GOP Hopes Hillary Sits Out Boxer’s Next Fight

Two million and counting -- and gloating.

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer has some cool $2 million banked for her reelection campaign next year -- a number that sounds big but is leaving Republicans gleeful that “Bill and Hillary can’t bail her out this time.”

Why, Sen. Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat also running for reelection, already has more than $2 million, and we’re talking Nevada.

In 1998, Hillary Rodham Clinton helped to raise more than $1 million for Boxer, who is her sort-of sister-in-law; Boxer’s daughter is married to one of Sen. Clinton’s brothers.

But now, the Republicans say, Senator C. is busy raising her own campaign dough.

The fund-raising yardstick is really more like a slide rule. We’re now about 18 months before the November 2004 election; by June 1998, five months before Boxer’s last election, she had $3.9 million ... and her campaign wound up with more than $12 million. (EMILY’S List, which supports pro-choice women Democrats, raised nearly $1 million for Boxer in 1998 and supports her again.)

Hollywood Greenlights Democratic Hopefuls

Silver screen, golden goods. The latest river of Hollywood-to-Washington money to Democratic presidential candidates sorts into these streams:

Actor and “Seinfeld” creator Larry David gave $2,000 each to former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

Others still playing the presidential field with more than one donations: Actor Peter Coyote, $500 to Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and $250 to Dean; Westwood One Radio founder Norman Pattiz, $1,000 each to the quintet of Dean, Edwards, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt; and billionaire media mogul Haim Saban, $1,000 each to the same group, sans Lieberman. The latest one-candidate men are Alec Baldwin and Quincy Jones, writing $1,000 checks to Kerry.

That’s the Story, and He’s Sticking to It

He’s not changing chairs -- at least not for now, and not that chair.

Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson (D-Culver City) addressed the political furniture future, telling The Times that rumors of his maneuvering to have a go at the L.A. County supervisor seat of Yvonne Brathwaite Burke next year are not true.

“It’s kind of unfair for people to imply that that’s why I’m doing certain things,” said Wesson, who is termed out at the end of 2004. “Supervisor Burke is running for reelection, and I have endorsed her.”

“So a lot of this is just hooey. She’s running for reelection in 2004, and I have endorsed her. So something will come up. What, I don’t know. It’ll be in public service. And you don’t have to be elected to be a public servant. I just like what I do.” And he can do it until he’s termed out at the end of next year.

That Was Then, This Is Now

You-know-where hath no fury like Orange County Republicans who feel betrayed, a fact not lost on Cristi Cristich.

She’s the Newport Beach businesswoman who made the county GOP’s Most Wanted list in 1996 when she endorsed Bill Clinton for reelection.

Now Cristich wants to run for the 70th Assembly District next year and finds she has a lot of ‘splaining to do about why she hosted an October 1996 press conference to back Clinton, whose policies on women’s issues, trade and the environment attracted many Republicans, Cristich included.

She’s brushed off her endorsement as the misguided judgment of a political neophyte -- she was 34 -- and vows never to support another Democrat again. Moreover, she’s polishing up her GOP apple by heading up Orange County’s Gray Davis recall committee, as a recent press release says. The announcement points out that she was “deeply involved” -- $6,000 deep, from her pockets to GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon’s campaign.

Points Taken

* Vietnam redux? Trees are encircled with yellow ribbons, and nearly eight in 10 Californians told Times pollsters they support the Iraq war, but Lancaster Republican Assemblywoman Sharon Runner is taking no chances. Remembering incidents after the Vietnam War, when returning soldiers found themselves spat upon and insulted, she has proposed a bill to make it a hate crime to assault or abuse a soldier because he or she is a soldier.

* L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who was jogging in Cuba when he was “pantsed” as a prank by a teenage girl, wants it known that he wasn’t in Cuba on a government-paid trip but with a USC group.

* For its first “Livable Community” awards, the American Foundation for the Blind has named Berkeley the second-most livable city for those with sight disabilities. In first place, Charlotte, N.C.

* With the state Supreme Court ruling that Alameda and L.A. counties can ban gun shows and sales on their property, Marin County has banned firearms and ammunition on county land. The ordinance doesn’t specify the county’s annual gun show but would have the effect of ending it.

* A $5-million “Slow for the Cone Zone” awareness campaign has been put in motion by Gov. Gray Davis, who asked Californians to remember the 158 state highway workers killed on the job since 1924. Caltrans holds an annual Workers Memorial ceremony on the Capitol grounds to honor them.

* The arrest of business consultant, FBI informant and sometimes Republican campaign donor Katrina Leung on charges of being a double agent has given the state Democratic Party’s trickster Bob Mulholland a chance to take another swing at losing GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon. Mulholland noted that Simon’s campaign reported getting $4,000 from Leung, but says Leung’s own report shows that she gave $4,200. Mulholland suggested that Simon rectify the discrepancy “before potential Republican candidates in your next race start referring to you as ‘BB,’ ” meaning Beijing Billy, which Mulholland spells “Bejing.”

* A billboard reading “Would you eat a panda? Don’t eat endangered sea turtle!” was unveiled by Wildcoast, a San Diego advocacy group trying to discourage visitors to Baja California from eating the endangered reptiles. A spokeswoman said Easter is an especially deadly time for the turtles because people mistakenly consider turtle meat an acceptable Lenten substitute for other meat.

You Can Quote Me

“There is a lot of tire-kicking going on right now. Several people are considering it.”

-- Michael Der Manouel Jr., a GOP strategist who, with other Republicans, is auditioning replacement candidates for Clovis Assemblyman Steve Samuelian, whose reelection prospects, they believe, were tarnished by Samuelian’s having been stopped by Fresno police in a state-leased car in a part of town frequented by prostitutes. The city attorney did not cite him because of insufficient evidence.

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Patt Morrison’s columns appear Mondays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is patt.morrison@latimes.com. This week’s contributors include Nick Anderson, Mark Z. Barabak, Michael Finnegan, Jean O. Pasco, Beth Shuster and Nancy Vogel.