GOP Throws Weight Behind Fong’s Race

Jack Kemp, Republican luminary and possible presidential contender, was reeling off compliments about state Treasurer Matt Fong, the party’s nominee for U.S. Senate.

Hard-working, family man, military veteran, dedicated to government that is cost effective and innovative--all the standard stuff.

Kemp saved for last the biggest reason the faithful should donate their time and money to Fong’s candidacy against Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. “Matt Fong,” Kemp enthused to a group at a hotel ballroom here, “is a 21st-century Republican.”

After nearly being counted out just weeks ago in his primary fight against millionaire electronics whiz Darrell Issa, Fong is being promised a bonanza of financial and political support from the national party. Besides Kemp, major figures who have signed up for such efforts include House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Not only is Fong said by top-level Republicans to be a good bet to knock off the incumbent, he also represents a chance for the GOP to shake its image as a retrograde party dominated by whites in an era of increasing racial diversity.

At a gathering of money men in Washington, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), co-chairman of the fund-raising arm of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, called the Fong campaign “the No. 1 targeted race in the country” for Republicans.

The committee may kick in $3 million, the maximum allowed under federal law. The Republican National Committee is preparing to spend an additional $4 million in California for Fong, gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren and other statewide Republicans. That would be more than twice what the RNC spent in California in 1994--a year in which the party’s millionaire Senate candidate, Michael Huffington, didn’t need any outside money and no redistricting battles loomed as they do now.

The political landscape is different this season.

The party’s Senate candidate can use all the money he can get, and the Republicans are eager to hold on to the California governorship, particularly as the state prepares to redraw lines for congressional districts, a process in which the governor is central.

The national committee money will be used for voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts to assist the entire ticket, officials said.

The Republicans also plan to pump resources into Senate races in Nevada, Illinois, Wisconsin and South Carolina--all involving Democratic incumbents viewed as vulnerable--but that support will be “dwarfed” by the support for Fong in giant California, said Steven Law, the senatorial committee’s executive director.

Neither of the two GOP committees will make a final decision on spending allocations until after Labor Day, the traditional opening bell for fall campaigns, party officials said.

Dan Schnur, a strategist for the California Republican Party, said that if the national party were not convinced that Fong could beat Boxer, it would not consider spending millions on his behalf. For the same amount of money it takes to run a campaign in California, Schnur noted, the party could run Senate campaigns in three or four smaller states.

Fong spent a week this month working the Washington circuit of media, elected officials and political action committees. But he still has an uphill fight, moneywise.

Boxer holds a whopping lead in campaign contributions. As of the end of June, Boxer reported $3.9 million on hand; Fong a mere $215,000, although from May 14 to June 30, the period covered by the last federally required disclosure, Fong gathered $985,000 to Boxer’s $799,000.

Most of Fong’s contributions during that period were gobbled up by bills from his primary fight with Issa, but Fong’s campaign insists that the upswing in contributions is proof that their candidate will be able to muster the $10 million his advisors think he will need to tussle with Boxer.

Not surprisingly, the Boxer camp dismisses such optimism as bravado. Roy Behr, Boxer’s campaign spokesman, predicted that Republicans’ own polls will show Boxer with a double-digit lead, giving them second thoughts about spending money on Fong rather than shifting resources to a state where the race is closer.

“Until you see the money, it’s all talk,” Behr said. “Even the talk, though, is a sign that the Republicans realize that Matt Fong has the weakest financial position of any Republican challenger in the country.”

The promised help is based partly on the widely held view that Boxer’s brand of liberalism is out of fashion and that she can be successfully labeled an extremist kook. That Boxer is an ardent supporter and shirttail relative of President Clinton makes her defeat even more delicious for Republicans to contemplate.

Republican consultant Ken Khachigian said that Republican antipathy for Boxer is beyond mere partisan politicking, which should aid Fong in fund-raising. “Nobody pulls Republicans together like Barbara Boxer,” Khachigian said. “She’s the glue that will hold the party together in support of Fong. She is to the Republicans what [Republican Sen.] Jesse Helms is for the Democrats.”

There is also a belief among GOP leaders that, if elected, Fong could instantly become a national figure.

“Fong has the makings of a star, and he could be key to the Republicans realigning the entire Asian American vote in favor of the party,” said one national Republican political operative. “Asian Americans are philosophic Republicans. They’re strong on thrift, work, family. They should be our voters.”

Asian American voters represent less than 1% of the nation’s registered voters but their affluence, their potential as political contributors and their increasing political activism have the attention of both major parties.

In California, Asian Americans comprise 6% of voters and are the state’s fastest-growing, best-educated ethnic group. Party registration in California and elsewhere in the nation is roughly evenly split between the Democrats and the Republicans.

If fund-raising goes as well as Fong’s advisors predict, for the first time in his political career Fong may have enough money to buy television advertising a month or more before the election rather than being forced to wait until the final weeks.

With TV advertising costing upward of $1 million a week, Fong had only enough money to advertise on TV during the final two weeks of the primary. Fortunately for Fong, the Issa campaign then was mired in controversy about his background.

After barely a breather following the primary, Fong launched his uphill fight to unseat Boxer. Even a weekend whitewater rafting trip on the American River with his family had a political component: reporters and Fong staffers were invited along the eight-mile journey and to a barbecue dinner.

On the river or on dry land, Fong appears unfazed by talk of his becoming a national political figure if he beats Boxer.

“I don’t have time to think about that,” Fong said after a fund-raiser last week in San Francisco with Gov. Pete Wilson and former Secretary of State George Shultz. “I grew up in a political family. I know political disappointments. Political numbers can be there one day, gone the next day. We’ll run this campaign just like we have done everything else: methodically.”

That is the strategy Fong used to beat Issa, who had both more money and a high-voltage personality. “He arrived at most events before me, stayed after me and then beat me to the next event,” Issa said. “And along the way he called everybody who ever endorsed me and talked them out it. He is as tenacious a campaigner as you’ll find.”

But Issa knows that tenacity alone won’t suffice. At the fund-raiser where Kemp stumped for Fong, Issa presented his onetime rival with a $4,000 check.