Lagomarsino Bracing for a Thorny Fight : Politics: Michael Huffington, a major GOP donor, is taking on the congressman in a contest Republicans from Ventura to Washington have tried to stop.

In a classic struggle between new money and old loyalties, Republicans from Ventura to the nation’s capital have tried without luck to avert one of the thorniest intraparty battles in California congressional politics this year.

Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino of Ventura, a senior Republican with loyal friends throughout party ranks, faces the primary challenge of his political career from Michael R. Huffington of Montecito, a baby boomer who is among the nation’s wealthiest donors to the Republican Party.

Lagomarsino left his hometown to seek reelection in a new Santa Barbara-based congressional district at the urging of Gov. Pete Wilson and political strategists in the White House and Congress.

Party leaders wanted him to avoid a primary clash with his protege, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley). The two incumbents were tossed into the same Ventura County district under the state Supreme Court’s redesign of political districts.

But neither Lagomarsino nor GOP strategists realized that Huffington would also lay claim to the new district covering Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Beginning last week, Huffington greeted Lagomarsino’s move with a barrage of campaign ads aired during television’s prime-time coverage of the Winter Olympics. This fabulously wealthy businessman and former Reagan Administration deputy assistant secretary of defense plans to announce his candidacy Wednesday.

“In my wildest dreams, I never thought he would take on a valued Republican member like Bob Lagomarsino,” said Rep. David Dreier (R-La Verne), who urged Huffington to consider running before it became clear that Lagomarsino would be the opponent.

“I have spent a lot of time encouraging people to contact Michael to get him to pull out,” Dreier added.

Huffington acknowledges receiving calls about the race from Dreier, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) and even Vice President Dan Quayle.

But such pressure has done nothing to melt his resolve. Despite his youthful age of 44, Huffington is a man of considerable stature in business and political circles. His father, Roy, is the U. S. ambassador to Austria and one of Fortune magazine’s richest men in America with an estimated worth of $390 million. His wife, Arianna, is an author and socialite in Los Angeles, New York and London.

“Many congressmen back in Washington have done almost anything they could to keep me from running,” Huffington said in an interview. “It is like the old Communist Party system where they pre-select only one candidate to present to the voters.”

Huffington declines to reveal the size of his personal fortune, derived from a merchant bank he started in the late 1970s and his share of the family’s Houston oil and gas firm sold to Taiwanese interests in 1990.

“Over a certain amount, it becomes meaningless,” he said. “I’m in that category. I have no financial needs that cannot be met.”

Huffington makes it clear that he will spend what it takes to win his congressional race.

In the first month of his campaign, he began to assemble a collection of the best political consultants money can buy. He has hired a polling firm used by President Bush’s campaign and Don Ringe, the media consultant who worked for the short-lived presidential campaign of Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.).

He has also employed Michael D. Meyers, a direct-mail wizard who helped put together the California Republican Party’s absentee ballot program that turned out the winning margin of voters for Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren in 1990.

Huffington has had greater difficulty finding a general campaign manager. Initially, he wanted Marty Wilson, a partner in the prestigious Spencer-Roberts firm, which helped run Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns.

But the firm dropped Huffington after House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.) and Lewis approached Stu Spencer on the golf course in Palm Springs during the Bob Hope Classic last month.

Spencer said it didn’t take any pressure to drop Huffington as a client. After all, he said, Spencer-Roberts handled Lagomarsino’s first race for state Senate in 1960.

“I don’t think Republicans can afford to run against sitting Republican incumbents,” Spencer said. “It is a waste of resources.”

Huffington also tried to hire Joe Weber, the chief California strategist for the National Republican Congressional Committee. Weber, a younger brother of Rep. Vin Weber (R-Minn.), turned him down, despite an offer of $100,000 to manage the campaign, with $25,000 bonuses in the event of Huffington victories in the June primary and November general election.

Some Lagomarsino supporters act appalled at Huffington’s largess.

“He has been throwing his money everywhere,” said one Republican congressman who requested anonymity. “That may ingratiate him with some folks, but other folks think that is not what democracy is all about.”

In recent weeks, Huffington has donated $10,000 to the Santa Barbara County Republican Central Committee and $50,000 to help former Los Angeles County Supervisor Pete Schabarum qualify a ballot proposition that would limit terms for members of Congress.

“In my opinion, it is a leveraged buyout of the Republican Party,” said Michael Long, a Lagomarsino campaign aide.

Huffington said he is aware of such complaints and he also hears Republicans boast that Lagomarsino will bury him on Election Day. If that is true, he said, why should anyone care if he wastes his own money?

Lagomarsino begins his reelection campaign widely recognized among voters after a quarter-century as a state senator and congressman. Before the recent remapping of political boundaries, his district covered all of Santa Barbara County for 25 years and portions of San Luis Obispo County for eight years.

Lagomarsino’s pollster conducted a public opinion survey in December that showed he had higher name recognition (94%) in the new 22nd Congressional District than any public official other than President Bush (97%).

Furthermore, Lagomarsino said 78% of likely Republican voters give him a favorable rating, with only a 6% unfavorable rating. His scores were 5% higher than those of the President.

Despite the early advantage, the 65-year-old lawmaker has not begun to slow down. He returns every weekend from Washington to campaign, concentrating on the new political turf in San Luis Obispo County.

Lagomarsino recently leased a condominium in Shell Beach, a little town near Pismo Beach, and vows to make the best of his situation.

“I don’t feel set up, but I am disappointed,” Lagomarsino said. “I don’t think Huffington is going to back off no matter what happens.”

Lagomarsino has begun to raise money for his cash-starved campaign. As of Dec. 31, his campaign had only $57,000 in the bank, with $27,000 in debts. Moreover, he has been lining up endorsements from local officials to the President.

At a White House briefing before the State of the Union address, Bush caught Lagomarsino’s eye and the congressman says the President seemed fully apprised of the primary challenge.

“He saw me and said, ‘I want to tell you I’m for you,’ ” Lagomarsino said. He took that as verbal endorsement because Andy Card, White House deputy chief of staff, had delivered the same message earlier.

“Certainly, I’m orchestrating all the support I’m getting,” Lagomarsino said. “I have supported and stuck my neck out for these people for a lot of years. It would be stupid to tell the President or vice president I want them to support the other guy.”

Yet there appear to be limits to the endorsements or the ability of old-guard Republicans to squeeze Huffington too hard. Huffington is an influential member of Team 100, a group of the nation’s richest Republicans who donate $100,000 to the party every election year.

Wilson, for instance, has decided to remain above the fray, aides said, even though he nudged Lagomarsino to move up the coast. Huffington has been a valued Wilson supporter, hosting a fund-raiser for Wilson’s 1990 gubernatorial campaign at the Huffingtons’ Florentine-style mansion in Montecito. Lagomarsino attended the affair.

Huffington also raised a stink when Lagomarsino received the endorsement of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which makes hefty contributions to embattled incumbents.

The committee had asked Team 100 members to reopen their pocketbooks this year, and Huffington raised the issue at a meeting of Team 100 members held in billionaire developer David Murdock’s house in Bel-Air.

“I objected to them using our money in the primary to defeat me,” Huffington said. His protest sparked a firestorm of complaints from some of the party’s biggest donors, Republican sources said. Huffington withdrew his own pledge of $15,000 to the committee.

“It was a stupid, stupid move,” said one highly placed Republican source, referring to the committee’s endorsement of Lagomarsino over Huffington. “No one ever hesitated to ask him for money. Now they think it is unpardonable that he wants to run for office.”

Ironically, Huffington learned some of his political skills at the congressional committee’s candidate school in December. The seminar held on Capitol Hill teaches would-be candidates how to run an effective campaign by attacking an incumbent, presumably a Democrat.

Huffington’s campaign message is one of an outsider, bashing Congress and throwing Lagomarsino into the mix.

“Too many people have scratched each other’s backs in Congress and, as a result, we have a $400-billion (annual) debt,” Huffington said. “We can’t afford that anymore. It’s time for a change.”

Huffington has found other issues too. He stresses his support for abortion rights, whereas Lagomarsino is a staunch abortion opponent.

Also, Huffington opposes any additional oil drilling off the California coast, despite the fact that his family earned a fortune in the oil and gas industry.

Lagomarsino favors more offshore oil production to help meet the nation’s energy needs. But he considers it unfair to concentrate all of the development in the Santa Barbara Channel.

Huffington seems to relish the attention he is getting in Republican circles.

“As I understand it, the race is the talk of Washington and Sacramento right now,” he said.

His motive for running, he said, is that he has been extraordinarily successful as a businessman and wants to give something back to society.

“I want to go beyond being a donor,” Huffington said. “Giving money to charities is fine. But I have a high level of energy and I want to serve.”

And although he is not looking for an offer from the White House, he said nothing short of presidential intervention will influence his decision.

“If the President asked me to do something he thought was important for the interest of the country, I would consider it,” Huffington said. “That is the only thing that would give me pause.”