Ose says GOPers need to coalesce following bitter primary

After waging a bruising Spring-long battle against fellow Republican Tom McClintock, U.S. House candidate Doug Ose said today that the GOP would have to come together after Tuesday’s primary to maintain the seat the party has held for seven consecutive terms.

“I think we all have to coalesce,” Ose told PolitickerCA.com just moments after casting his ballot at the Placer County Elections Office in Auburn.

But Ose stopped short of saying he would endorse McClintock if he came up short in the vote and said he was unsure if his opponent would do the same.

“I don’t know what Tom will do,” he said.

Ose and McClintock have been engaged in a brutal and expensive fight for the seat of retiring U.S. Rep. John Doolittle. While McClintock, a state Senator, has hammered Ose, a former Congressman, as being too liberal for the Roseville-area seat, Ose has charged that McClintock is an ineffective, corrupt lifetime politician.

Campaign finance reports show that Ose, a land developer whose personal wealth has been said to hover around $50 million, has spent about $2.85 million of his own money in the race. The investment has helped to fund a media barrage against McClintock, including television advertisements suggesting that McClintock’s state-sponsored reimbursements have taken money away from American troops in Iraq.

“I believe the investment I have made has been merited and worthy,” he said. “I think we have done an effective job in communicating how a candidate for elected office should behave.”

Election officials have said they are expecting a low turnout for today’s elections, and Ose’s campaign has estimated that about 72,000 of the district’s 185,000 voters will cast ballots. Between 30,000 and 35,000 have already sent in absentee ballots, the campaign says.

Ose announced his candidacy in February, just weeks after Doolittle, who is under federal investigation for his ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, announced he would not be seeking re-election. McClintock, who is widely considered to be something of a conservative folk hero in the state, jumped into the race in March. McClintock’s entry prompted another conservative, former state Senator Rico Oller, to exit and endorse McClintock.

When asked what he would have done differently in the contest, Ose said he “would have probably started earlier.” But he said he was right to wait until Doolittle declared his retirement plans.

“I can’t put that genie back into the bottle,” said Ose. “You can’t unwind the hand of time.”