Instant Candidate : A Loyal Party Member Suddenly Finds That He’s on Stage When His Side Needs a ‘Warm Body’ to Make a Race of It

When Santa Ana attorney John Hanna cornered law partner Geoff Gray two weeks ago and asked Gray to “cover” for him, Gray thought that Hanna wanted him to fill in on a legal case.

But Hanna, who serves as chairman of Democratic Associates of Orange County, had something more in mind.

It was 3 p.m. Feb. 5, just two hours before the filing deadline for state elections, and Hanna had just learned that no Democrat had filed against first-term Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach).

So what he wanted, Hanna explained, was for Gray to “cover” for Orange County Democrats by running for Ferguson’s 70th Assembly seat.

Boning Up

Gray was taken aback--but he agreed. And overnight, this trial lawyer, 15-year resident of Newport Beach and political unknown has been boning up on walking precincts, raising money, developing issues and other requisites for becoming a politician.

Gray, 37, was also quick to learn one axiom of political life--that personal concerns often take a back seat to the political ones. Before Hanna collared him on Feb. 5, Gray and his fiancee were planning to get married next fall, about election time. Now that he is a candidate, the wedding has been rescheduled--for the spring of 1987.

Gray is the first to concede that he is a novice at campaigning. Other than walking a few precincts when he was in high school and paying $50-a-year dues to Hanna’s group, a Democratic club for young professionals, Gray has no background in politics. Still, both he and Hanna insist that he is a serious candidate.

To Counter Ferguson

For he is running, they explained, to counter Ferguson’s conservative Republican views during campaign debates and to force county Republicans to spend some of their money on what might otherwise have been an uncontested race.

Even if Gray loses--and in a 61% Republican district that Ferguson won two years ago with 73% of the votes, he is expected to lose--there is a point to their exercise.

“Someone’s got to be there raising issues,” Hanna said. By fielding a Democratic candidate in this race, Orange County Democrats are “preserving the democratic ideal--democratic with a small ‘d.’ ”

Gray added, “I’m here to keep the man on the up and up. Somebody has to.”

Though Gray’s last-minute candidacy is an extreme example, recruiting such “kamikaze candidates,” as they are sometimes called, is a common practice of both Republicans and Democrats.

These “citizen candidates” are not just bright individuals who suddenly decide that it’s their time to run. Selected by party leaders, they fill a basic party need--providing a warm body who will be listed on the ballot and will present the Republican or Democratic side.

“We’re very conscious about having a Republican on the ballot simply to represent the Republican Party in that district,” said Greg Haskin, executive director of the Republican Central Committee of Orange County.

Around the state, “a district’s registration may be only 22% Republican but we always try to represent that,” Haskin said. “It’s important because the (party) nominee sits on the state Central Committee. On top of that, both parties are always very aware of keeping the incumbent at home rather than letting them run around unopposed and out raising money for other candidates.”

Two years ago, area Republicans--worried that no party member would file against state Sen. Paul Carpenter (D-Cypress)--reportedly recruited Maggie Vineyard, owner of Maggie’s Muffler Shop in Hawaiian Gardens, to run against him. An underdog every step of the race, Vineyard nevertheless gave Carpenter a fight. Carpenter won with 52.5% of the vote, but Vineyard’s tally was a respectable 45.9%

However, most of the time in Orange County, traditionally a Republican stronghold, there’s rarely a need to recruit Republican candidates. “Usually the problem isn’t not having any Republicans but having too many Republicans,” Haskin said.

Not so Orange County Democrats. Besides having to worry about Ferguson’s 70th District, Hanna thought on the morning of the final day for filing that he might have to find Democratic candidates for four other Assembly Districts--the 64th, the 69th, the 67th and the 74th.

As it happened, two more candidates besides Gray ultimately filed for the 70th District seat: Theresa White, a Peace and Freedom candidate, and Eugene V. Hunt, a Democrat who belongs to that party’s conservative Lyndon LaRouche faction. Hanna and Gray say they are still glad Gray filed--to present the views of middle-of-the-road Democrats.

Meanwhile in the 74th Assembly District, Hanna ultimately gave up on finding a Democrat to run against incumbent Robert Frazee (R-Carlsbad). Because most of that district is in San Diego County, Hanna, on the morning of Feb. 5, had phoned that county’s Democratic Central Committee to alert them to the problem. When he got the central committee’s answering machine, “I just left a message: ‘I hope you can get someone to file,’ ” Hanna said. No Democrat did.

Also, though it took half a dozen phone calls, Hanna eventually learned that Democrats were about to file for both the 67th and 64th Assembly districts. That left just one more filing day problem--finding a Democrat to run in the 69th Assembly District against incumbent Nolan Frizzelle (R-Fountain Valley.)

At a party the week before, computer programmer Dan Rasmus, 24, another Democratic Associates member, had volunteered to run against Frizzelle if no one else filed. Rasmus had said he didn’t want Frizzelle to go unchallenged for his defense last year of South Africa’s apartheid policy. And late that Wednesday, after a quick call from Hanna, Rasmus was as good as his word.

For all the work, it turned out that Hanna need not have worried about “coverage” for the 69th. When the filings closed, businessman Jack H. Baldwin, a Democrat who had run against Frizzelle before, also had filed for Frizzelle’s seat. Now one of the two Democrats in that race is thinking of dropping out, Hanna said.

All this last-minute recruiting of candidates sounds a bit haphazard--unprofessional even, Hanna admitted. “As a lawyer I don’t like to leave things to the last minute,” he said.