McCain Rakes In Donations for GOP House Campaigns

Sure, Arizona Sen. John McCain fell short in his quest to be the Republican nominee for president. But he proved this week that he is still a star attraction--much to the benefit of California candidates in four of the nation’s hottest congressional races.

From dinner in Bel-Air to breakfast in Torrance, and from lunch in the Silicon Valley to a reception in the wealthy San Diego suburb of Rancho Santa Fe, McCain raked in well over a quarter-million dollars for fellow Republicans. They included Glendale’s Rep. James E. Rogan and the South Bay’s Rep. Steven T. Kuykendall, both facing stiff reelection challenges, with the balance of power in the House of Representatives on the line.

“What happens here will also have great bearing on whether the Republicans maintain control of the majority in the House of Representatives. . . . There’s a lot at stake here,” McCain told a $1,000-a-plate breakfast gathering of about 70 Kuykendall supporters Thursday.

Kuykendall’s 36th District, which runs along the coast from Venice to San Pedro, is one of a handful of seats across the country that national Democratic leaders have targeted. They need just six more seats to regain control of the House, and four of their top prospects are in California.

McCain’s three-day swing through the state this week helped him deliver on a promise, made when he left the Republican presidential contest, to not only help his onetime opponent and now the presumed GOP nominee, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, but also to stump for congressional candidates.

The senator, who showed his appeal to young, independent voters with his call for reforms, began his campaign pitch for the Californians on Tuesday with a $500-a-plate dinner for Rogan at the Bel-Air home of businesswoman and former GOP candidate for lieutenant governor Noel Irwin Hentschel and her husband, Gordon Hentschel.

About 145 people dined in the tree-studded backyard of the elegant mansion and received souvenir campaign buttons. McCain quipped that one of the differences between him and President Clinton was that “Clinton wants every American to have a home, but I want every American to have a home like this!”

McCain’s appeal outside the GOP could be crucial for Rogan, a conservative whose Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena-based 27th District has undergone dramatic shifts recently; Democrats now hold a 7% registration edge.

But it also will be important in the three other races, all in moderate, swing districts that neither major party can call its own.

McCain spent Wednesday in Northern California, where he campaigned for Assemblyman Jim Cunneen (R-San Jose), who is seeking the Silicon Valley’s 15th District seat, which Republican Tom Campbell is leaving to run for U.S. Senate. McCain participated in a town hall meeting at Mission College and a $150-a-plate luncheon that drew about 250 people.

After Thursday’s breakfast for Kuykendall, he stumped for Rep. Brian Bilbray in San Diego County’s coastal 49th District, ending with a $250-a-person reception for 400 at a home in Rancho Santa Fe that honored retiring Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside) while adding to Bilbray’s campaign coffers.

And all the while, he continued to push for campaign finance reform, a key plank in his presidential bid platform. He said he did not see any irony in his calls to overhaul the ways of paying for campaigns while raising big bucks for candidates.

“None of these are soft-money fund-raisers. I don’t go to those,” McCain said, referring to his push for a ban on those largely unregulated contributions that can be made in unlimited amounts to political parties rather than to individual candidates.

The campaign of Rogan’s opponent, state Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) issued a statement noting that Rogan had voted against McCain-pushed legislation to ban soft-money contributions, and said Rogan and McCain were on opposite sides of other key issues as well.

At the Bel-Air event, Rogan said he did not think “Sen. McCain and I are very far apart” and said he too favors “full disclosure” of contributors.

“There is a lively debate [within the GOP] going on over campaign finance reforms now,” McCain said. “We agree there needs to be reform . . . and it will come.”

McCain praised Rogan, who played a leading role in the widely criticized impeachment trial of Clinton, for “doing what he thought was in the best interest of the country . . . not in the best interest of Jim Rogan.”

For Kuykendall, McCain promised to return to walk precincts, participate in town hall meetings and do “whatever he wants me to do.”

“There’s a clear difference between the candidates,” McCain said, referring to former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman, who held the seat for three terms before giving it up to run for governor two years ago.

McCain praised Kuykendall as someone who “has served his country for [more than] 25 years,” first in the Marines, then as a Rancho Palos Verdes councilman, an assemblyman and a congressman who shares such GOP-embraced values as low taxes and small government.