Sometimes, loyalty is no party for faithful

The sun came up Wednesday, but Karl Heft may not have noticed. All he saw the day after Super Tuesday was a bad storm approaching, in the form of the growing likelihood that John McCain will be the GOP presidential nominee.

“What’s wrong with McCain?” I ask.

“Where do I start?” he says. “I could give you volumes, but let me condense it to three things.”

But when No. 1 is that he completely disagrees with McCain on most issues, Nos. 2 and 3 almost seem unnecessary.

So, who is this partisan Democrat who apparently can’t wait to vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in the presidential election?

Please, don’t insult the man. He wouldn’t vote Democratic for president if you waterboarded him.

What’s causing Heft the most pain these days is the prospect of McCain carrying the Republican banner.

Heft, who supports Mitt Romney, is a 37-year-old conservative Republican who grew up hearing about and then revering Ronald Reagan. He’s also made a volunteer career out of working for Republican causes. He’s a vice president of the California Republican Assembly, an organization that represents the most conservative wing of the state party.

A Laguna Hills mortgage broker, he also chairs the assembly’s 18 Orange County chapters in the heart of Republican territory.

“On critical issues that are important to conservatives,” Heft says, “on key battles, McCain has been on the wrong side every time.” He ticks off immigration; campaign spending limits; a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage; global warming; President Bush’s tax cuts (which McCain originally voted against but now favors).

In broader strokes, Heft says, is McCain’s willingness to partner with Democrats on legislation. And McCain’s desire to close the Guantanamo detention center or to give suspected terrorists access to U.S. courts. Or that in the 2000 campaign McCain implied that evangelical Christians, like Heft, are intolerant.

And that doesn’t even include reasons 2 and 3, which are that “McCain has been a disloyal Republican for all these years” and that his “demeanor and temperament” aren’t befitting a president.

Democrats rub their hands with glee at the prospect of Republicans like Heft turning away from McCain, even if they can’t fathom the notion of the Arizona senator not being conservative enough.

This is serious stuff to Heft, because it leads to the obvious question: Will he swallow his dislike and vote for McCain, especially when the other side will offer Clinton or Obama, neither of whom he could stand as potential presidents?

“At this moment,” Heft says, “my conscience is that I will do what I can for that man not to be nominated. If he is, quite frankly, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I will tell you one thing: If he’s nominated, I think it would be a devastating blow to conservatives, because we will have nominated the very man who made a name for himself by fighting conservatives at every turn.”

Apart from Clinton or Obama, someone like Heft gives the GOP shivers. That’s because his party credentials are impeccable, yet he won’t commit to voting for McCain. That isn’t how national parties win the presidency.

Being aware of that only deepens Heft’s electoral anguish.

“I know a lot of conservatives are saying they won’t support him, others are saying we’ve got to jump on board,” Heft says. “I think most of us are feeling ‘Oh my God, how could this happen? What are we going to do?’ ”

Heft’s political awakening dates to his college days in Glendale, where he organized a support-the-troops effort during the Gulf War. The voice in his head was that of Reagan, whom Heft regards as a inspirational and unswerving conservative titan.

He puts McCain outside the Reagan political lineage. Not all Republicans agree, but it’s not arguable to Heft.

I ask how he, as a political junkie, would feel if he didn’t vote for president.

“Unthinkable,” he says. But he might not. The only reason he won’t categorically rule out voting for McCain, he says, “is that I’ve always been very loyal to my party. But sometimes even party loyalty goes too far.”

I get no sense that Heft is posturing. He sounds genuinely pained over McCain. He could have taken the easy way out and said he’d cast a reluctant vote.

But he’s not ready to say that. He says he may not get there by November.

Sorry if I ruined your day, I tell him.

Not to worry, he says. It was good to vent.

“Maybe I got it out,” he says. “Maybe I’ll drive to the beach now and spend some time with my family.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.