Project ’90 Raises Money but Not Hopes

Started by three prominent Orange County Republicans early last year, Project ’90 was designed to raise enough money to help the GOP wrest the Assembly majority from Democrats before the redistricting after the 1990 census.

And raise money it did, netting about $700,000, primarily from two major events: an auction at an estate in Santa Ana Heights and a reception at the Irvine Hilton, where Gov. George Deukmejian was speaker. The money was distributed in $25,000 chunks to GOP candidates in races around the state where Republicans thought they had a chance of capturing a seat.

But things did not go so well last November. Instead of gaining three seats or more in the 80-member Assembly as hoped, the GOP lost three seats, putting the Democratic majority at 47 to 33. It is a setback so huge that the project has been all but abandoned.

“The disappointment was that this is the year that probably more money than ever was raised for (Republican) legislative campaigns and for party support,” said Kenneth L. Khachigian of San Clemente, a former speech writer for President Reagan who was a strong supporter of Project ’90. “And we fell short.”

So resounding was the defeat on Election Day that the project even became somewhat of a joke. In Sacramento, irreverent GOP staff members began calling it “31 in ‘91”--a play on the original “41 in ‘91” motto. There was an even worse joke whose punch line was that Project ’90 was actually a hoped-for parole date for one of the Republicans investigated as part of an FBI sting operation in Sacramento.

More seriously, there are concerns that Project ’90 may have failed because the campaigns were poorly executed, or that the conservatives who ran the campaigns were too partisan to select candidates who could win in anything but a heavily Republican district.

Since November, GOP attention has shifted to electing a GOP successor to Deukmejian. That would provide the veto needed to guard against a partisan Democratic plan. (Democrats also control the state Senate by a strong 24-15 majority; there is one Independent Party member.)

Project ’90 was started by John Cronin, Doy Henley and Buck Johns, all members of the Lincoln Club, a prestigious Orange County GOP support group. The three men decided that Republicans talked a lot about the need to have a GOP majority in the Assembly, but no one was doing much about it.

The three believed so strongly in the effort that they personally guaranteed a $200,000 loan to add to the half a million raised from other sources. The balance on the group’s December campaign contribution statement was $20.58. Loan payments begin March 29.

Given that balance sheet, it is not surprising that the Project ’90 founders intend to move forward with fund-raising.

“I know it does look bleak, but I say we have to continue on and continue to try to find a way to win what we can,” Henley said, adding, “For goodness sakes, we can’t give up, can we?”

Henley allowed that, with the wisdom of hindsight, Project ’90 money might have been better used “on trying to raise people’s consciousness more.”

Still, at least among a circle of partisan Republicans, Project ’90 did call attention to reapportionment at a much earlier time in the process.

“The whole thing contrasts with 1979, when no one was focusing on this at all,” said former state Republican Party Chairman Bob Naylor.