An eye on the House: Brett Wagner wants to become part of a new generation of openly gay congresspeople, but he's chosen a difficult route to get there.

The campaign offices of Brett Wagner, an openly gay Democratic candidate for Congress, aren't bustling with staffers in suits. There's no receptionist; his new campaign manager handles phone calls by himself from the office's one small desk. A couple of old folding tables are surrounded by big white sheets of paper taped to the walls, where they are used to plan strategy.

Wagner, 44, only recently rented this modest space in a big glass office building in Ventura, a small city about an hour outside of Los Angeles surrounded by farms and outlet malls. From this central location, he says, he can best campaign for the 24th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a highly conservative district dominated by Republican voters. "I wouldn't characterize the race as an uphill battle," he says. "But it is a tough battle."

Indeed, the 24th District was redrawn in 2000 to include such conservative strongholds as Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley, making it a lot more Republican. After all, Simi Valley is home to the Reagan Presidential Library, and the area is generally populated by conservative white families.

But the soft-spoken professor of national security policy for the U.S. Naval War College at Naval Base Ventura County is steadfast in Iris pursuit, and he is hoping to sway moderate voters. Wagner, a tall man with blue eyes who presents himself in a dark suit and maroon tie, smiles as he recalls how a wealthy group of Republican women once asked him if he wanted to run for Congress. Because of his work as a national security specialist they assumed he was a Republican, he says, and they pulled him aside after he spoke at a meeting of their social club to tell him they liked his pro-choice stance. "That helped me make my decision to run," Wagner says. "Republican women in my district have been known to cross party lines. This is a socially moderate district. And if you look at my opponent, he appears to be a representative from Alabama or Mississippi."

Wagner is talking about nine-term incumbent Elton Gallegly, an antigay Republican who usually votes ultraconservative in the House but campaigns as a moderate. "If he really were a moderate," Wagner says, "I probably wouldn't stand a chance."

From the launch of his campaign last year, Wagner has been clear on his support for education, health care, and women's rights. He has campaigned at labor rallies and talked about the environment. He says that all of these issues are important to voters in his district. But his identity as a gay politician hadn't really revealed itself when he sat down with The Advocate in early May. With a look of concern followed by a long pause, Wagner talks about how he has been cautious--and a little scared. "This is a big step for me," Wagner says. "I'm comfortable being openly gay, but it hasn't happened much in the campaign. It [presents] concerns. There is some lingering prejudice in our society, and that prejudice sometimes takes the form of violence."

But Wagner's trepidation gave way to courage as he started bringing his partner of five years, Jay Redig, out on the campaign trail. The 23-year-old artist, who lives with Wagner on a private ranch near Santa Barbara, recently went with him to Ventura's only gay bar to stump for votes, and they intend to carry that over to appearances at mainstream campaign stops. "On a day-to-day basis, [being gay] makes me more human," Wagner says. "I think people will get to know nay relationship with Jay and will see the parallels between their lives and mine."

And that could work in Wagner's favor, says his most influential supporter, U.S. representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts. "The fact that he is an openly gay security specialist is a resource," says Frank, who flew out to Southern California earlier this year to host a number of fundraisers for Wagner and connect him with powerful Democrats. "The scarcest resource isn't money; it's the attention span of the voters. The ability of the candidate to get the voters' attention is important."

But money is a big factor in Wagner's race. According to 2004's first-quarter reports by the Federal Election Commission, his campaign had less than $10,000 on hand. Gallegly had well above $1 million. "Six months ago I would have said he's got an outside chance," says Eric Smith, a professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "But by now he should be racking up a lot more money. A lot of the Democratic leaders across the country have been looking at this race, and they think this isn't winnable, so they don't want to invest."

Still, the race is significant in its effect on partisan politics, Smith says. "I think it's important for the Democrats to go after Gallegly. In that sense, Brett's making a very positive contribution. If Gallegly were running unopposed, he would be painting a much less accurate picture of himself."

Wagner was born into a blue-collar family in Independence, Mo., a suburb of Kansas City. His parents grew up in poverty on a farm in Kansas. Wagner was a bright kid who skipped grades in school and aspired to be both a rock musician and the president of the United States. He moved to Southern California in 1980 to pursue his love of music and later attended UC Santa Barbara before getting a master's degree in national security studies at Georgetown University. He currently serves as president of the California Center for Strategic Studies, a nonpartisan public policy think tank in Santa Barbara.

When a local gay resident named Clinton Risetter was burned to death by Martin Hartman in February 2002 because Hartman disliked gay people, Wagner joined the community in protest, and his think tank launched the International Dignity and Diversity Project, an effort to integrate gay and lesbian civil rights considerations into U.S. foreign policy. "It occurred to us that while our town was coming together, the problem was much worse abroad," he says. "[Risetter's murder] was almost a sign that we should go with this project." Wagner now hopes to champion gay civil rights as a member of Congress.

As a respected national security specialist with two military bases in his district, Wagner also would like to see an end to the military's antigay "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Though he has never served in the armed forces, he feels a connection to gay and lesbian soldiers. "No one can ever tell me there isn't an acceptance of gays in the military," he says, recalling a time in 1990 when he came out during a speech at the Naval Academy in Maryland and an admiral told him afterward that he would make a great leader.

He could represent a new generation of gay leaders, perhaps, but he has to win a difficult election first. Even though Wagner believes his district to be socially moderate, he says it's in his best interest to hold back on gay rights during the campaign. "I can't get out front in my district on gay and lesbian issues," Wagner says, "but I can bring them along."