GOP Would Call the Sheriff, but He’s in Davis’ Posse

Governor’s Gold Rush in Orange County The Yalie’s cheer: Boola boola! Stanford grad Gray Davis’ cheer: Moola moola!

The original Gold Rush was too labor-intensive. The governor of California has hit placer riches at Orange County’s dinner tables, with three five-figure fund-raisers in five months.

The latest, a 10K-per-plate soiree in San Juan Capistrano, was the second one put on by Democratic activist Christopher Townsend. Ah, but the one back in March, in Newport Beach, raised more than money: It raised some hackles, too, because it was hosted by Republican Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona.

Now some would say this is a simple “thank you” from the sheriff, who was appointed to the state Council on Criminal Justice by Davis, and maybe from his wife, Debra, a deputy probation officer just named by Davis to a spot on the Orange County Fair Board. But to the Republicans taking umbrage at Davis’ incursions into their home base, Townsend says: “The out-of-state energy companies are going to spend millions to try to take [Davis] out. The governor has a lot of friends here. If he spent his time at $10-a-plate events, he’d never raise the money he needs.”

And best of all, Davis was able to come in through the front door, unlike last year, when he went through the shrubbery to slip into the back door of a Sacramento fund-raiser at a time when he had a pile of bills on his desk awaiting signing.

Keeping Up With the Jonester

The ballyhoo to persuade L.A.’s soon-to-be-mayor-emeritus to run for governor on the GOP side of the ticket rolls along (possible campaign song, “Gray skies are gonna clear up, Put on a happy face . . .”).

But the GOP’s candidate presumptive, Secretary of State Bill Jones, the only California Republican in statewide office, managed to get himself some ink this week, when he named former Gov. George “Two-Term” Deukmejian as his campaign chairman.

Doing his endorsement bit at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown L.A., Deukmejian not only lauded Jones’ qualities, he pointed out that in 1982 he too was the poorer underdog in the Republican primary, and still won, and went on to beat L.A.’s then-mayor, Tom Bradley, and beat him again in 1986.

As if the snipe at L.A.’s Richard Riordan weren’t clear enough, Deukmejian said, “If Dick Riordan does get in the race, I will work even harder on behalf of Bill Jones.”

Riordan supported Bradley ardently against The Deuk in 1982 and 1986--and backed Democrat Dianne Feinstein in her Senate campaign against Michael Huffington. But it’s not personal, insisted Deukmejian: “It’s not just 1982. . . . I don’t think that Republican voters are going to want to have a person who has that history and record of demonstrating support for Democrats against Republicans as their next leader.”

In a headline last week on a story about the recent Western Conservative Conference, the conservative publication Human Events asked but couldn’t answer, “Why is Bush Pushing Liberal to Run in California?”

Um, revenge?

Farklempt Over Yiddish Phrases

Bilingual is not enough. Bob Hertzberg, the first Jew to serve as Assembly speaker since 1927, wants colleagues to understand the Yiddishism flavoring his remarks, hence “Yiddish For Assemblymembers,” a 36-page bound booklet, with helpful Sacramento references.

While the Israeli legislature has just banned 68 terms of insult--among them “poodle”-- Hertzberg’s booklet could add 56 words to the Assembly vocabulary, such as:

Plotz, the metaphorical verb: to split, burst, as in, “I almost plotzed when I realized that someone else had introduced the same bill.”

Farklempt: all choked up, as in, “I received so many accolades at the Legislator of the Year Awards that I got all farklempt.”

Nu: the spoken equivalent of a sigh, grin, grunt, sneer or question, as in, “I saw you come out of the governor’s office. Nu?

Tzedakah: encompassing justice through righteousness, as in “Let’s practice tzedakah here and increase the funding in the health care, food stamp and renter’s credit legislation.” (You can tell a Democrat wrote that.)

Schmutz: dirt, the literal meaning, as in, “After the truck crashed into the Capitol, the Senate chambers were covered in schmutz for days.”

And sure to be the favorite, macher: someone who arranges, fixes; a big shot.

Californian Taught Jeffords a Lesson

Vermont Sen. James Jeffords, who sent the entire U.S. Senate into tilt-mode by changing the letter after his name from R to I, was in California last week, speaking to Long Beach’s conference on the collaboration of schools from kindergarten to college.

Before that talk, Jeffords reminisced about his days as the chairman of the Senate’s education committee and recalled a conversation with his California pal, Democratic Rep. George Miller, who bragged to him about Long Beach’s “seamless education” program. Jeffords said that approach “made the most sense” to adapt to Washington, D.C. “So I copied it,” he said. “We now have [it] in Washington,” where elementary and secondary schools work together with powerhouse universities such as George Washington and Georgetown to keep students on track educationally.

The subject of his seismic leap from the GOP was delicately sidestepped; he did acknowledge that Vermont and California politics share an independent streak, and that Californians’ reaction to his power-shifting has been “very, very favorable.”

Gray Davis’ Dough Boys

The governor’s two $30,000-per-month energy crisis communications consultants have created a crisis of their own, with the state controller refusing to sign any more of their paychecks and a conservative activist suing to make sure she doesn’t.

The financial statements filed by Chris Lehane and Mark Fabiani, both alums of the Clinton White House and both still consultants to Southern California Edison, show that Lehane still is paying on law-school loans to Harvard.

Fabiani, another Harvard man, owns somewhere between $60,000 and $600,000 in telecommunications, Internet and computer stock (probably closer to the first figure, given the sinking stocks). Fabiani, who nearly 20 years ago was Mayor Tom Bradley’s counsel, evidently still has an Angeleno’s automania: he holds car leases with Nissan, Porsche and Jaguar.

Quick Hits

A press release about Long Beach Assemblyman Alan Lowenthal’s bill to penalize senders of unsolicited faxes arrived in The Times’ Sacramento bureau by unsolicited fax. . . . The Sonoma County town of Windsor is the latest to consider closing City Hall on Fridays to save energy. . . . California Democrat Barbara Boxer and Oklahoma Republican Don Nickles, the two highest-paid of the seven U.S. senators to appear in the film “Traffic,” each asked that the $1,000 fee be sent to a charity, but while Swords to Plowshares has received Boxer’s honorarium, the Oklahoma Red Cross is still awaiting Nickles’--probably, joked his spokesman, because the senator complained at not getting billing above Michael Douglas.

Word Perfect

“With everyone going to the parade, we didn’t expect anyone to attend the hearing, so we decided to put it off.”

Lisa Gritzner, chief of staff to Los Angeles City Council member Cindy Miscikowski, about canceling the public hearing on city secession in deference to the Lakers’ championship triumph downtown, which even people from the San Fernando Valley attended. A proposal giving the Valley two-fifths of the Lakers’ starting lineup was not on the hearing agenda.

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Columnist Patt Morrison’s e-mail address is patt.morrison@latimes.com. This week’s contributors include Mark Z. Barabak, Miguel Bustillo, Patrick McGreevy, Jean O. Pasco and Margaret Talev.