Presidential Hopes Bring Out Democratic Donors

While Republicans have been raising money in Orange County in $100,000 chunks, local Democrats have been finding hundreds of new contributors who have helped finance the most extensive Democratic presidential campaign in recent memory.

Many contributors were excited by Democratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis’ early lead in the polls and by Dukakis’ pledge to fight for every vote in heavily GOP Orange County. The candidate has followed through on that with numerous campaign appearances in the county and by opening up seven regional offices here.

Another thing that is different this year is that county Democratic leaders told the Dukakis campaign that they thought they could raise more money if it were returned to the Orange County effort.

They were assured that it would be, and that led to an all-out effort to get about 40 county Democrats to a $750-per-person fund-raiser Sept. 30 in San Francisco, raising nearly $54,000 that was funneled back to the county for voter registration drives, get-out-the-vote efforts and other activities.

Audrey Redfearn, who organized Orange County residents for the San Francisco event, said, “What I see is we have a group that is supportive at all times, who will go that extra mile.”

Among them are former state party chairman Richard J. O’Neill of San Juan Capistrano, county Democratic activist Howard Adler of Laguna Hills, and developer Michael Ray of J. Ray Construction. All have made contributions of thousands of dollars and have tirelessly raised money for Dukakis and other Democratic candidates, primarily within the county.

One Orange County resident, Mercury Savings founder Leonard Shane, has contributed $50,000 to the Democratic Party for Dukakis’ campaign since the party’s national convention last summer. He seems to be alone in that category of givers in Orange County, however, according to Democratic sources.

Said Redfearn: “We don’t have people here who write checks for $50,000, $100,000.” Indeed, raising money locally for Dukakis has been difficult because there are no Democratic players in Orange County on the scale of those on the Republican side.

As a result, said Nikolas Patsaouras of Los Angeles, one of Dukakis’ key fund-raisers in California, “we did not raise serious money in Orange County.”