Down the home stretch, has there ever been a local candidate so bedeviled by domestic scandal as Supervisor Bill Horn?
Like a bull harassed by horseflies, poor Horn has done his best to buck and run for cover at his Valley Center ranch. But even within that bucolic sanctuary, fecal matter has hit the fan.
Horn's agony can be sourced to a small but ferocious pack of watchdogs – most visibly, Ian Trowbridge, a retired Salk Institute scientist, and Patsy Fritz, a Valley Center columnist and longtime Horn nemesis – barking in concert with KFMB-TV.
These forces have combined to deliver a staggering one-two punch to the kisser of Horn, the incumbent who's facing a winner-take-all primary challenge from former Assemblyman Bruce Thompson of Fallbrook.
As you'll recall, the first hit arrived in late March. During a Board of Supervisors meeting, Trowbridge threw decorum to the wind and questioned Horn about his Carlsbad house and his long-rumored relationship with his chief of staff, Joan Wonsley. KFMB followed with a damaging series that delved into two ultra-sensitive zones: Unorthodox real estate dealing and a possible affair between the publicly pious Christian politician and his highly paid public employee.
For several weeks, news stories focused on reporting errors related to the million-dollar, 5 ½-bathroom Carlsbad house Horn said he owns in partnership with Wonsley. Horn and Wonsley have repeatedly denied the rumors of an affair.
Then, just as the coastal house story was losing its legs, up springs another steamy story about a Horn residence.
But this was a very different sort of abode.
This one was so squalid it lacked a commode.
Monday night, KFMB aired footage that was bound to activate gag reflexes in most viewers: Images of farmworkers, living on Horn's Valley Center ranch, defecating outside.
How had Channel 8 reached such an unpretty pass?
Toward the end of last week, Horn got wind that KFMB was working on a story about Mexican immigrants living on his property.
On the point of legal status, Horn evidently felt secure. In a pre-emptive strike against KFMB, Horn invited favored print journalists onto the property to interview the workers and verify their legal status. It soon became clear, however, that the pressing problem was going to be Horn's illegal trailer.
The wealthy grove owner was in immediate danger of being framed as a skinflint scofflaw who for years had failed to acquire permits for farmworker housing.
Aware that his re-election might be hanging in the balance, Horn had the whole camp scraped clean over the weekend.
County inspectors arrived Monday at Horn's invitation. (The television station inquired about that, and Trowbridge filed a complaint with the county.) In light of the fact that the source of the alleged violations had disappeared, Horn was given a pass. It's as if the trailer, which lacked plumbing, never existed.
But like Lady Macbeth's bloody spot, Horn's trials returned Monday night.
Drawing upon helicopter footage it shot before Horn was alerted of the gathering storm, KFMB also displayed a washing machine that drained onto the ground and a shack used as a makeshift shower.
This illegal camp, near Horn's majestic home and next door to the building housing Horn's collection of vintage cars, made Tobacco Road look like a tract of homes in Carlsbad.
What a disgusting image for a campaign to carry into the last two weeks of a close election.
The conventional wisdom is simple: An incumbent supervisor's job security rivals the pope's. As it happens, Libertarian Richard Rider's push for supervisor term limits is based on the premise that “they can't be beaten at the polls.”
The reason is obvious. The vast majority of city dwellers don't much care who their supervisor is. City councils are responsible for land use. The supes are distant rulers without influence over what matters most.
At the same time, sitting supervisors like Horn can raise lots of money for their campaign war chests. (Developers in unincorporated areas are easy marks.) Consequently, incumbents can afford to hire the best campaign consultants and trumpet their accomplishments.
At the same time, supervisors annually dispense $2 million in grants to community groups, thus pumping up their images. They are the Kris Kringles of government. Who's going to unseat Kris unless he starts molesting the kids?
In fact, it took a scandal involving prostitutes to lead to the defeat of North County Supervisor Paul Eckert in 1986.
In less than two weeks, we'll find out if Horn's domestic missteps have prompted a majority of voters to look to Thompson, a conservative Republican whom 90 percent of the 5th District's voters couldn't pick out of a police lineup.
Of course, the same could never be said of Horn.
If anything, the supervisor's profile is way too large as he heads down the home stretch.
Logan Jenkins can be reached at (760) 737-7555 or by e-mail at logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com.
