Durston hopes 2nd time is the charm against Lungren

Bill Durston hopes his second attempt at knocking off the 3rd Congressional District's Rep. Dan Lungren follows Jerry McNerney's storyline.

In 2006, McNerney - an under-funded, under-estimated Democrat - made a second, and successful, challenge to a sitting Republican Congressman, Richard Pombo.

"If McNerney can do it in the 11th district, which is right next to ours, we can do that here in the third," Durston told PolitickerCA.com Thursday.

Durston, an emergency room physician and marine combat veteran, lost his first race to Lungren, with the Republican capturing nearly 60% of the vote.

When asked whether Lungren was underestimating Durston's chances of winning in November, the Democratic candidate quickly said yes. "I don't see him doing very much," Durston said.

Durston tries to paint a stark policy contrast between himself and his opponent. Durston says that if elected he would not approve more money for Iraq unless there was a withdrawal date attached. Lungren supports the surge and is against any sort of set withdrawal date. Durston would also like the United Nations to take over control of rebuilding Afghanistan.

Durston is for expanding health care coverage, specifically growing Medicare to cover all Americans. "We're already paying enough for outstanding health care for everyone," he said. "We're just not getting it."

Lungren, Durston says, gets big donations from drug companies and private health insurers.

Where Durston sees the biggest vulnerability is Lungren's ties to the Bush administration. Last month, Vice President Dick Cheney attended a Lungren fundraiser and drew praise from the Congressman. "I don't really have to work to tie Lungren to Cheney and Bush," Durston said.

Given the trends in voter registration, that may lead to a close race. Numbers from the Secretary of State's office show the number of registered Democrats in the 3rd District, which includes Sacramento, is catching up to the number of registered Republicans. As of April 4, Republicans outweighed Democrats 41% to 37%. That's down from a 7% difference in 2006.

"Republicans are starting to realize that they were betrayed by the Bush administration," Durston said.

To capitalize on the shift, Durston has been holding house parties around the district, which he says provide committed volunteers if not significant campaign dollars. With those volunteers and increased word-of-mouth, Durston thinks that he'll be able to follow the same script as McNerney, right down to the lack of support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which isn't funding Durston's campaign.

"My best hope is for them to stop calling me every day to give a contribution to them," he said. "If we got support from the DCCC and the state Democratic Party that would really be great. Unfortunately, we're not expecting it."

Even without that support, Durston says that he expects to be successful in the end. "We know what we have to do," he said.