CAMPAIGN ’88 : Deukmejian War Chest Helps National Ticket

Gov. George Deukmejian, who has been aggressively campaigning throughout California for George Bush, has contributed $400,000 from his own political treasury to underwrite the GOP’s efforts to carry the state.

A spokesman for the Bush organization said the money was donated to the Republican Party’s Victory 88 organization, which is primarily responsible for get-out-the-vote efforts on behalf of the national ticket as well as targeted legislative races.

Deukmejian also plans to tape radio commercials for Bush that will air in most of the state beginning next week.

The Republican governor has traveled with Bush aboard Air Force Two during all of the vice president’s recent California campaign swings and has made more than a half-dozen appearances on his own. The object has been to attract “swing voters,” in this case voters in Democratic regions who supported Deukmejian in his 1986 race against Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.

“I have not seen the governor this motivated since his 1986 election,” said Steven A. Merksamer, Deukmejian’s former chief of staff, now a lawyer in private practice.

Deukmejian tends to be particularly tight-fisted with his own campaign money. But like all California politicians, the governor found himself up against new restrictions to be implemented Jan. 1 that will effectively prevent him from spending most of the money on a future campaign of his own. That is because the rules for raising political money in California will change under Proposition 73, which was approved by voters in the June primary.