Senate Primary Slugfest Was State’s Costliest : Politics: Nearly $2 million spent by Hayden, Rosenthal and O’Neill, finance reports show. Hayden, who scored razor-thin win, spent $875,135 largely out of his own pocket.

In the end, it was the costliest legislative primary fight in the state. More than $2 million was spent in the Democratic primary slugfest between Assemblyman Tom Hayden, state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal and public relations consultant Catherine O’Neill.

The price of political combat became starkly apparent last week after the filing of the latest campaign finance statements in the race for a newly drawn state Senate seat shared by the Westside and the San Fernando Valley.

Although Hayden deluged voters with wave after wave of expensive mailers before scoring a razor-thin win, he was outspent by Rosenthal, who mounted his own mail assault during the final days before the June 2 primary.

Through the first six months of the year, Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles) reported spending $981,325 on his campaign, only to narrowly lose the toughest challenge of his long legislative career.

Hayden (D-Santa Monica), whose political future also was on the line, spent $875,135 to move from the Assembly to the Senate.

Unable to match that kind of campaign money, O’Neill, a resident of Pacific Palisades , ran a distant third in spending at $199,013. She also finished last in the vote count.

After an exchange of campaign hit-pieces, Hayden and Rosenthal battled to a near photo finish. It was not until the last absentee ballots were counted two weeks after the election that Hayden’s victory--by 580 votes--was assured.

The battleground was the newly drawn 23rd Senate District that runs from Hollywood to Malibu before crossing the Santa Monica Mountains and taking in the lower San Fernando Valley from Studio City to Woodland Hills. The territory is so heavily Democratic in voter registration that no Republican even ventured onto the primary ballot.

But determined not to let Hayden go unchallenged in the fall, Republican Leonard McRoskey quietly mounted and won a GOP write-in campaign. By the end of June, McRoskey, a former Reagan Administration official, had spent $8,860 of his own money on his Senate campaign. He will face Hayden in November.

The campaign contribution reports underscored sharp differences in the financial support for each of the candidates.

Hayden raised $824,469, but to an extraordinary degree, the wealthy former anti-war activist financed his campaign out of his own pocket.

In all, Hayden loaned $597,000 to the Senate race. His political organization, Campaign California, donated $100,000 in cash and paid $13,379 for campaign workers. The group is underwritten in part from the proceeds of the early workout videotapes of Hayden’s ex-wife, actress Jane Fonda.

Hayden said he is fortunate to have the money to wage high-priced political campaigns. “I’m not going to sit on it until my old age,” he said. “I’m going to spend it on what I believe in.

“I’m in a unique and unusual situation,” he said. “One of a kind.”

Hayden’s largest contribution in the final weeks of the campaign came from actress Sharyn Leavitt of Sherman Oaks, who gave $5,000. Aveda, a hair and skin care products manufacturer, donated $3,000, and the political arm of the Teamsters Union sent $2,000.

Without the personal wealth to draw on, Rosenthal relied heavily on traditional sources of campaign cash--special interest groups in Sacramento.

The senator raised a total of $787,834 in the first six months of the year. As the campaign grew more intense, he installed a special phone in his Capitol office to make fund-raising calls to lobbyists and political action committees. “Every PAC or group that I’ve asked has been supportive,” Rosenthal said in an interview a week before the election.

Contributions flowed in from utilities, oil companies and cable television firms with an interest in legislation before the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee, which Rosenthal chairs.

Checks also came from a broad array of political action committees representing such interests as labor unions, trial lawyers, developers, horse racetracks, tobacco companies, doctors, nurses, hospitals, pharmacists, optometrists, chiropractors and motion picture companies.

More than a dozen of Rosenthal’s Democratic colleagues in the state Senate made contributions and loans in excess of $190,000.

And, in the days just before and after the election, Rosenthal received a heavy infusion of campaign cash from his allies in the Westside Democratic political organization headed by Reps. Henry A. Waxman of Los Angeles and Howard L. Berman of Panorama City.

Berman donated $90,001, Waxman provided $50,000, Assemblyman Burt Margolin (D-Los Angeles) gave $47,500, Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman (D-Los Angeles) sent $27,500 and Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Los Angeles) added $12,500.

Looking back on the campaign, Rosenthal said last week that it is unfortunate that so much money had to be spent on the race.

“I was just trying to match what the opposition was doing,” he said. “It’s terrible--there are a lot better places for this kind of money.”

O’Neill, an outspoken critic of the way elections are financed in California, collected a total of $215,939 for her campaign.

Much of her support came from women’s groups, including the National Women’s Political Caucus and the California chapter of the National Organization for Women.

In the final weeks of the campaign, her largest checks--$2,000 each--came from R. D. Voit of Woodland Hills, investor William Graham of Brentwood and Joan Palevsky of Los Angeles.

After the bombast of the campaign subsided, all three campaigns wound up in debt. Rosenthal reported $100,000 is owed to BAD Campaigns, the Beverly Hills-based political operation of the Waxman-Berman forces. Hayden had $29,559 in unpaid bills and O’Neill listed $19,930.

California Common Cause policy analyst Kim Alexander said the 23rd Senate District race was the most expensive legislative primary contest in the state this spring.

“This is definitely a good example of why we need public financing for campaigns,” Alexander said.

Hayden spent more of his own money than any other candidate for the Legislature, she said. “The amount of personal money that Hayden put into his race was astounding.”

On the other hand, Alexander noted that Rosenthal received much of his money from peers in the Senate and political allies in the Waxman-Berman camp.

Although O’Neill raised $215,939, she was unable to raise enough to compete with the two big spenders. “If there had been public financing,” Alexander said, “O’Neill would have been able to be competitive.”

In an interview last week, Hayden repeated his call for fundamental changes in the way campaigns are financed in California. “The political process is completely running out of credibility,” he said.

Hayden acknowledged that his own wealth affords him a chance to compete in high-stakes campaigns. “It’s no way to reform the system, but at least I put my money where my mouth is. The system remains to be reformed.”

He vowed to play a role in backing a campaign reform initiative in 1994.

Rosenthal said he does not know the answer to the high cost of political campaigns. “I don’t know how to solve the problem,” he said. “I think it is unfortunate that as much money is being spent” as it is. But Rosenthal said public financing of political campaigns is not a solution because “kooky organizations” and candidates could qualify for matching funds.

Meanwhile, campaign finance statements filed in other Westside races provide a preview of the political clashes coming this fall.

In the 41st Assembly District that runs from Santa Monica to Malibu and from Encino to Woodland Hills, Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman has a substantial early advantage in campaign resources.

The three-term lawmaker had a combined total of more than $175,000 in the treasury of his two political committees at the end of June.

By comparison, his Republican challenger, former Santa Monica Councilwoman Christine Reed, had $7,649 in cash on hand after an expensive primary campaign against a crowded field of GOP rivals.

To the south, in the 53rd Assembly District that stretches along the coast from Venice through the South Bay to the edge of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Republican Brad Parton and Democrat Debra Bowen had relatively little money in their campaign treasuries.

After defeating five other Republicans in the GOP primary, Parton, the mayor of Redondo Beach, had just $1,518 in campaign cash on hand at the end of June. Bowen, a Marina del Rey lawyer, had $7,562 to finance her bid.