CAMPAIGN JOURNAL : Fund-Raising Race by Senate Candidates Starts Early

In the old days when winning a U.S. Senate seat in California might cost a puny $5 million or so, election campaign fund raising was a cool-weather sport played in the winter and spring months just in advance of the June primaries and in the fall before the November runoff.

But this is 1991, and as the spring days get longer and warmer, the race is on to harvest as much money as possible for the 1992 elections. The money contest is occurring unusually early, a full year before the June primaries in which 10 or 12 candidates may be competing for the Republican and Democratic nominations for both of California’s U.S. Senate seats.

So it was that Rep. Mel Levine, a Democrat from Santa Monica, elicited an announced $1.1 million from about 1,500 friends, relatives and other supporters at a major fund-raising dinner in Beverly Hills on Thursday.

At the same time, Republican Sen. John Seymour, picked by Gov. Pete Wilson to fill Wilson’s former Senate seat in part because of his fund-raising ability, held forth in his home base of Orange County amid 800 supporters. They anted up $250,000 for the Seymour campaign.

Most of the other declared or potential candidates will join the political gold rush in June.

The reason for the greening of spring 1991 is as much symbolic and psychological as it is practical. Senate candidates are required to file their first campaign finance reports with the Federal Elections Commission by June 30.

As Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) explained during his speech at the Seymour affair: “Doesn’t mean much to anyone in the audience, but your opponents watch it very carefully. . . . It’s really important that that report show that there’s money coming in.”

Money-raising prowess is critical to a candidate’s political credibility and legitimacy, more so these days than percentages in public opinion polls. The more impressive a showing on a contender’s June 30 report, the more likely the candidate will be taken seriously within the political “in” crowd, including professional fund-raisers and consultants, contributors and the media. Wooing actual voters can come later.

“It’s purely symbolic,” one professional fund-raiser said. “It shows strength. I’m always of the opinion the earlier the better. You have to meet the people (potential contributors and supporters) and start laying the groundwork.”

This source said that $1 million raised now definitely will make a strong impression. Levine already had about $1 million in the bank, but the key benchmark this spring is the amount of “new money” gathered.

In Anaheim on Thursday, the message the faithful got--Seymour’s basic stump speech--was less important than the money pitch delivered by the blunt-speaking Dole, the featured orator of the evening and one of the national party’s most effective campaigners.

Beyond the two Senate contests, the convergence of several political events will make 1992 a particularly competitive year for money.

“Everybody--from the local county supervisor to the Assembly candidate to the Senate candidate--is out (collecting) now,” said Jack Flanigan, vice president of government relations for the Irvine Co. and a California political veteran.

“The closer it gets to ‘92, the more difficult it is going to be. The normal flood has been exacerbated.”

For starters, this will be the first time since California joined the Union that both Senate seats are at stake in the same election. A successful primary campaign is expected to cost each candidate in the range of $5 million and the general election another $10 million or so. The total cost for all candidates seeking both Senate seats could rise to the stratospheric level of $75 million to $100 million.

This is also the year of reapportionment, the redrawing of district boundaries to account for population shifts during the 1980s. California will have at least seven new congressional seats. The redrawing of the existing 45 U.S. House districts will result in the greatest number of competitive congressional elections in years. That creates the need for more campaign funds.

And 1992 is a presidential election year. California traditionally is a golden well for national candidates. But there also is the chance the state’s presidential primary will be moved from June to early March, greatly enhancing its national importance and escalating demands for money to bankroll a more costly California campaign.

Thursday, Levine could have had a national star as his dinner headliner, just as Seymour had Dole. But Levine did not need one. His dinner served to show off the political might of the Waxman-Berman political organization based on the Westside of Los Angeles. Levine is an integral member along with Reps. Howard Berman of Panorama City and Henry Waxman of Los Angeles. Strategist Michael Berman, Howard’s brother, works behind the scenes with partner Carl D’Agostino.

While Senate candidates from other states often come to California to bolster campaign treasuries, Reps. Waxman, Berman and Levine all wield enough influence in Congress to raise major amounts of money for Levine outside California, if necessary. Levine’s influential support for the state of Israel, for instance, could serve as a magnet for campaign contributions from Jewish communities in Eastern states.

The money stakes are equally apparent in other campaigns.

The campaign of U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell (R-Palo Alto) last week trumpeted that he had banked $1 million. Republicans not associated with his campaign say Campbell’s network of fund-raisers is enthusiastically, and successfully, canvassing for money.

Campbell also touted his candidacy more than a week ago in unusual fashion, taking out a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal in which a blue-chip array of California business leaders supporting his campaign asked others to join them.

The fund-raising calendar will grow ever more crowded as the June 30 deadline approaches.

Within a span of 10 days in June, U.S. Rep. Barbara Boxer of Marin County, former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein and state Controller Gray Davis, all Democrats, will hold glittering fund-raisers--Boxer in Hollywood, Feinstein in San Francisco and Davis in Beverly Hills. They all will have other, smaller events scheduled throughout the month.

As candidates scramble about the state for money, they may grumble as they run into competition from officials of their own political parties.

The new Democratic state chairman, Sacramento developer Phil Angelides, is traveling across California to drum up enthusiasm and checks for the cash-poor party.

The Republican Party, left with a $1-million debt after the 1990 campaign, has been holding a series of fund-raisers to retire that deficit and begin building a war chest for the 1992 campaigns. On Thursday night, in fact, Gov. Wilson skipped the Seymour campaign kickoff and instead headlined a party fund-raiser at Chasen’s in Beverly Hills that was to net $200,000.

He was joined there by a popular Republican draw: Jack Kemp, a onetime presidential candidate and now secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Kemp, on a two-day swing through California, had two additional party fund-raisers on his agenda.