THE FREE AND CLEAR PRESS

[mmayr]

Republican President Bush and Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry can't agree on jobs, taxes or Iraq. But they share documented affection for California -- where both are frequent fliers to court deep- pocketed campaign donors.

Kerry arrived Sunday for a two-day campaign swing beginning in Sacramento. The Massachusetts senator, who just released a jobs and economic plan, will speak at a Sacramento job training center and appear at a fund-raiser at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco. On Tuesday, he'll head to San Diego and Los Angeles for campaign appearances and fund-raisers.

Kerry's trip comes just weeks after Bush concluded his most recent fund- raising swing through California, where he netted $1.5 million in just over 24 hours with three events in Los Angeles and Santa Clara.

Even before Bush's March fund-raisers, he had generated $12.1 million of his $158.8 million in campaign money from California contributors -- his largest total of any state except his home state of Texas, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Kerry had raised $3.8 million from California contributors of his $41.4 million in campaign money as of March 1, the most money from any state, according to the center's analysis of federal campaign finance reports.

The crisscrossing of California by Kerry and Bush highlights the effort both major parties are making to generate campaign cash from one of the nation's richest donor bases -- particularly the cutting-edge business crowd of Silicon Valley.

Kerry and Bush have traded charges about who is more beholden to special interests, lobbyists and corporations on the fund-raising front, but the two candidates are "in this up to their necks,'' said Chuck Lewis, the campaign finance watchdog behind the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C., and author of "The Buying of the President 2004.''

"Let's be honest: There is no Gandhi in American politics,'' Lewis said. "So when they make these charges and countercharges, they're both disingenuous. ''

Still, Lewis noted there are dramatic differences in fund-raising patterns between the Republican president and the Democratic senator.

In roughly 20 years in politics, Kerry has raised in excess of $60 million in his career; by comparison, "Bush has raised $300 million in half the time,'' Lewis said.

So while "both men are supreme fund-raisers, no one is more proficient at fund raising in the history of the planet than Mr. Bush,'' who took in $131 million last year, or $360,000 a day, Lewis said. "We've never, ever seen numbers remotely like his numbers.''

Bush campaign ads have made use of figures from the Center for Responsive Politics, which confirmed that Kerry has taken in more money from lobbying firms than any other senator, Lewis noted. But the Bush campaign appears to have sidestepped the president's even greater intimacy with the big-money lobbying interests, experts say.

"I suspect when the numbers are in, Bush has raised four to five times more money from lobbyists,'' Lewis said. "Are both men quite acquainted with powerful lobbyists and interests? Yes. Is one candidate better acquainted than the other when it comes to the sheer dollar amount ... from powerful interests? One is vastly different from the other.''

But Republican leaders accuse Kerry of questionable fund raising.

"There's a big difference in the fund raising between Bush and Kerry,'' said Bob Grady, a San Francisco-based managing director of venture capital at the Carlyle Group, a donor to Bush and a vice chairman of the president's California campaign.

"Bush is raising his money legally from hundreds of thousands of individuals, subject to the $2,000 cap'' required by campaign finance laws, Grady said. But Kerry is "skirting campaign finance reform ... and having the majority of his campaign being funded illegally by a billionaire, George Soros. ''

Soros, a Democrat, has said he is prepared to spend several million dollars to support an independent expenditure campaign to defeat Bush.

Kerry also will benefit from donations to other independent expenditure groups, such as NARAL Pro-Choice America, whose head, Kate Michelman, said last week in San Francisco that her organization plans an aggressive fund- raising effort designed to help oust the president.

Kerry campaign spokeswoman Laura Capps said the senator's campaign has "absolutely no link with these independent expenditure groups,'' and that Republicans are trying to muddy the waters by suggesting illegality -- or that they don't benefit from similar activities.

"It's the Bush-Cheney campaign that is held captive by big oil and the pharmaceutical companies,'' Capps said.

She said Internet donations being amassed by the Kerry campaign illustrate that "ours is a much more grassroots, smaller contributions group.''

Kerry "raised $20 million online in 20 days in March from 200,000 contributors," she said.

Bush "has raised $4 million total (online) since he started a Web site'' at least a year ago, she said. "... It shows that these two campaigns are dramatically different in the kind of supporters they have.''

Some of Kerry's more traditional donors and biggest fund-raisers in California acknowledge he is unlikely to be able to play dollar-for-dollar catch-up with Bush.

"There's no way that John's going to raise as much money as George Bush is, and that's not the goal,'' said Wade Randlett of Dashboard Technology, a Web-based consulting group in San Francisco.

"You can't put a price on the Democratic unity that John clearly has,'' said Randlett, one of Kerry's key high-tech backers.

Indeed, some of the most deep-pocketed donors to other Democratic candidates in Silicon Valley -- the mother lode of state fund raising -- said they now will play a role for Kerry.

Prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist Andy Rappaport and his wife, Deborah, a member of the Portola Valley school board, were active supporters of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in his Democratic primary campaign against Kerry and others. Now that Kerry has won the primary fight, they said they'll help him any way they can.

"There were differences, and each of us chose who we wanted in the primary process,'' Deborah Rappaport said. "But now that we have reached this point, the differences between John Kerry and other Democratic hopefuls are astonishingly small compared to the differences between John Kerry and George Bush.''

Also joining up recently with Kerry, said Randlett: San Francisco venture capitalist Sandy Robertson, who aided Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman's campaign; Burlingame attorney Joe Cotchett, a force for North Carolina Sen. John Edwards; and Mark Chandler, general legal counsel for Cisco Systems Inc., who was a leading fund-raiser for Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri during his Democratic primary campaign.