Riordan, Garcetti Hold Wide Leads in Fund-Raising

Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti has amassed a fund-raising edge of 65 to 1 over challenger John Lynch, according to campaign disclosure forms made public Wednesday.

As of June 30, according to the forms, Garcetti had stockpiled $507,740 in the bank.

Lynch, a deputy district attorney who heads the office’s Norwalk branch, had $7,858 on hand.

In a county as big and diverse as Los Angeles--with a population larger than 42 states--conventional political wisdom holds that it takes big bucks to run an effective countywide campaign, especially to buy advertising time on television.

And some political analysts questioned Wednesday whether Lynch can really make a go of it in the November election against a well-funded incumbent who enjoys extraordinary name recognition.

“Remember, money is the mother’s milk of politics,” said analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, reciting the comment that legendary Democratic power broker Jesse Unruh made famous.

“That’s still true,” said Jeffe, senior associate at the Center for Politics and Economics at the Claremont Graduate School. “You can win with spending less. But I don’t know that anyone’s won by spending nothing.”

“Make no mistake,” California Political Week editor Dick Rosengarten said. “Lynch needs to raise a hefty war chest if he is to be competitive.”

Lynch and his strategists profess not to be worried. This, they say, is not going to be a conventional campaign.

The figure that really counts, according to the Lynch camp, is the 12-0 vote in October by a Superior Court jury that made O.J. Simpson a free man.

“The reality is, the voters are going to judge [Garcetti] on those cases they ought to judge him on--the high-profile cases, the cases he directly gets himself immersed in,” said Rick Taylor, Lynch’s campaign manager.

But, said Jeffe, “if people are angry enough to vote no, they’ll vote no. But they still have to know who to vote for.”

In the March 26 primary, Lynch spent about one-tenth of what Garcetti did. Lynch capitalized on key endorsements, rode a surge of momentum and finished second to Garcetti, forcing a November runoff.

Garcetti captured 37% of the primary vote. Lynch took 21%.

According to the disclosure statements released Wednesday, Lynch raised only $56,696 in cash donations between March 10 and June 30.

Adding in $8,000 in loans and $1,900 in noncash contributions, Lynch took in $66,596. He began the period with $3,165 and spent $60,003, leaving him with $7,858 in the bank, according to the statement.

Taylor said Wednesday that he could only make available the summary page of Lynch’s disclosure statement because accountants had not released the rest. The remainder of the statement provides details on items such as the loaned $8,000.

Taylor added that Lynch had recently launched an “intensive fund-raising effort” and expects to raise $400,000 to $450,000 by November.

“I’m confident we’ll have enough money to get our message out,” Taylor said.

Lynch added: “This campaign was never realistically designed to out-raise Gil Garcetti. That was never in our wildest thoughts.”

Garcetti said he was shocked by the state of Lynch’s financial affairs, adding that he expected Lynch would have raised “$150,000, $200,000 [as an] absolute minimum.” He said he was heartened by his own bank balance.

As a candidate, Garcetti said, “You ask people, ‘Are you willing to support me?’ The bottom line is, ‘Are you willing to take out your checkbook and write a check?’ He simply is not able to get that kind of support.”

Referring to Lynch’s $7,858 balance, Garcetti campaign strategist Bill Carrick said: “Not only are you at a competitive disadvantage when [the discrepancy is] that stark and that bold, you have zero strategic options. And Gil has many strategic options. I think that’s a real problem for them.”

Though he garnered only 37% of the primary vote, the $336,980 that Garcetti raised from March 10 through June 30 marked his second-best fund-raising period ever--behind the period from July through September 1992, just after he won that year’s June primary, when he raked in $498,820.

According to the disclosure forms, Garcetti received 473 donations from March through June of this year--221 after the March 26 primary, about 47%.

Garcetti took in two donations of $10,000--a single check on March 25 from W. M. Keck, president of the philanthropic Keck Foundation, and two $5,000 checks from oil giant Arco, one on March 25, the other on June 28.

A Southern California Edison employees political action group contributed $6,000 in three checks--$1,250 on March 20, $3,750 on April 8 and $1,000 on June 28.

Garcetti took in 14 donations of $5,000. The Walt Disney Co. gave him one of those checks on May 7. Another arrived on June 28 from a regular Garcetti contributor, the NFL’s Rams--even though the team now plays football in St. Louis.

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War Chests in D.A.’s Race

Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti

Beginning balance: $440,292

Cash donations between March 10 and June 30: $336,980

Expenses paid: $274,052

Ending balance: $507,740

Deputy Dist. Atty. John Lynch

Beginning balance: $3,165

Cash donated between March 10 and June 30: $56,696

Expenses paid: $60,003

Ending balance: $7,858

NOTE: Ending balance also includes loans received and made, non-cash contributions such as rental of office space and unpaid bills.

Source: Candidates’ campaign disclosure statements.