1988 REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION : Californians Hoping Party Can Catch Fire : Delegates Contend Convention Must Kindle New Spirit

Ethnically diverse, moderate on social issues, unified behind the candidate, the delegation from Ronald Reagan’s home state, as much as any in the nation, bears the stamp of Vice President George Bush.

Yet, like their more conservative, more fractious counterparts from other states, the Californians are wrestling with the problem of how to mobilize their party behind a GOP presidential candidate whom California, for only the second time in two decades, cannot call its own.

“We have been so spoiled by the Reagan presidency, particularly in the West. He’s our home-grown boy,” said delegate Eileen Padberg, who works for Bush and who put together California’s plan for selecting 350 delegates and alternates, plus more than 100 non-voting honorary delegates.

See New Beginning

The delegates now are looking to the Republican National Convention as a new beginning to what so far has been a lackluster campaign in their state. Many of them complain that it has been marked by apathy and by the worry that the conservatives who powered Reagan’s campaigns in California have been slow to get behind Bush.

“What we need is a shot in the arm, a lot of hoopla, a love-in,” state Sen. Robert G. Beverly of Manhattan Beach said.

More than anything, the Californians say that, after eight years of political successes, they must kindle a fighting spirit. As a catalyst, they point less to Bush than to their concern that the “Reagan revolution” would be undone by a Democratic victory.

It is a matter of saying, “put the Democrats in and you kill the goose that laid the golden egg,” said Kenneth L. Khachigian, a GOP political consultant and one of Reagan’s most trusted speech writers.

Angela (Bay) Buchanan of Irvine, a leading voice for conservatives on the delegation, said she believes the convention will rouse people if it can unmask Democratic nominee Michael S. Dukakis for the liberal she is convinced he is.

‘Much More Excited’

“I came here worried about the polls, worried about Dukakis,” Buchanan said. But since arriving at the convention, she said she has become “much more excited about seeing a Bush victory.”

Buchanan and Eileen Padberg, both influential Orange County political consultants, reflect diverging views within a delegation that must put aside its philosophical differences if it is to win in November.

Like 69% of California’s delegates and 50% of the delegates nationwide, Padberg is opposed to a constitutional amendment that would ban abortions. Buchanan, besides being strongly anti-abortion, believes the United States ought to spend a lot more on the Strategic Defense Initiative, the missile defense system in space undertaken by Reagan. But her view is shared by only 26% of the California delegates.

“I think the delegation is a good healthy mix of conservatives and moderates, and I think a little bit of both is George Bush,” Padberg said.

That same blend is evident in delegates like Gaddi H. Vasquez, an Orange County supervisor who opposes abortion and favors capital punishment while believing that Republicans must avoid the image of a “party of the rich” by “extending a helping hand” through job training and child-care programs.

Poll Shows Stand on Issues

According to a Los Angeles Times Poll, a majority of the California delegation is supportive of federal spending for health care, education, low-income housing and AIDS research while strongly opposing more spending for welfare and foreign aid.

Like the state, its delegation is an eclectic, occasionally exotic mixture. Among the members is Ravinder Shergill of Fremont, a Sikh who came to America from India and finds the Republican Party appealing, he said, because he believes it stands for the freedom and self-defense so valued by his own sect. Under Bush, Shergill said, he hoped the party would work more vigorously than it has for human rights.

Another immigrant is Ky Ngo of Garden Grove, who fled Vietnam as Saigon fell to the Communists in 1975 and who, like many of his compatriots in America, joined the Republicans because he feels they are more strongly anti-Communist than the Democratic Party.

In the delegation, Latinos, blacks, Asians and women are a distinct minority. Still, Latinos make up 12% of the California delegation, compared to 4% for all GOP delegates. Blacks constitute 6% of the state delegation, compared to 4% nationally, and 45% of the state’s contingent are women, compared to a convention average of 33%. Four percent of the California delegation is Asian.

Padberg said the mix reflects Bush’s desire for a delegation reflecting the diversity of the state’s voting population. (Unlike most states, delegates from California were selected well after it was clear that Bush would be the party’s nominee, so he had a much stronger hand in shaping its delegation.)

But Chip Neilsen, counsel to the Bush campaign in California, said the delegate selection plan also reflected a desire to look good in the news media.

They Sought Balance

“There was an awareness that the percentages of women, blacks and Asians would end up in a newspaper story. So, we strived for that kind of balance,” Neilsen said.

The Californians are an upbeat group, their optimism about the nation’s economy and their lack of grave concern about the deficit reflecting their state’s current prosperity.

But when it comes to Bush’s prospects, despite their loyalty to him, they are more than a little nervous.

“The morale is not red hot in California,” said state Sen. Ken Maddy of Fresno. “We’ve got to come out of this week flying.”

Neilsen, while predicting Bush would prevail, warned: “If the campaign is a repeat of what it has been, Bush will lose.”