Reiner turns to "master of disaster" for PR help

The following first appeared in Capitol Weekly Exit stage left: Rob Reiner. Enter stage right: Mark Fabiani. Hollywood producer Rob Reiner tried to scamper off the center of California's political stage last week, resigning as chair of a state commission for children he helped create seven years earlier. On the day of his resignation, Reiner was out of town, unavailable for comment. In his stead was Mark Fabiani, a hired-gun Democratic operative who specializes in crisis communications. "Rob is someone that volunteered his time and spent millions of his own money, all in the interest of improving the quality of life for kids," said Fabiani, defending his newest client. Fabiani, along with business partner Chris Lehane, has earned the nickname "master of disaster"--a public-relations guru that specializes in crisis communications. It is a reputation the pair honed in the Clinton White House, serving as counsel to the president during the Monica Lewinsky and Whitewater scandals. Now Reiner, a film director and producer, has cast Fabiani in a supporting role to help him fend off growing allegations of misspending taxpayer money. The First 5 California Children and Families Commission, which Reiner chaired, spent $23 million in public money on advertising that promoted preschool last winter. Reiner had recused himself from the controversial advertising decisions, as he is backing a June 2006 ballot measure that would raise income taxes on wealthy Californians to pay for universal preschool. But at the request of the Legislature, the state auditor is preparing a broad review of the First 5 ad spending, while state Sen. Chuck Poochigian, R-Fresno, is demanding an investigation into the spending by the attorney general. "You cannot use taxpayer dollars to fund a political agenda. That is precisely what Rob Reiner did,"said Sen. Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks, who called for the audit and sent a letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, signed by the entire Senate Republican caucus, urging the governor replace Reiner. Meanwhile, the most recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) showed support for Reiner's Proposition 82 preschool measure sagging, dropping 14 points, from January to March, to 52 percent. Reiner's public-relations predicament will hardly be Fabiani's first. In 2000, he served as deputy campaign manager for Al Gore's presidential run, and headed up the post-election effort to discredit former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris during the contentious recount. Four years later, Miramax hired Fabiani and Lehane to counter right-wing attacks on filmmaker Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. "Employing the Clinton strategy of '92, we will allow no attack on this film to go without a response immediately," Moore said at the time. "And we will go after anyone who slanders me or my work, and we will do it without mercy." And to do that, Moore turned to Lehane and Fabiani. Later that year, three-time gold medal Olympian Marion Jones turned to the Democratic operatives to manage her public image amid doping allegations. And in 2001, at the height of the California energy crisis, former Governor Gray Davis hired Fabiani and Lehane as energy advisers. After their hiring, Davis' rhetoric quickly turned against President George W. Bush and "price-gouging energy companies, many of whom reside in Texas." Hired for $30,000-a-month in public money, the pair left unpaid after a taxpayer group sued over a conflict of interest because both Lehane and Fabiani previously had received $10,000 from a California energy company. "Fabiani is fantastic," says former Davis political adviser Garry South. "There is no one better than him at keeping a cool head, looking at facts and public perceptions and reacting to them." Fabiani also works as special counsel to the San Diego Chargers, a football team owned by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's second-biggest donor, Alex Spanos. Spanos has given Schwarzenegger-controlled committees more than $2.6 million. "Those are completely different areas of work," said Fabiani. "There is obviously no connection between the two." Fabiani now will try to turn public attention away from Reiner and back toward the kids that he says will benefit from the preschool initiative. Reiner has donated more than $600,000 in money and service to the preschool campaign. Fabiani would not comment on whether he advised Reiner to resign his post on the First 5 commission. "The opponents of the proposition have been focusing their attacks on Rob and it is clear after the last month or so that they have no intent on opposing the initiative on the merits," said Fabiani, who has been hired not by the campaign, but as Reiner's personal spokesman. "Mark is handling Rob's personal stuff so the rest of us can focus on the campaign," said Roger Salazar, a Democratic consultant who recently joined the Yes-on-82 campaign.