McClintock Outpaces GOP Rivals in Fund-Raising

With contributions from throughout California fattening his campaign bankroll, conservative Assembly candidate Tom McClintock is financially outpacing his Republican rivals in the race for the seat being vacated by Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills).

McClintock, a former assemblyman attempting a political comeback, picked up $145,883 during the first six weeks of this year, including $100,000 in loans from conservative legislators and a political action committee that want him back in office.

The remaining donations for the March 26 election come from a list of contributors McClintock developed during his decade in the Assembly and his unsuccessful campaigns for state controller and a congressional seat.

“Tom McClintock has been here before, and we are looking for someone of his experience,” said state Sen. Maurice Johannessen (R-Redding), who lent McClintock’s campaign $25,000.

Assemblyman Bernie Richter (R-Chico) made a $50,000 loan to McClintock and a new political action committee, called Taxpayers for Better Education, lent $20,000, according to new campaign disclosure statements.

The conservative PAC wants big changes in California’s public education system, such as instituting a state tax credit to subsidize parents who send their children to private schools. The group is being supported by McClintock supporter John Walton of San Diego, a billionaire scion of the Wal-Mart family fortune.

McClintock said he solicited the loans, trading on his reputation in Sacramento as a conservative activist and the political help he provided to both Richter and Johannessen in previous election campaigns.

“We share a common goal of cementing a Republican majority in the state Legislature,” McClintock said of his largest contributors.

McClintock’s campaign statements do not show any contributions from the Independent Business PAC, a group that inspired McClintock’s last-minute jump into the race in the 38th Assembly District in December.

“It doesn’t appear that we are going to need to call on their resources in this race,” McClintock said of the group closely affiliated with Senate GOP leader Rob Hurtt of Garden Grove.

Boland, who has served in the Assembly for six years, must step down at the end of this year because of voter-imposed term limits. She is running for a state Senate seat in the 21st District, which represents the San Fernando Valley.

Most legislative candidates try to amass piles of campaign cash so that they can pepper the district’s households with political mailers and pay for other advertising to grab voters who rarely pay much attention to these races.

But McClintock’s success in accumulating donations statewide has invited criticism from competitors, who accuse him of being beholden to interests outside the 38th Assembly District, which stretches from Fillmore and Simi Valley into the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys.

“I’m only going to answer to the voters of the 38th District,” said Bob Larkin, one of six Republicans vying for the Assembly seat. “I’m not going to owe my vote to anyone else.”

Larkin, a Simi Valley insurance agent, raised $16,590 from Jan. 1 to Feb. 10, the time period covered by the most recent campaign finance statements.

That was slightly less than Ross Hopkins, a Canoga Park businessman, who raised $18,324 during the same period.

Hopkins, whose campaign theme is that he’s “a businessman, not a politician,” said he is concerned about big donors stepping in from Sacramento to tilt the race results.

“It’s obvious the professional politicians are shifting money around to elect one of their own,” he said.

McClintock responds to his critics this way: “For 10 years in the state Assembly, I maintained an independence that was noted by friends and foe alike.”

Steve Frank, a Simi Valley-based government affairs consultant, questions whether McClintock will actually spend the money lent to his campaign or if the loans were sent to inflate McClintock’s standing in the sweepstakes for campaign contributions.

“He was supposed to raise lots and lots of money, and so they came in to bail him out and make his report look good,” Frank said.

Frank raised $8,175 during the same six-week period.

Peggy Freeman, retired director of a community health clinic in the Santa Clarita Valley, raised $4,200 so far this year. And Robert Hamlin, a retired deputy sheriff who lives in Casitas, raised $3,385.