There She Goes Again: Sanchez Breaks a Date With Clinton

An Anaheim Hills fund-raiser with President Clinton has been canceled after Rep. Loretta Sanchez declined to change the Sunday event she is hosting from a sit-down dinner to a reception.

Sarah Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Garden Grove Democrat, said the congresswoman wanted guests who would have attended the event at the private home of a Republican backer to experience “a nice, intimate evening with the president.” But Clinton’s schedule changed, leaving him with less time.

“It’s really important to her that people who want to be a part of the process and contribute to the [Democratic National Committee] get a good experience,” Anderson said of about 350 guests who pledged to contribute $1,000 each. “We’re working with the DNC to get people plugged into smaller events” when Clinton visits the Los Angeles area this weekend.

DNC spokeswoman Jenny Backus said campaign events are canceled and postponed “all the time” for scheduling reasons. The Sanchez event with Clinton originally was set for June but was postponed because of Middle East peace talks, she said.

“We’re working to get folks to other events,” Backus said, including inviting the Orange County guests to an added DNC fund-raiser in Calabasas.

But some party activists were flummoxed at why Sanchez--who survived a dust-up last month over another fund-raiser she scheduled at the Playboy Mansion then moved to another venue--would walk into another political buzz saw by passing on an opportunity to raise money with Clinton.

Sanchez, who collected $500,000 for Hispanic Unity USA at the August fund-raiser, relented on her choice of venue after she was criticized by Vice President Al Gore’s campaign staff for choosing such an infamous locale. Gore refused to attend the event, held during the party’s national convention in Los Angeles, which was moved to Universal City.

Corralling Clinton in Orange County was even more of a coup. The president’s last event here was during the 1996 campaign, when he appeared at a rally in Santa Ana. He has not attended a fund-raiser locally since his first presidential campaign in 1992.

“It’s so hard to get him to come here,” lamented one Democratic leader who asked not to be named. “As long as he can still come, you get him any way you can. He’s the president, for gosh sake.”

Local party officials, meanwhile, said they were unaware Tuesday that the event at the home of limousine company owner Edward P. Grech and his wife, Sonya, had been canceled. Jay Ziegler, Gore’s California campaign manager, was traveling Tuesday and said he also didn’t know what had happened.

“I would accept her explanation,” Ziegler said.

“Loretta is Loretta,” said Marti Schrank, secretary of the Democratic Central Committee. “She’s shown lately that she’s going to be her own person.”

Anderson said Sanchez is hopeful that Clinton will be available for another fund-raiser in Orange County before the November election.

Just last week, Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush raised $1 million at a Newport Beach fund-raiser for the GOP in California, which has no state campaign contribution limits. Forty couples paid $25,000 each to dine with Bush at a Western-themed dinner at the home of business executive Ron Simon and his wife, Sandy.