CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS CONGRESS : GOP Can’t Block Stiff Challenge to Lagomarsino

Robert J. Lagomarsino is a veteran congressman from Ventura with loyal friends throughout the Republican Party. Michael R. Huffington is a political newcomer from Santa Barbara, a baby boomer who is among the nation’s wealthiest donors to the GOP.

Republicans from here to the nation’s capital have tried without luck to avert a primary contest between these two candidates. But the race promises to be one of the thorniest intraparty battles in California congressional politics this year, a classic struggle between old loyalties and new money.

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

Party leaders wanted him to avoid a primary clash with his protege, Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley). The two incumbents were tossed last month 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 also would 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 immensely wealthy businessman and former Ronald Reagan Administration deputy assistant secretary of defense plans to announce his candidacy today.

“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. Huffington, 44, is a man of considerable stature in business and political circles. His father, Roy Huffington, 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, which was 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 George 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 campaign manager. Initially, he wanted Marty Wilson, a partner in Spencer-Roberts & Associates, the high-powered Irvine firm that among other races helped run Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaigns.

But the firm dropped Huffington after House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel and Lewis approached Stu Spencer on the golf course in Palm Springs during the Bob Hope Chrysler 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.

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

Lagomarsino’s pollster found in December that he had higher name recognition (94%) in the new 22nd Congressional District than any public official other than President Bush (97%) and that 78% of likely Republican voters gave him a favorable rating.

Despite that advantage, the 65-year-old lawmaker returns each 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.”