THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE:

Costa Mesa blogger Martin Millard this week addressed rumors on his blog of a possible run for City Council with a platform for his nonexistent campaign.

Millard, known for his outspoken stance on immigration and view that nonprofits attract illegal immigrants to Costa Mesa, said Wednesday that while he’s definitely not running in 2008, he hopes his hypothetical platform will influence other candidates to take up some of his views.

“That was just to goad politicians to adopt some of these things. It’s things I think the city needs. I don’t want to be a politician, absolutely not,” Millard said.

Millard’s platform includes cutting off tax funds for Costa Mesa nonprofit agencies that serve illegal immigrants, cross-training police officers on federal immigration enforcement procedures and attracting upscale businesses and residential development to the city’s Westside, home to many of Costa Mesa’s Latino residents.

Millard also wrote he would investigate the possibility of merging Costa Mesa with Newport Beach.

“It seems to me, after having read this, he could have saved a lot of typing by simply stating his ultimate objective — the expulsion of all Latinos from Costa Mesa, regardless of their immigration status,” said Geoff West, another blogger.

DOLE HEADS TO NEWPORT

It seems pockets just aren’t deep enough in Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole’s home state of North Carolina.

Dole is headed to Newport Beach Jan. 7 for a fundraising dinner at the swanky Pacific Club. The suggested donation for dinner and a photo op with Dole is $1,000.

A phone call to Dole’s office in Washington was not returned Wednesday, but she had already raised $2.3 million as of Sept. 30, according to federal campaign finance reports.

The senator could find a lot of friends in Newport’s business community. Among her duties in Washington, she serves on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs and the Committee on Small Businesses and Entrepreneurship.

A TRUE STATESMAN

Rep. John Campbell and Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Burlingame) didn’t always see eye-to-eye on the issues, Campbell said Wednesday.

But Campbell said he has always respected Lantos. The 79-year-old Hungarian-born Congressman announced Wednesday he has been diagnosed with cancer and won’t seek reelection.

“I obviously disagree with him on some issues, but there are only a handful of people in Congress you can truly call a statesman, and he is one of them,” Campbell said. “He served a long and distinguished career in Congress, and I think he’ll be missed.”

Lantos is the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress, and he twice escaped Nazi labor camps. Lantos said he would finish his 14th term, which ends January 2009, after being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus.

LIVE FREE OR DIE?

Despite a reported 25% rise in national membership, the local chapter of the Orange County Libertarian party is facing some hard times, organizers say.

Orange County Libertarian Party Chairman Bill Todd blamed the party’s floundering numbers — which he estimated had dropped 75% since 2000 — on a new dues system and the popularity of insurgent Presidential candidate Ron Paul, whose Libertarian-oriented politics have attracted the attention of many traditional Libertarians.

“A lot of Libertarians have jumped ship temporarily to vote in the Republican primary (for Ron Paul), and a good portion, in my opinion, of those supporting Ron Paul locally are Libertarians,” Todd said.

Ron Paul, a ten-term Congressman from Texas, ran as the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate in 1988. Once an asterisk in the crowded campaign field, his record-breaking single-day “money-bomb” fundraisers have garnered considerable attention for his candidacy, as well increased poll numbers among New Hampshire and Iowa voters.

“This is a big X factor whose impact on the party we don’t understand at this point,” Todd said.

Beau Cain, the secretary of California’s Libertarian Party, disagreed, saying he saw the Ron Paul candidacy as a force that may ultimately turn into a surge of support for the party.

“The media is now using the word Libertarian a lot more frequently than it used to, and they use it describe Dr. Paul’s political philosophy,” Cain said, adding that many Libertarians who switched parties to vote in the California’s February primary will be returning to vote in the Libertarian race in May.

“They may be voting Republican now, but we’re going to get them all back,” Cain emphasized.

The party’s dues system, on which Todd blamed the county party’s floundering numbers, has also been reformed for 2008, Cain said.

The original system was based on the calendar year, and forced those joining to repay their annual dues in January — despite whether they paid for a full year of membership in May or June of the previous year.

“That’s not very Libertarian to me,” Todd said, noting he had threatened to resign in protest of the policy.

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at [email protected]. CHRIS CAESAR may be reached at (714) 966-4626 or at [email protected].