Bush Campaigns for Calif. Governor Candidate
President Unswayed by Questions Over Simon's Firm
By JENNIFER LOVEN
.c The Associated Press
STOCKTON, Calif. (Aug. 23) - President Bush began a crisscross of California in search of cash for Republican Bill Simon's ailing gubernatorial campaign with an airport handshake Friday, unswayed by Democrats' questions about how a fraud verdict against the candidate's investment firm squares with Bush's tough talk on corporate crime.
Speculation had run high in this politically important state that Bush wanted no side-by-side viewing of the pair after William E. Simon & Sons was slapped with a $78 million civil penalty last month.
But Simon was at the head of the receiving line when Bush stepped off Air Force One. Though Simon was later traveling on Bush's plane southward, he did not join the presidential motorcade to a campaign-style welcome rally at the historic Stockton Memorial Civil Auditorium, draped in red-white-and-blue bunting, in the inland, flat farm country of Northern California.
The White House was calculating that canceling the events, scheduled before the verdict, would be worse for Bush in a state he is hoping to cultivate for Republicans and himself.
Bush's top political strategist suggested that Bush's time in California had as much, if not more to do, with Bush's own prospects in 2004 as Simon's in November because of the grassroots organizing that a presidential attention can mobilize.
''It's a state that if you ignore, you get what you play for - nothing,'' said Karl Rove. ''This is a big state and a big important race.''
Simon was not named in the suit and says he thinks the verdict, which is being appealed, will be overturned.
Bush said a day earlier he believes him. ''Bill Simon assures us that when the courts look at this case he'll be innocent, and I take the man for his word,'' Bush said Thursday while in Oregon on another fund-raising swing.
After a luncheon benefiting Simon later Friday, Bush heads to Orange County in Southern California to harvest more political money at an evening reception. Saturday morning would find the president hitting up more Republican donors over breakfast in Los Angeles.
Earlier targets of an expected $3 million for Simon and another $1 million for the state GOP were downgraded. Bush aides said the fund-raisers would bag a total of $2.6 million for Simon and $750,000 for the party.
Bush left a ''working vacation'' at his Texas ranch for three days of Western travel and GOP fund-raising. The president was visiting Oregon, California and New Mexico, all states he lost - Oregon and New Mexico by the thinnest of margins - to Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 election.
The total take for three days: more than $5.3 million.
Bush's appearance in Portland was marked by a clash between police and demonstrators protesting Bush's policies on the environment, Iraq and more. Riot police used pepper spray and struck some protester with batons after ordering hundreds of people to move from near a downtown hotel where Bush raised $1 million for Sen. Gordon Smith and the Oregon GOP.
Bush has recently ramped up an already record-shattering fund-raising effort on behalf of GOP politicians. From Aug. 6 when he left Washington until his return around Sept. 1, he will speak at 11 Republican money events.
But as the traditional Labor Day kickoff of the fall campaign approaches, the president will be looking to wind down the focus on money in favor of rallies and other vote-attracting events.
''There's no hard date on it,'' White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Thursday. ''But ... the closer it gets to Election Day, the less important it is to raise money, the more important it is to have more 'get out the vote' style events.''
The flurry of activity benefiting Simon had Democrats hardly able to contain themselves.
California Democratic Party spokesman Bob Mulholland likened the president's visit to an uncle visiting a nephew in jail. ''It's family responsibility, but you get out of town quickly,'' he said.
The man Simon is trying to unseat, Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, scheduled a bill-signing for Friday on three measures toughening the state's corporate accountability laws.
AP-NY-08-23-02 1348EDT
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. |
