Schiff Unfazed by Early Deficit

When the first election returns showed Rep. James E. Rogan with a 10-point lead, it was challenger Adam Schiff who made the rounds reassuring nervous supporters.

“We expected this,” Schiff, the Democrat who ran to unseat the incumbent Republican congressman, told anyone who would listen. “Everything is going according to our plan.”

Despite the dismal early tallies in the 27th Congressional District contest, Schiff looked unflappable as he worked the packed room, which was decorated with balloons and bunting at the Pasadena Hilton.

It was stiflingly hot because of the press of bodies and the bank of lights from a large cluster of television cameras.

The challenger had booked the small room, even though it was clearly inadequate to accommodate the large number of supporters who showed up, plus the national media attention, because he was in the same room in 1996 when he won his current seat in the California Senate.

“It’s his lucky room,” an aide said.

Schiff was talking with supporters about 8:30 on election night, 2-year-old daughter Alexa in his arms. His wife, Eve, was with him, as were his parents, who had made calls into the district from their home in Florida.

For those supporters, if not Schiff, the evening was full of the kind of drama that makes for a good suspense novel, one in which the hero escapes calamity and finds triumph by the last page.

“I was holding my breath,” said Bob Dourian, a Pasadena attorney and Schiff supporter. “The gap was large enough that I thought Rogan could have kept ahead. I was surprised that Schiff won by so much.”

Gloating over those same early returns, hundreds of enthusiastic Rogan supporters packed a ballroom of the Glendale Hilton. The mood was buoyant.

Shortly after 9, new returns showed Rogan’s lead narrowing to 9%. Then it was down to 6%, then 3%.

There were no early signs of defeat among Rogan’s campaign staff. And the candidate did not address the election results when he spoke to the crowd about 10:30.

Rogan walked up to the podium to the theme song from the movie “Rocky,” about an underdog boxer who wins. Then, he predicted the election would be “very historic.”

Despite the shifting winds, many of Rogan’s supporters believed their congressional candidate still had a good shot at winning reelection when they left for home about 11:30, as the party was ending.

In contrast, 15 minutes later, a whoop went up in the Schiff crowd. A large-screen projection of vote tallies showed Schiff had, for the first time, grabbed the lead.

Schiff, who was sitting in an adjacent room with his family, smiled broadly as his wife grabbed his arms and held them up in the air.

Shortly after midnight, the Glendale ballroom that once housed the Rogan supporters was empty. Hotel staff carried out chairs and dismantled the stage on which the candidate and his family had stood.

By that time, Rogan was upstairs with his family in a hotel room, telling reporters he didn’t expect results until 2 or 3 a.m. and that he would not be available that late to discuss the results.

“I’ve been through this before,” he said, noting that in 1996 he went to bed without knowing election results. The next morning, he said, he called a local radio station to learn that he had won his first congressional election.

“For the first time in my life and for the first time in the lives of most people in this room, when the sun comes up tomorrow,” he said, “we are going to have a Republican president of the United States with a Republican Congress of the United States.”

A crowd of Schiff supporters, reluctant to leave, was rewarded at 12:40 when their candidate stepped to the podium and declared victory.

With many backers standing on chairs to see better, Schiff read the names of every campaign worker and member of his Senate staff, thanking them as well as leaders of the Armenian community and organized labor.

He ended up winning the most-expensive House race in U.S. history by 52.8% to 43.8% for Rogan, surpassing the 7% edge that Democrats enjoyed in voter registration in the district.

Parke Skelton, a political consultant for Schiff, said polling indicated the campaign won over independent voters as well as a substantial number of crossover votes from Republicans.

“When the history of this race is written, it will be said that we beat back the best-funded congressional candidate in the nation,” Schiff said proudly, an arm around Eve.

Schiff said Rogan’s role as a House prosecutor in the impeachment of President Clinton played a role in the incumbent’s undoing by focusing voter attention on Rogan’s record. “The voters didn’t like what they saw,” Schiff said.

Rogan also was hurt by voter backlash from the large amount of money he spent--more than $6 million--and the negative tone of much of the mail and television advertising, Schiff said.

Supporters were particularly incensed at two late pieces of mail targeted at Armenian American voters. One showed Schiff standing in front of a Turkish flag and implied that he had allegiance to Turkey, which Armenians believe participated in genocide against their people.

The other mailer, also sent to the Armenian community, came from the Orange County-based Traditional Values Coalition. It showed two men who looked like they were about to be married, and read: “Senator Schiff supports gay marriage. Do you?”

Over at Rogan’s camp, there remained a group that stayed late, long after the main party had broken up.

Jeff Solsby, Rogan’s spokesman, drank whiskey on the rocks and played a melody he wrote on a baby grand piano outside the ballroom.

Solsby sounded a bitter note when he heard that Schiff had declared victory.

“Let him declare,” he said. “This shows he is more interested in some political gain than doing what is right: waiting for all precincts to report. Adam Schiff isn’t interested in what people think but what people might think.”

The first visible sign of defeat came after 1 a.m., when a young Rogan volunteer ran crying through the hotel lobby.

Defeated Republican Assembly candidate Susan Carpenter McMillan left the party in tears.

“I think to see Jim [Rogan] lose was the worst,” she said, wiping her eyes and squeezing the hand of her campaign manager, Lisa Clement. “I was fine until I learned that Jim was losing. . . . The whole team lost, but we got Bush.”

*

ROAD AHEAD--Reality sets in for Schiff; an uncertain future faces Rogan, who remains a hero to many. A42

* THE NUMBERS--Complete, unofficial local, state and national results. A48

* MORE COVERAGE--A1, A3, A41, B16