Wackos-R-Us - San Diego's History of Right Wing Nut Cases

Howard Kaloogian looks like a liberal when compared to some of the nut cases that have represented San Diego in the past.

But politics is politics and up there politics means Republican. They have a colorful history of . . . uh, of unusual candidates. In 1962, they chose James B. Utt over Lionel Van Deerlin by some 64,000 votes. Van still grumbles about that. That's not, I suspect, because he lost an election. He did that more than once. No, Van lost to a guy who claimed that barefoot Africans in Georgia were training to help the United Nations take over the country.

Utt stayed on until 1970 when he was replaced by John Schmitz, a man who said he joined the John Birch Society in order to appeal to the liberal wing of his constituency. One of his more notable constituents was the president of the United States, a fellow many thought pretty conservative himself.

But not liberal enough, Schmitz. When his president was about to go to China, he remarked, "I have no objection to President Nixon going to China. I just object to his coming back."

But the most telling thing of all about John Schmitz was that even the John Birch Society dumped him.

Up there, odd candidates aren't limited to the Republican Party. In 1980 the Democrats nominated a former Ku Klux Klan member and then leader of the White Aryan Nation, Tom Metzger, for congress.

Makes Kaloogian and his pals look almost normal by comparison. Until, you look at the policies they advocate. Then you realize that Kaloogain, Morrow and Roach are part of the same party that gave voice to Utt, Schmitz and Metzger.