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Jul 21, 2008

Politico: Calif. GOP recruit fails to fundraise

One of the most highly touted GOP House recruits is turning out to be one of the party’s weakest fundraisers, a development that has national Republicans wondering whether a prime opportunity to pick off a vulnerable Democratic freshman is slipping away.

Former GOP California state Assemblyman Dean Andal raised only $190,500 in the most recent fundraising period, marking the fourth straight quarter he has raised less than $200,000 in his race against Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.).

Andal ended June with $663,000 in his campaign account, a respectable total but well short of the money necessary to fully advertise in the expensive Sacramento and San Francisco media markets. With the National Republican Congressional Committee facing an expansive field of races and limited resources, there may not be enough national money to help him make up the difference.

Never a strong fundraiser, Andal has a history of facing significant financial disadvantages but winning nonetheless.

In 1991, during his first Assembly campaign, he was outspent 5-to-1 but still defeated his better-known Democratic rival. In his next election, then-California House Speaker Willie Brown poured money into defeating the first-term legislator, but Andal again prevailed despite the long odds.

He managed to raise $3.5 million in an unsuccessful primary bid for state controller in 2002 but acknowledges that was “not much in California,” where a successful candidate needs to spend considerably more to gain statewide traction.

Andal appears to be following the same underdog approach against McNerney, who has stockpiled more than $1.3 million in his campaign account after raising $439,000 in the second quarter.

Andal said he was pleased with his fundraising performance and focused on his overall total because he has been in the race for well over a year. He also said he plans to pick up his fundraising pace and expects to raise $400,000 to $500,000 before Labor Day.

“My fundraising numbers are excellent. It’s only in the strange, Byzantine world of Washington that they are not considered excellent,” Andal said. “We are very careful with money, and we’ve kept a large amount of the money we raised.”

But Republican operatives monitoring the campaign have been far more critical, referring to his fundraising efforts within the district as virtually nonexistent. More than half of the money Andal raised this quarter came from political action committees, suggesting he hasn’t sufficiently tapped the district’s sizable base of Republican donors.

“He is a very good candidate who seems committed to running a strong grass-roots effort but has fallen off somewhat in fundraising,” said one GOP operative with ties to California. “McNerney, frankly, won a fluke victory, but the power of incumbency should never be underestimated.”

The fundamentals are in place for Andal to win back the 11th District seat, which was held by GOP Rep. Richard Pombo for 14 years before McNerney defeated him in 2006. The district, anchored in California’s Central Valley, traditionally favors Republicans, giving President Bush 54 percent of the vote in 2004.

In the state Legislature, Andal represented Stockton in the San Joaquin County portion of the congressional district, a Republican-friendly region where Pombo greatly underperformed in 2006.

Democrats, though, have argued that the district’s demographics are evolving, with Bay Area Democrats moving east into Contra Costa County and the blue-collar towns of Tracy and Stockton.

“It’s still a Republican district, but particularly the East Bay part of that district has been getting more moderate,” said Dan Schnur, who served as press secretary to former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. “The further the Bay Area sprawl heads eastward, the more moderate that district becomes.”

Democrats hope that a combination of changing demographics, the party’s financial advantage and some nagging ethics-related questions Andal has been facing will help propel McNerney to reelection.

McNerney’s campaign has been attacking Andal over his connections to a controversial development project for Delta College that has been well behind schedule and plagued by cost overruns. Andal has served as a consultant to developer Gerry Kamilos, who lobbied successfully for the college to build its expansion near an adjacent Mountain House property he was developing.

Andal said his primary involvement in the project was to provide a report detailing the project’s environmental effect — and that he wasn’t responsible for the delays.

“The delays were not caused by Gerry Kamilos or me. They were caused by the minority of the board who didn’t agree with the decision” to build the campus on the Mountain House property, Andal said. “And that caused the inflationary costs as the project didn’t proceed on Delta’s schedule.”

Andal also has been accused by a member of the college’s board of trustees of violating the state’s Brown Act for leaking information from a closed session of the board — a charge Andal vigorously denies.

Andal argues that the race will be defined by the ideological differences between himself and McNerney. He said that McNerney is a congressman well out of step with the district’s conservative leanings.

McNerney’s victory was assisted by heavy spending by outside groups amid allegations of Pombo’s ethical breaches. Since winning the seat, McNerney has attempted to walk a fine line between representing the conservative-minded constituents while not disappointing the liberal base of supporters who helped him achieve the upset victory.

Republicans insist McNerney’s voting record offers them many opportunities to point out that he is out of sync with his district, pointing to his July vote against an Iraq war funding bill — a measure that many Democrats facing competitive reelection bids supported.

And they believe that the high rate of foreclosures in the Stockton area — the city has among the highest rates of home foreclosures nationwide — plays into the image that McNerney hasn’t been part of the change that Democrats promised.

Andal argued that the issue of illegal immigration would also play a major role. McNerney was one of the deciding Democratic votes last September in blocking a GOP-backed measure that would have enforced laws barring illegal immigrants from receiving certain federally funded benefits.

“I’ve met Jerry a few times. He seems like a nice, amiable guy, but we don’t agree on anything,” said Andal. “This is a district that wants to vote for a center-right conservative.”

McNerney’s campaign counters that his assiduous attention to constituent service has played a key role in winning districtwide support. He has blanketed the district by holding more than 40 “Congress at Your Corner” sessions, where he takes questions from local voters in public places such as coffee shops, grocery stores and shopping centers.

“Since he won in 2006, the congressman has made a commitment to serving his constituents well,” said McNerney spokesman Andy Stone. “He is engendering a lot of goodwill among folks in the district.”