TIPOFF : VILLARAIGOSA ENDEARS SELF TO VALLEY VOTERS.

Byline: RICK ORLOV

WHEN you have a good thing going, you might as well milk it for all it's worth.

That's the case with Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, D-Los Angeles, who is acting these days more like a candidate for mayor of the San Fernando Valley than Los Angeles.

Villaraigosa, whose support for state funding of the Valley secession study earned him points among local leaders, has scheduled a check presentation to the Local Agency Formation Commission on Friday to make it official.

It was Villaraigosa who pushed through $1.8 million in the state budget and who personally lobbied Gov. Gray Davis and other state officials to approve the funding.

While Villaraigosa says all the right things about wanting to help get an independent study, most say it has more to do with his own ambitions in 2001 - to be mayor of all Los Angeles. In the last two mayoral elections, it was the San Fernando Valley that provided the decisive margins for Mayor Richard Riordan.

Speaking of the 2001 elections, Councilman Mike Feuer is trumpeting the endorsements he has lined up as well as the amount of cash he has raised.

With the election two years away, Feuer already has raised nearly $200,000, about one-fifth of what he needs to qualify for city matching funds to put him at the maximum spending of $990,000.

``I'm encouraged by what I've been able to raise this far out from the election and with races coming up next year,'' Feuer said.

The councilman, whose district is evenly divided between the Valley and the Westside, is unopposed so far in his race. But several people have said they are trying to find someone to challenge him.

One of those is attorney Ted Stein, who now serves as Harbor Commission president. Stein lost badly to City Attorney James Hahn two years ago and is being reluctantly pushed, according to rumor, toward a second bid.

Here's a way to measure the difference between presidential campaigns in California and those in New Hampshire.

Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican chasing Texas Gov. George W. Bush for the GOP nomination, began a modest television buy in San Diego last week to try to get his name out.

For the same money, his campaign sent 50,000 videotapes to the voters of New Hampshire, which runs the nation's first presidential primary election.

``That wouldn't work in California,'' communications director Dan Schnur said last week in a telephone conference call with California reporters. ``The most effective way to communicate with Southern California voters is through cable on the all-news stations.''

McCain's commercials emphasize his military background and were scheduled to run two weeks, after which the campaign will assess where it stands.

Campaign officials insist it was mere coincidence that the commercials began the week Bush was campaigning in the state for the first time.

McCain aides also are saying they do not plan a major effort for the presidential straw poll in Iowa - mainly because of the cost.

The Iowa Republican Party charges people $25 a vote to cast a ballot.

Sound bite of the week: ``Let's go ahead and hire a consultant to tell us what we already know.'' - Councilman Hal Bernson to Planning Department officials on a proposed study to tighten adult entertainment laws.

- Daily News Staff Writer Doug Haberman contributed to this column.