No leading GOP candidates offered condolences until today, but they're still raising funds here(CA)

[Kadie]

Fires provide no break from GOP fundraisers
Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer

Thursday, October 25, 2007

(10-25) 17:43 PDT San Francisco -- While California burns, top presidential candidates apparently think the Golden State is still golden - at least for campaign events and fundraising.

Though none of the leading GOP presidential candidates offered formal public condolences or expressions of concern for the fire-damaged state until Thursday - four days after wind-whipped blazes caused an estimated 500,000 to be evacuated in Southern California - at least two plan to attend high-profile campaign fundraisers in the southland.

Arizona Sen. John McCain has scheduled a $500-a-head and up fundraiser Friday at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. And former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson has a California trip on the books beginning with a fundraiser scheduled Monday in Rancho San Bernardo - a fire-ravaged area - followed by fundraisers in San Juan Capistrano and Newport Beach. He is also planning events in the Bay Area.

The noticeable delay by the GOP candidates to formally recognize the California devastation, while still planning to raise money here, bothered even leading state Republicans.

"I find it very distasteful that while neighbors are dealing with these fires in their own way, whether directly impacted, or trying to empathize with this who have been - that they are being hounded by presidential campaigns - Republicans no less," wrote Jon Fleischman, the Irvine-based publisher of The Flashreport (flashreport.org), a leading GOP Web site.

"How candidates and officeholders react in the midst of a tragedy tells you a lot about whether they are focused on themselves, or on the people around them," he wrote.

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/25/MNU5T07IJ.DTL&tsp=1