Out congressional candidate Dave Roberts barnstormed in the Castro this past weekend as he tries to raise money to win the Democratic primary for the state's 50th Congressional District in the San Diego area.

Should Roberts win the intra-party battle next June, the Solana Beach councilman would take on incumbent Republican Congressman Brian Bilbray in the November general election. The conservative lawmaker earned a zero rating from the Human Rights Campaign in 2008 due to his opposition to LGBT legislation.

In 2006, Bilbray voted for a federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage; but this year he broke ranks with his party and voted for a military spending bill that included federal hate crime protections for LGBT people.

So far Roberts's sexual orientation has proven to be more of an interest nationally than it is within the district. Should he win, Roberts would be the first openly gay married man in Congress and the fourth out House member.

None of the local papers, however, played up that fact when he announced his entrance into the race last month. He told the Bay Area Reporter that he doubts being gay will be a liability with voters next year.

"I think being a gay man is just one of the characteristics that defines me as a person. People in San Diego County characterize me more as being bipartisan, that is just how people see me," said Roberts, vice president of a nonprofit health care information organization. "I don't think it is an issue like it was 20 years ago."

Roberts, 48, lives with his spouse Wally Oliver and their three children. The couple, together 11 years, married last year. Each have strong military ties, and Oliver is a third generation San Diegan.

They met back east and moved to Solana in 1995. Roberts was first elected to the city council in 2004 and was re-elected to another four-year term in 2008.

"People know we have our sons. We are just known as community people," he said.

Bilbray, an avid surfer, has proven to be a formidable opponent and has bested his Democratic challengers by healthy margins in his last two elections. But Democrats consider him vulnerable, as three have jumped into the primary race.

Along with Roberts are Tracy Emblem, an attorney from Escondido, and perennial candidate Francine Busby, who has twice lost to Bilbray and is making her fourth attempt for the seat.

The district north of San Diego includes the coastal cities from Oceanside to Del Mar, as well as inland cities Rancho Santa Fe, San Marcos, and Escondido. A mix of new residents and dismal approval ratings for Republicans has buoyed Democrats' hopes of taking the district. But it will still be an uphill challenge for the Democratic candidate next fall, according to Congressional Quarterly.

"Democrats point to the fact that a once-daunting voter registration disadvantage to the Republicans in the 50th District had slipped to 9 percentage points as of Aug. 3. Also working to the Democrats' advantage is the uptick in the district's Democratic-leaning Hispanic population, which increased nearly 23 percent between 2002 and 2007 according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey," reported the D.C.-based publication in September. "But the eventual Democratic nominee will have to do better than past Bilbray opponents at swaying those registrants who are unaffiliated with either major party, and who make up nearly a quarter of all district voters."

The battle between the Democrats has opened old wounds, as Roberts in the past supported Bilbray over Busby in their general election match-up. He backed Busby in 2004 when she took on incumbent GOP Representative Duke Cunningham, who a year later resigned in disgrace to serve a prison term for accepting bribes, and he supported her again in 2006 when she ran for the open seat.

But Roberts also endorsed Bilbray, whom he had worked with on Capitol Hill, in the Republican primary that year.

"I thought he was a moderate," explained Roberts.

He made a dual endorsement in the general election but then asked Busby to remove his name from her list of backers due to how she ran her campaign, said Roberts.

"Since that time I feel very disillusioned by the way he has represented us," he said of Bilbray. "People over and over tell me they want to give him a pink slip and hire a new representative."

Busby and Emblem have already questioned Roberts's allegiance to the Democratic Party, noting he declined to state which party he belonged to when he ran for city council.

But Roberts can point to a long line of activism within Democratic politics. He worked on the late Senator Ted Kennedy's presidential campaign and worked as a Democratic staffer on the House Appropriations Committee in the 1980s. He worked on Bill Clinton's re-election campaign in 1996 and served as Al Gore's California veteran's coordinator in 2000.

He said he registered as a decline-to-state when he first ran for local office because the city council races are nonpartisan. He switched to being a Democrat this year so he could serve a two-year post on the Obama administration's Advisory Panel on Medicare Education.

"I think I have a good Democratic pedigree. People are making an issue of the fact I can work across the aisle," said Roberts.

Roberts is originally from Connecticut and comes from a politically active family, noted the Coast News. The local paper reported that his grandmother and grandfather were representatives in the Connecticut General Assembly, his grandfather worked in the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration and his mother worked for GOP Senator Prescott Bush from Connecticut.

While living in Virginia, Roberts unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the state's general assembly. After moving west, he didn't think about entering politics until friends urged him to became involved with his local library board.

He won and soon was being pushed to run for city council. He said he hadn't thought about running for Congress until Democratic officials in Washington approached him earlier this year about taking on Bilbray.

A poll in July showed his chances of defeating the GOP incumbent were "outstanding," said Roberts, leading him to enter the race on September 3. Within 27 days he had raised $153,000, more than the $110,000 Bilbray raised in the same time period and far more than either of his Democratic opponents.

"People on the East Coast are closely watching my race," he said. "I have seen lots of words of encouragement. They have tried for a number of years to win that district."

Now there is the possibility of President Barack Obama stumping for an out gay man in GOP territory come next year. Roberts, though, wouldn't speculate on what support he may receive from the White House.

"This is going to be a district-wide, grassroots campaign," he said.

For more about Roberts, visit www.daverobertsforcongress.com.

Alice Club co-chairs claim neutrality in D8 fight

The two co-chairs of the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club insist they are remaining neutral in the 2010 race to be the next District 8 supervisor. But they are finding out that is easier said than done.

Which of four out candidates, all of whom have ties to the moderate political group, Alice should throw its support behind in the campaign is embroiling the club. Its board will decide tonight on whether to move forward a proposed dual endorsement in the race and split Alice's support between past co-chairs Rebecca Prozan and Scott Wiener.

The proposal has angered the campaign of Laura Spanjian, another former Alice co-chair, and been questioned by emeritus Alice board member Rafael Mandelman. Tonight's closed door meeting is sure to be heated and has already spawned questions about where the loyalties of the club's two co-chairs – Susan B. Christian and Charles Sheehan – lie in the D8 race.

The duo insisted last week to Political Notes that they are not taking sides in the race nor would they publicly state where they stand on the dual endorsement.

"It is a difficult situation. We've always known it would be," said Christian. "I explicitly told all of them I am not going to any of their campaign events and I am not endorsing anyone at this stage. I am not sure if I will endorse anyone after the Alice endorsement process; until then I am staying completely neutral."

Sheehan said he is also sticking to the same stance and is not picking sides. Instead, he said the pair sees its role as ensuring the club's bylaws and processes are followed as Alice decides on its endorsement in the race.

"We want to facilitate an open, neutral, organic process. It is not up to us as co-chairs; it is up to the membership and that process is ongoing," he said.

But Sheehan's recent acceptance of a job with the city's Public Utilities Commission, at which Spanjian works as an assistant general manager, has sparked speculation that she helped orchestrate the career move to curry favor in the endorsement fight. Sheehan, who had been working with a local political consulting firm, will start in the new job November 2.

Sheehan said he was looking to make a change job-wise, "end of story," and that Spanjian "did not get me the job."

He will be working at the PUC in the communications department under Tony Winnicker, its chief spokesman, as one of the agency's outreach spokesmen for its power division. Winnicker is a strong backer of Spanjian in the race, as is former PUC general manager Susan Leal.

Sheehan said he applied for the job four months ago and went through the normal vetting process.

"I went through the normal hiring processes and two rounds of interviews. It was after that, that I got the job," he said.

In an e-mail Winnicker took strong exception to any speculation that Sheehan's hiring was a quid pro quo for his backing Spanjian in the D8 race or Alice endorsement fight. Although Spanjian knew of the hiring process, "which is appropriate," wrote Winnicker, he stressed that she "was not involved."

He said the civil service has a "very prescribed and rigorous" process that job applicants must go through that is designed to prevent political influence in the hiring process.

"I can't speak in great detail about a personnel process but please know that Charles was among 10 candidates ultimately interviewed for the position by a panel of three experts in renewable energy and communications/public outreach. None of the three panelists knew Charles or the other candidates or have any connection to Alice, LGBT politics, or District 8 to my knowledge," wrote Winnicker. "All three panelists clearly scored Charles as the best candidate among the 10 interviewed and it was on this basis that I offered Charles the position following a final interview with myself and another colleague, Tyrone Jue, from the SFPUC to confirm that we agreed Charles was the best choice."

Sheehan was emphatic about his new job having no bearing in terms of the endorsement fight at Alice.

"I will be neutral and that is what I have said all along. My job is totally separate from what I do outside of work," said Sheehan. "The two are 100 percent separate; I want to make that very clear."

Both he and Christian stressed their role is to carry out what the club's members decide to do about the endorsement.

"As co-chair I feel like my primary duty is to make sure what the board, what an overwhelming majority of the board, wants happens. That is what is guiding me to get through this process," said Christian.

All four of the D8 candidates will take part in their first town hall Tuesday, October 27. The event will run from 7 to 9 p.m. at Magnet, the gay men's health center in the Castro, 4122 18th Street.

AG candidate feted at two gay-hosted events

State Assemblyman Pedro Nava (D-Santa Barbara), who is running to be California's next attorney general, is being feted at two gay-hosted events this week.

Tonight (Monday, October 26) Nava will be the star attraction at a San Francisco fundraiser for Equality California. The statewide LGBT lobbying group's decision to fly the southern California legislator into town has raised eyebrows as one of his AG opponents in the Democratic primary next June is San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris.

The event was initially scheduled to take place October 13, and at the time, EQCA insisted to Political Notes that its decision to host Nava in Harris's backyard should not be viewed as foreshadowing whom the group would endorse in the AG race. Rather it was merely another in a series of events EQCA has planned to introduce its Bay Area members to lawmakers from other parts of the state.

As it turned out a severe rainstorm led to the postponement of the meet and greet with Nava and members of EQCA's Capital Club for large donors. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. tonight on the 40th floor of the Transamerica Pyramid, 600 Montgomery Street in downtown San Francisco.

Due to security in the building, those wishing to attend must RSVP by sending an e-mail to Jessica@eqca.org or by calling (415) 581-0005, ext. 312.

Then on Thursday night, October 29, LGBT and progressive leaders in Los Angeles will host a fundraiser for Nava's AG campaign. The main organizers include Eric Bauman, the openly gay vice chair of the state Democratic Party, and actor Ed Begley Jr.

Tickets for the event at Malo Restaurant on West Sunset Boulevard range from $100 to $1,000 a person.

Keep abreast of the latest LGBT political news by following the Political Notebook on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/politicalnotes.

Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 861-5019 or e-mail m.bajko@ebar.com.