Troubles Keep Mecham Away From the Party

The big news last week in the Orange County Republican Party was not what happened, but what didn’t: Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham did not appear as scheduled before the party’s Silver Circle Club.

Mecham is the governor who was satirized in Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” comic strip for referring to blacks as “pickaninnies” and who has spawned a cottage industry in the sale of “Gov buster” T-shirts, coffee mugs and bumper stickers. He’s also the guy Arizona’s former senator, GOP stalwart Barry Goldwater, recently urged to resign.

Mecham had for many months been scheduled to appear before the Silver Circle Club, a $500-a-year GOP support group that gets together every so often to socialize and hear prominent Republicans speak. But the day before his scheduled appearance, he canceled.

“I suppose you all know what’s going on over here,” Mecham’s scheduling secretary, Shirley Million, said in a telephone interview from Phoenix.

What’s going on over there is near chaos in the state Capitol. Among other things, Mecham is facing charges that he failed to report a $350,000 campaign loan. His press secretary, Ken Smith, said his boss is “quite frankly so tied up with attorneys” that he didn’t have time for the Orange County trip--which also would have included an appearance as grand marshal at the Arizona State Fair parade Thursday at Disneyland.

As if that weren’t enough, the Mecham (pronounced Mee-kum ) Recall Committee is expected to submit the needed signatures Tuesday to force a recall election next spring.

Smith admitted that Mecham has “said some dumb things, and he freely admits that.” But, he said, the governor is “not the racist, insensitive bigot” he is portrayed to be.

Orange County GOP chairman Tom Fuentes said that, with Tuesday’s events looming in Arizona, he had received an unprecedented number of inquiries from the national press about news coverage of the Silver Circle event.

“I’m not sure I had until the last day or two a perspective on how sensitive and controversial the governor’s public posture presently is,” Fuentes said last week.

Was he relieved that Mecham is not coming? Fuentes laughed. “You can’t invite a guest and then say you’re relieved,” he said. “It would be ungracious.”

Then he added: “I’m sure we would have had an interesting evening, but if he has been forced to cancel, well, we’ll live with that.”

Also getting a chuckle over Mecham’s sudden cancellation were a few Orange County Democrats, including political consultant Harvey Englander. “He shoots off his mouth,” said Englander. “I think he’s someone who even good Republicans have a hard time swallowing.”

The invitation to Mecham was one of 11 sent by Orange County officials for a variety of events during the year--one to each of the new Republican governors elected last November. One that did come off was Tuesday’s appearance of Nebraska Gov. Kay A. Orr at the 400 Club, a $100-a-year group of GOP supporters.

There was something tantalizing about the prospect of the ladylike, personable, up-through-the-GOP-ranks Orr visiting the county just a few days before the controversial Mecham. Although she is her state’s first woman governor, and the GOP’s first woman governor in the nation, her appearance stirred virtually no interest in the press.

Had Mecham kept his appointment, he would have been the third governor to visit Orange County in three days; California’s own Gov. George Deukmejian spoke here Wednesday.

“We would have had a unique week,” Fuentes said. “I guess three governors in one week is too much to expect in one county.”

In other non-happenings, this one on the Democratic side, there was a minor ripple among party activists last week when developer David Stein failed to be elected to the board of the Democratic Foundation, the $1,000-a-year support group he helped to organize. Stein, who is vacationing in Crete, didn’t want to be on the board anyway, according to business associate Christopher Townsend. But some of the other board members prevailed on him to run, and he allowed his name to be put in the hopper.

When the results were announced, however, Stein wasn’t among the winners.

“The reason very simply is that in the last year, David has been doing his business stuff and hasn’t been active in politics,” said Mike Ray, another founder of the Foundation who was elected to the board Thursday. “There are people (in the Foundation) who don’t know who he is.”

Those elected to the board besides Ray were Linda Moulton, Howard Adler and Ken Martyn. Officers elected include Mark Lee, chairman; Audrey Redfearn, vice chairman; David Lee, treasurer, and Tom Kelley, secretary. Townsend, Martha Newkirk, Mark Rosen, Richard O’Neill, Jerry Bloch and Bernard Schneider already are on the board.