Veteran O.C. political advisor answers yet another call for aid

Ken Khachigian already had a job and plenty to do. But in his heart of hearts, he always hopes the phones will start ringing when presidential politics is in the air.

And, as they have so many times before, they did.

The first call came early this year from the Mitt Romney people, who wondered whether Khachigian, a former advisor to presidents Reagan and Nixon and presidential hopefuls Bob Dole and John McCain, was signed on for the 2008 campaign. He said he wasn’t, but nothing came of the Romney overture, which included a conversation with the candidate.

Then, on May 30, an old friend called with the same question, but this time wondering if Khachigian would consider joining the budding Fred Thompson presidential team. Khachigian met Thompson in the early 1970s and had good feelings about him. He said he’d think it over, but before Khachigian had a chance to make a return call, the Thompson camp called back and wanted an answer.

The large sheaf of papers this week on Khachigian’s law office desk in San Clemente tell you that his answer was yes. Khachigian signed on, without pay, to advise the Thompson campaign on strategy, campaign themes and media. The notebook on his desk appears to have several dozen sheets or scraps of paper in it, the stuff of either brilliant political thoughts or forgettable musings.

Such is the nature of advising on presidential campaigns, where a brainstorm can hit at any moment and must be jotted down. It is turf the 62-year-old Khachigian knows well. And if he’s a bit past the doing-cartwheels stage, he’s still looking at the next several months with relish.

Sure, it’s passion, he says. Why else do it and not get paid? And this will be the first time since 2000, when he advised McCain, that he has ties to a national campaign.

“Hey, it’s been 40 years I’ve been doing this,” he says, “so when the fire bell rings, you harness up. You’re at a level where there’s such enormous satisfaction. How many people get to work in a national presidential campaign?”

Just a few weeks into the job and with a candidate who hasn’t even announced yet, just what is it that Khachigian is doing?

“Just making notes like this,” he says, thumbing through his papers, “notes, thoughts that I’ll want to put in a memo in the next couple weeks. Anywhere from positions he might want to take, to how to position himself. I’ve given [Thompson advisors ] some thoughts on what he might say in his kickoff speech.”

The genesis of those thoughts came to him months ago when picturing what he thought Candidate X might say to launch a campaign. So he jotted down notes.

“One of my best speeches for Reagan, believe it or not,” he says, “started on a napkin in Clyde’s [a Georgetown bar and grill].”

As an unpaid advisor who’s keeping his day job as a law office partner, Khachigian won’t be close enough to physically whisper into Thompson’s ear. From long distance, free advice may be worth just that to those who will have the candidate’s ear. “They may ignore everything I say,” Khachigian says, “but at least you’re contributing. It’s going to someone. I met with Fred last Tuesday, one on one, and we had a chat about what he intends to do, and he asked me about previous campaigns with Reagan and what-not, and I chatted about my own thoughts about considerations he ought to be making.”

Because the men know each other and have reputations that precede them, that kind of thing is done informally. And in this early going, it is perhaps more important for Khachigian to re-connect with his old friend than for Thompson to grasp Khachigian’s inner workings.

That’s because a candidate’s best advice comes from advisors who understand who he or she really is. Corny as it sounds, it matters. “Sometimes, it’s just to hear the voice,” Khachigian says, in a general observation that would apply to Thompson. “How he phrases things. With Reagan, it took me a week to 10 days in 1980 before I got into the groove with him.”

Khachigian was a speechwriter then (something he won’t do with Thompson), and he needed to listen to Reagan and observe the editing he did with the speeches to get a handle on him.

He’s not all the way there yet with Thompson, but Khachigian has an outline. “What you’re trying to do is get a sense of place, where they come from,” he says. With Reagan, his small-town Illinois roots spread outward to his baseball announcing and his acting career and to his lecturing. Eventually, Khachigian says, “You got a real sense of where he came from.”

Likewise, Thompson came from a small town in Tennessee and became a lawyer and a U.S. senator and, sprinkled along the way, a movie and TV actor. Khachigian thinks he has an instinct for what Thompson is all about, “but I’d like to hear it from him. The more time I spend with him the better I’ll get to know him. It’ll be up to them.”

Khachigian already has offered advice. In one instance, he referred campaign advisors to a Wall Street Journal article he thought Thompson should read. In another, he drew their attention to “some serious accusations” against Thompson that attempted to undercut his conservative credentials.

One major national poll shows Thompson already leading the GOP field. Khachigian thinks he has a definite shot at winning the White House. And if it appears next year that Thompson will be the Republican candidate, Khachigian says he’ll likely carve out a larger block of time for the push to the White House.

So, easy does it in July 2007 and full speed ahead -- maybe -- next year. Even now, Khachigian says, his family can tell he’s a bit more fired up than usual, that maybe they hear the gears grinding a bit more in his head.

Does it feel the same as the old days with Nixon and Reagan? “I feel the same mental passion in my head,” he says. “My energy levels are not what they used to be. There’s no such thing as political Viagra. I’m not cynical about it, but it’s not gee-whiz anymore. It was 40 years ago, and maybe even 30 and 20 years ago, but right now it’s just something I know how to do and want to do. I’m a little more relaxed about it, let’s put it that way.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.