Junes a shoo-in for candidates

Oakland Tribune, May 25, 2006 by Cheryl Winkelman, STAFF WRITER

Rep. Dennis Cardoza is going solar.

As part of a way to explore alternative energy sources, Cardoza, D-Atwater, is having solar-powered panels installed on his house in the next few weeks.

He said people in his district, the 18th, which includes Lathrop, Stockton and rural Tracy, have told him about their frustration over high gas prices.

We must stop the dependence on foreign oil, he said.

Cardoza, 47, is running unopposed within his party in the June 6 primary and so is his Republican opponent, John Kanno, 46, an electrical engineer from Modesto.

The primary is just a warm-up of sorts for the two candidates, who seem to agree on only one issue -- the outlandish spending by the federal government.

Cardoza, hoping to be elected to a third term, is co-chair of the Blue Dog Coalition, 37House Democrats committed to balancing budgets and fiscal responsibility.

The coalition believes the deficit is out of control and supports a pay-as-you-go system.

Now the federal government just borrows money that it doesnt have, Cardoza said.

Kanno blames some of the spending problems on Cardoza. He said Cardoza had promised to support lower taxes and then voted against tax cuts.

This guy has flip-flopped more than John Kerry, he said.

After almost four years in office, Cardoza said his major accomplishment was the passing of CALFED legislation to manage the states water system, including money for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and water storage studies.

Cardoza said he also helped get more than $15 million in block grants for specialty crops to foster innovation and market development.

In conjunction with his six years in the state assembly, Cardoza helped establish UC Merced, the first University of California campus in the Central Valley.

Cardoza said he will continue to fight for a better quality of life for the Central Valley. That means addressing the methamphetamine problem. He recently organized a conference in Stockton with Congressman Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, and national narcotics officials to discuss the issue.

Kanno said illegal immigration is one of the most important issues the Valley faces.

Youre talking to a person that came here legally, he said. If we dont fix our borders, thats going to be a national security problem, he said.

Kanno is Assyrian, an indigenous people of Iraq. His family left Iraq in 1958 for England. He immigrated here in 1981 and then became a U.S. citizen.

He was one of only 260 people chosen to work on the Future of Iraq project to rebuild the country with the U.S. State Department. He helped create the post-Saddam electrical blueprint.

From 1996 to July 2003, he ran a weekly political television show called This Week in Politics in Ceres, Calif. For a year, it was shown via satellite to his fellow Assyrian Christians in Iraq and the Middle East.

Kanno said the media has not shown the real situation in Iraq -- a country with no more torture rooms and regular elections.

Weve been fighting this war for three years, a relatively short period of time, he said.

Kanno said his experience with complex foreign policy and his understanding of the Middle East will help him if elected.

Other important issues in the Central Valley are creating more jobs and preserving the agricultural way of life, Kanno said. There is too much federal red tape that discourages business here, he said.

Kanno also wants to preserve disappearing farm land, adding that he is ready to battle Cardoza.

We want to debate Mr. Cardoza anytime, anywhere, he said.

To contact Cheryl Winkelman, call

(209) 832-6144 or cwinkelman@

trivalleyherald.com.