Candidate takes heat for support of Clinton

Paul Clinton

The ghost of Bill Clinton past is haunting the present of Assembly

candidate Cristi Cristich.

Cristich, a Corona del Mar resident, is one of four Republican

candidates in the March 2004 primary to replace John Campbell in the

70th Assembly District. As she seeks her party’s nod in one of the

most conservative districts in the state, Cristich may pay a

political price for her decision in 1996 to endorse the former

president.

“That is not a good thing to have in a Republican primary,”

Newport Beach GOP fund-raiser Buck Johns said. “That’s a downtick.”

Not surprisingly, her Republican opponents have already made

considerable hay over Cristich’s ties to Clinton.

Chuck DeVore, a former Irvine City Council candidate and public

relations manager at a Newport Beach aerospace firm, has sent out

fliers with a 1996 newspaper article about Cristich’s leadership role

in a Republicans for Clinton group.

Former Newport Beach City Council candidate Marianne Zippi and

Irvine businessman Don Wagner have also said they’ll seek the seat.

DeVore’s steady criticism has taken center stage in a campaign

still nearly a year away from election day. Her endorsement of

Clinton, he says, is unpardonable.

“It is prohibitive in this race to have that past,” DeVore said.

“By the ’96 election, most of us knew who Bill Clinton was and knew

what his faults were.”

Cristich brought the issue to light in March, saying she had made

a mistake in endorsing Clinton. As one of the founding members of the

moderate New Majority group, Cristich said Clinton’s handling of

economic issues appealed to her.

By 1998, Cristich said she was so disgusted with Clinton because

of the Monica Lewinsky scandal that she supported his impeachment.

“I made a mistake,” Cristich said about the Clinton endorsement.

“My opponent wants to stay on the Clinton issue. The voters want to

hear about what we’ll do for the future of Orange County.”

The New Majority consisted mostly of Republican business leaders

disillusioned with their party’s harping on divisive social issues

like abortion, prayer in schools and federal funding for

private-school attendees via vouchers.

DeVore, a five-time elector to the Republican Party of Orange

County’s vaunted Central Committee, seems to have garnered the local

GOP’s most ardent support.

“His longtime leadership in the party has gained him a lot of

support and endorsements among elected Republican officials,” said

Tom Fuentes, the county party’s chairman.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher has endorsed DeVore. Supervisor Jim Silva

has granted a “joint endorsement” of DeVore and Cristich.

Some political consultants say DeVore’s critique of Cristich won’t

carry much sway with voters.

“I don’t think [it] creates much of a cutting edge,” said Mark

Petracca, the chairman of UC Irvine’s political science department.

“She’s clean.”

Eileen Padberg, a consultant for moderate Republicans who owns

Irvine-based Padberg Consulting, said Cristich’s endorsement of

Clinton shows the importance of so-called “gender-gap” issues that

separate women voters from their male counterparts. Those include

gun-control, reproductive choice and protecting the environment.

“Her point in supporting Clinton was not Bill Clinton, but the

things he stood for,” Padberg said. “Those issues are again

important.”

DeVore was a Reagan White House appointee in the Pentagon from

1986 to 1988 and served as Rep. Chris Cox’s senior assistant and

first staff member.

The controversy over Cristich’s past has reignited a debate about

which constituency holds the most sway in the Republican Party.

Marilyn Brewer, a relative moderate, won the seat in 1994 and has

endorsed Cristich.

Cristich founded Anaheim electronics manufacturer Cristek

Interconnects Inc. in the 1980s.

* PAUL CLINTON covers the environment, business and politics. He

may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

[email protected].