A weekly window on the 1992 elections. : Party Chairman’s Gain Is Clinton’s Distraction

It was a rather strange setting for a political event--a still-unfinished housing development called Laguna West sprouting on the Delta plain outside of Sacramento. Late last week, several hundred Californians paid up to $500 each to eat roast beef, sip punch, watch youngsters lip-sync to patriotic songs and listen to Democratic presidential front-runner Bill Clinton.

But one fact explains why the state party’s Beat Bush Bash happened to land there: state Democratic Party Chairman Phil Angelides doubles as one of Laguna’s developers.

For Angelides, the event served as a unique form of double-promotion, allowing him to tout both his fund-raising skill and his real estate. For Clinton, however, the event served mostly as a lengthy distraction, eating up hours of his time with only one immediately tangible payoff, Angelides’ endorsement--a commodity of dubious value in this year of the political outsider.

“This didn’t turn out the way we expected at all,” sighed one campaign aide.

THE CALIFORNIA SCENE

Fighting the right: A prime bellwether of Pete Wilson’s popularity within the Republican Party will be tomorrow’s results in four San Diego-area state Assembly races that are among the 17 in which the GOP governor has taken the unusual step of endorsing primary election candidates.

Former San Diego Mayor Wilson’s strategy to back four moderate Republicans against right-wing activists in his home area could eventually help him on key legislative votes--if the quartet prevails now and in November. But if the decision backfires, it could prove a particularly expensive expenditure of political capital.

In two of the races, Wilson put a more immediate form of capital on the line, loaning a total of $100,00 from his campaign committee.

Riot watch: In his big-bucks TV advertising blitz, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mel Levine focused on the Los Angeles riots to hammer home a law-and-order theme.

Asked at a recent breakfast meeting with reporters whether he has personally surveyed any of the riot damage, a portion of which is in his district, Levine said yes, he drove through hard-hit areas alone and with a black lawyer friend.

Asked then whether he ever got out of his car for a closer look, Levine replied: “I honestly don’t remember.”

Riot watch II: Congressional candidate Ricardo A. Nicol III brings an unusual spin to his campaign literature. Nicol, an Orange County Democrat locked in a five-candidate primary race, mailed out flyers last week to demonstrate he was in the thick of things--as a National Guard captain.

The mailers, which feature a photo of Nicol and other soldiers huddled over a Humvee, declares: “Let’s stop the looting in Washington.” Elsewhere on the flyer, trial lawyer Nicol identifies himself as a citizen-soldier/Democrat.

Past Presidential Preferences

Here are vote totals in the state’s last two presidential primaries: CALIFORNIA PRIMARY JUNE 1984

Republicans

VOTES % Ronald Reagan 1,874,897 100

Democrats

VOTES % Gary Hart 6,606,199 38.4 Walter Mondale 6,093,690 35.4 Jesse Jackson 3,589,248 20.8 John Glenn 376,870 2.2 George McGovern 297,959 1.7 Lyndon LaRouche 252,966 1.5

CALIFORNIA PRIMARY JUNE 1988

Republicans

VOTES % George Bush 1,856,273 82.86 Bob Dole 289,220 12.91 Pat Robertson 94,779 4.23

Democrats

VOTES % Michael Dukakis 1,910,808 60.89 Jesse Jackson 1,102,093 35.11 Al Gore 56,645 1.80 Paul Simon 43,771 1.39 Lyndon LaRouche 25,417 0.81

Source: Office of the Secretary of State, Sacramento

Compiled by researcher Tracy Thomas

THE NATIONAL SCENE

Why don’t you stay? With neither voters nor anyone else seeming to pay Republican candidate Patrick J. Buchanan much heed, the Secret Service had decided to leave Buchanan on his own beginning last Wednesday. That thought sent panic through the ranks of a campaign so understaffed that the agents have had to take on much of its logistic planning.

A compromise reached between the two sides guaranteed Buchanan a final week of an imposing presence--not to mention freeway escorts and direct access to airport Tarmacs.

Flying high: The Democrats have their donkey and the Republicans their elephant. But what sort of logo will Ross Perot pick to symbolize his anticipated independent bid for the presidency? No one knows for sure yet, but speculation has already begun at Perot campaign headquarters in Dallas. “He’s very fond of the eagle,” points out one staffer.

Times change: Twenty-seven years after black marchers in Selma, Ala., were clubbed and tear-gassed by police in an incident that helped propel enactment of the Voting Rights Act, the city’s residents will cast ballots in primaries that will lead toward the election of Alabama’s first black congressman since Reconstruction.

Six Democrats and three Republicans--all black--are seeking the nomination of their parties in a district that also includes parts of Birmingham, Tuscaloosa and Montgomery.

“The white minority (in the district) could elect the congressman,” said a local political observer. “White candidates in the past had to have black votes to win. Now it’s just the reverse.”

In a nearby district, George Wallace Jr., son of the man who once symbolized Southern opposition to integration, is running for the Democratic nomination to Congress. The younger Wallace is a moderate Democrat in his second term as state treasurer. Polls have shown him leading the race.

EXIT LINE

“I almost went an entire campaign without anyone asking me about foreign policy. You are it.”

--Greg Stohr, press deputy to Republican Senate candidate Tom Campbell, responding to a Times reporter’s query last week about Campbell’s top foreign policy priority.