President Bush is scheduled to visit the Bay Area and Los Angeles late next month for a pair of fund-raisers that are expected to generate $6 million for his 2004 re-election effort.
While GOP leaders say the president will make other, noncampaign stops during his seventh visit to California, the June 27 lunch at the San Francisco Airport Marriott in Burlingame and a dinner that night at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles are the events luring Bush to the state.
"Today I am writing to ask that you support his campaign as we kick it off here in California," Brad Freeman, Bush's state finance chairman, said in a letter to GOP donors.
"It will be months before Democrats settle on a candidate, but the election will be close," Freeman added in the letter. "(Bush) needs the help of friends now. His responsibilities as president will keep him off the campaign trail, so he will rely on our help more than ever."
Most of that help is going to involve checks with plenty of zeros. The lunch and the dinner each are expected to attract 1,500 people anxious to pay the $2,000-a-head price tag, which, not coincidentally, is the maximum amount an individual can give to the Bush-Cheney campaign for the primary election.
But Bush backers who raise $50,000 for the re-election campaign can be dinner sponsors, which comes with a pair of tickets to a VIP reception and a picture with Bush. Raising $100,000 makes a person a dinner vice-chair and a member of the campaign's Pioneers, while bringing in $200,000 makes the backer a dinner co-chair and part of the campaign's new, megadonor group, the Rangers.
"This is a natural stop for the president," said Mindy Tucker, a top aide to Bush during the 2000 campaign and now a counselor to the California Republican Party. "In 1999, when he launched his campaign he made an early swing through California that June."
On that three-day trip through the state, Bush raised nearly $5 million, or slightly less than he is expected to take from the two events next month.
Since last week, when Bush formally filed the paperwork to create a re- election campaign committee, the presidential fund-raising machine has kicked into high gear. A Washington, D.C., event he appeared at Wednesday night was expected to raise more than $20 million for the party.
Tucker said the stops in Burlingame and Los Angeles show that Bush plans to run a strong campaign in California, where he was beaten badly by Democrat Al Gore in 2000.
"There has never been a question about how important (California) is to the administration," she said. "The party feels there is a real opportunity here, for a lot of reasons."
Democrats argue that the big-dollar fund-raisers show that Bush's interest in California doesn't extend past his campaign treasury.
"In the end, California is only an ATM machine for Republicans nationally," said Bob Mulholland, a consultant for the state Democratic Party.
E-mail the writers at jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com and cmarinucci@sfchronicle.com.
