Local GOP Activists Set Giuliani Fund-Raiser

In March, Hillary Rodham Clinton came to Orange County to raise money for her New York Senate race. This month, New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani will do the same.

The opponents in the high-profile U.S. Senate contest on the opposite coast both have outposts of support in the Southland.

Giuliani’s $500- to $1,000-a-ticket fund-raiser will be held May 17 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. It is being organized by Orange County GOP activists Mark and Barbara Johnson of North Tustin.

Clinton’s fund-raiser was a $2,000-a-person lunch March 28 in the waterfront Laguna Beach home of prominent Democrats Janice and Roger Johnson. Roger Johnson is a former director of the General Services Administration for the Clinton administration.

The event for Hillary Clinton raised about $90,000; the one for Giuliani is expected to take in about $100,000.

Invitations went out last week for the Giuliani lunch in Founder’s Hall. Mark Chapin Johnson, who is the former chairman of the Performing Arts Center board of directors, said the $2,500 fee to rent the hall “will be paid with proceeds from the luncheon.”

Event committee members include Orange County developer William Lyon and Lincoln Club President Michael Capaldi.

“We are pleasantly surprised at the way this has resonated,” said Johnson, chief executive officer of Chapin Medical in Corona. “We didn’t have any way of knowing what the response would be.”

The event was organized before Giuliani’s recent diagnosis of prostate cancer. Giuliani, who is consulting with doctors on treatment, has said he will announce by the end of the month whether he will continue his campaign.

“Right now, the event is flat on,” Johnson said Tuesday. “But anything can happen.”