Threat of Indictment Fails to Halt Pat Nolan : Assembly: The six-term lawmaker runs a carefully executed campaign to divert attention from a federal inquiry. He defeats Jeanette Mann by a 55% to 39% margin.

It ended as Glendale Republican election campaigns are supposed to end, in a high-spirited party at the Verdugo Club, hangout of the city’s business and political set. Once again, 41st District Assemblyman Pat Nolan had whisked aside a Democratic challenger, this time beating Jeanette Mann by a 55% to 39% margin.

But, unlike Nolan’s victories of the recent past, this one was built on a long and carefully executed campaign designed to counter the stigma of a threatened federal indictment.

Nolan was one of four legislators whose Sacramento offices were searched by the FBI in an August, 1988, raid on the Capitol following a sting operation in which campaign contributions were made by representatives of a phony company seeking legislative favors.

Though he has not been charged, Nolan is still targeted, sources in the federal prosecutors’ offices have said.

After winning the Democratic primary, challenger Mann, a Pasadena College trustee, promised a gritty campaign focused on the FBI sting.

Nolan’s counterattack, however, had long preceded the primary season. It began in February when Gov. George Deukmejian flew to Los Angeles to lavish praise on Nolan at his campaign kickoff. It climaxed last month with Nolan greeting President Bush at Los Angeles International Airport.

In between, Nolan visited constituents regularly as his high-profile campaign staff built a volunteer organization of 500. The 40-year-old, six-term veteran even personally phoned constituents who raised the subject of the FBI investigation with campaign callers.

A longtime proponent of the death penalty--a popular issue in the conservative district--Nolan took a shot at Mann even before she had won her primary, castigating her comment before a Democratic group that she had once wept outside a prison as a man was executed.

By election night, Nolan was buoyant with optimism even before the first returns came in.

“I’ve been out with the voters a lot,” he said. “I know the response we’re getting, which has been strong. We’ve put together the most efficient precinct organization in the whole state.”

Meanwhile, the failure of the anticipated indictment to appear left Mann’s campaign at the starting gate. Although she carried endorsements from ACT, an influential Pasadena political action group, and secured pledges from numerous individual donors, Mann failed to attract the infusion of Democratic Party money she had counted on.

Her only campaign event was a news conference late last month at which she blamed Nolan, an architect of the state’s banking deregulation legislation, for the savings and loan failures.

There was no discernible effect. Nolan’s 55% was 3 percentage points less than his showing in 1988, but 13,000 still uncounted absentee ballots may slice that difference, said his campaign manager, Jeff Flint.