County’s Democrats Try to Foster a Comeback Image

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown peered over a room packed with Orange County delegates to the state Democratic Party convention here Saturday and pronounced himself “absolutely amazed.”

“The way we’ve been losing elections down there, I didn’t think there was anybody down there who was a Democrat,” the San Francisco Democrat quipped.

But for Orange County Democrats, the state of their local party machinery is no laughing matter. In Reagan Country during the Reagan Era, being a registered Democrat is a bit like being in Custer’s regiment at Little Bighorn.

So for the 100 or so Democratic activists who made the trek to Sacramento this weekend, the state convention was a chance to convince party colleagues--and perhaps themselves--that Orange County may be down, but it isn’t out.

Listening to Orange County Democratic Chairman John Hanna talk about his party’s chances Saturday was like listening to the manager of a last-place baseball team during spring training: this is the year his team will turn it all around.

“The point (of coming to Sacramento) is to try to send a message to the rest of the state, which seems to feel that we’re behind the ‘Orange Curtain’ and have faded back into the pre-Depression days when California was all Republican,” Hanna, a Santa Ana attorney, said. “It’s not like that. We’re strong and we’re coming back.”

Hanna and many others in his delegation wore large orange lapel buttons that read: “Orange County Democrats. 387,860. And I’m One of Them!”

That’s more Democrats than there are in many states, Hanna pointed out. So for presidential candidates or aspirants for statewide office, Orange County can represent a huge number of votes. The problem, though, is that the Republicans in the county are 591,000-strong, giving the GOP a 5-to-3 edge in voter registration.

The result of that lopsided spread has been a clean Republican sweep of Orange County seats in Congress and the state Legislature. As a last stand of sorts, many local party activists are rallying around Norwalk City Councilman Cecil Green’s bid for the state Senate in a district that lies 25% within Orange County and 75% in Los Angeles.

‘Last Foothold’

“It’s our last foothold,” Green told the delegates at a breakfast meeting here. “It (Republicanism) is going to be like a cancer on the rest of the southern end of Los Angeles County if we don’t stop it in Orange County.”

Beyond that, the goal for Orange County Democrats is to dislodge newly elected Republican Assemblyman Richard Longshore. Longshore’s district, the 72nd, is the only one in Orange County in which registered Democrats outnumber the Republicans.

Assembly Speaker Brown urged the Orange County group to add another 25,000 to 50,000 registered party members before the 1988 elections.

“And that automatically means Longshore will be on welfare,” he said.

Added Brown: “Nothing would please me more than to have (Signal Hill Assemblyman) Dennis Brown or (Republican Assembly leader) Pat Nolan wake up and find he is as unwelcome in Orange County as he is in San Francisco. . . .’

Willing to Help

Brown, Senate Democratic leader David Roberti (D-Los Angeles)) and Southern California Party Chairman Peter Kelly assured the delegation that party leaders are willing to help lead Orange County back toward the Democratic side of the spectrum.

And while the delegates were hobnobbing at the convention center, George Urch, the party’s executive director in Orange County, was down the street at the Capitol talking strategy with key political aides to Brown and Roberti.

Among the delegates was former Rep. Jerry Patterson, who lost his seat in Congress to Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) two years ago. Even Patterson managed to find a rose amid the thorns that keep scratching Orange County’s Democrats.

“I think we’ve hit bottom,” Patterson said. “While you never want it to get this bad, it’s really brought together the Democrats more than anything else. The defeat has brought them together.”