability to see the whole picture. They’d focus on one thing.

“The difference between them is that Brown is a great politician. He knows how to manipulate people. He could be a great governor if he could focus on more than a few things,” Chavez said.

But even on issues Brown does focus on, he is out of step with voters, Chavez said.

“I talked to 300 business owners at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. The majority were Democrats. I asked them to prioritize infrastructure repairs, I mentioned highways, water, ports, schools and a train going down the central valley. They ranked the governor’s high speed rail dead last.”

Brown’s water policy is also flawed, Chavez said.

“I sit on a lot of committees and all I hear is, it’s about those almonds. If we don’t have elected officials who want to put through water improvements, the California economy will go upside down.

“The people know this. They approved Proposition 1 last year, authorizing $7.12 billion in bonds to improve the state water system. But the governor won’t release the money. He’s released just enough to satisfy the environmentalists.”

“The governor and our two senators are from the Bay area. They drive the water politics and it is killing the state.

“This is a problem we know how to solve. We just need to do it. Restore the aquifers and the dams above the San Joaquin Valley. San Diego wastewater plants are making drinkable water. We’re making water in Orange County with a desal plant in Carlsbad. It will be online in the fall and meet 15 percent of local water needs.

“I told my Marines, ‘I’m done with planning. Execute. Go forth and do great.’”

Chavez expressed similar impatience with Congressional Republicans’ stances on immigration.

“Republicans have fumbled the issue. We’re the party of family and faith. I’m a strong Catholic. I have three children and five grandchildren. But we’re labeled as against immigrants.

“If Republicans care about family, how can we support a program that sends mothers and fathers away from their children. Republicans need to support residency.

“What is education? It’s society’s investment in the individual. Republicans should support education for all children.

“To be sure, government’s central role is to protect its citizens. But there’s no conflict between protecting our borders and recognizing who is already here.

“The Wall Street Journal reported today that the Republicans killed a defense bill because it would have allowed non-citizens to serve in the military. I’m thinking, they never served in the military. They’ve never seen how many hyphenated names there are at Camp Pendleton. If someone is willing to fight for America, they have the right to the American dream.

“I was talking to the Mexican Consulate General about our Mexican veterans. If an American citizen comes back from war with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and punches out someone at a bar, they go before one of the veterans courts throughout the state. If a Mexican who served in the Marines comes home with PTSD and gets in a fight, instead of helping him, we deport him.

“Tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. my wife and I will go to the gym at Camp Pendleton. We’ll see thousands of people on the soccer fields, the track and in the gym. All ages, genders and ethnicities, active military and dependents. They’re a damned good group of people.

“We need to send a Republican Latino to Washington to deal with immigration,” Chavez said. ER

 

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