IMPEACHMENT SPECTER HAUNTS 44TH DISTRICT.

Byline: Gina Keating Staff Writer

PASADENA - GOP leaders are staging a last-ditch rally behind a dark horse Assembly candidate to try to derail what they see as a likely primary victory by Clinton impeachment figure Susan Carpenter McMillan.

Over the weekend, 44th Assembly District candidate Damian Jones received campaign contributions of nearly $50,000, about twice what he had raised since declaring his candidacy last fall.

Political experts say GOP leaders are worried that having Carpenter McMillan and U.S. Rep. James Rogan on the same ticket will unpleasantly remind Democratic and independent ``swing'' voters of the unpopular 1998 impeachment proceedings.

Rogan, R-Pasadena, rose to fame as one of 13 House prosecutors during the televised impeachment battle. Carpenter McMillan was a TV fixture for years as spokeswoman for Paula Jones, whose sexual-harassment suit against President Clinton became a catalyst for his impeachment.

Carpenter McMillan and others, however, say that impeachment has little to do with GOP leaders' dislike of her, and she has vocally criticized party leaders for failing to support female candidates.

``I think that's probably true. I won't be a token to the party leadership and I think this is a lot about gender,'' Carpenter McMillan said.

She denied that voters would connect her with impeachment.

``I represented a woman on a sexual-harassment lawsuit, I had nothing to do with impeachment - that is yesterday's news,'' she said.

For either Rogan or McMillan to clinch the increasingly Democratic districts, they must lure conservative Democrats and uncommitted voters to their camps.

``It's panic,'' said Democrat political consultant Parke Skelton. ``They finally have gotten their mind around the fact that Susan Carpenter McMillan is going to be their nominee unless they do something about it.