Reagan Thrills Fullerton Throng With Dukakis Attacks : GOP Defector Stunt Falls Shy of Billing

The Dukakis campaign demonstrated on Tuesday just how difficult its job is in Republican-rich Orange County by trying to boast of its successes with a lineup of local GOP turncoats.

But out of six speakers at a Santa Ana press conference billed as “Republicans for Dukakis,” one had never voted for President Reagan, one said she could not remember whether she had and another was actually from Massachusetts and called herself a “nonpartisan politician,” then conceded she is a registered Democrat.

“Orange County is just so notoriously Republican, (but) it’s a wonderful response that we’re getting,” said organizer Marty Digiuseppe, a campaign worker for Democratic presidential nominee Michael S. Dukakis.

Last week, the county’s registrar of voters reported that Republicans hold a registration lead over Democrats of 650,000 to 410,000.

Sally Anne Miller, the only Republican on the Irvine City Council, also attended the press conference and said she has been a supporter and close friend of Dukakis for about 30 years, since the two of them attended graduate school together at Harvard.

She said he is more of a fiscal conservative and a heartwarming person than he has been described during the campaign.

“It bothers me that the press depicts him as a cold person,” she said. “I’m sorry the Michael Dukakis you see in the press is not the Michael Dukakis that I know.”

The event also included a 23-year-old Republican who said he backed Dukakis because young people are concerned about more than national defense “and being the big bully on the block.”

And there was a retired Navy commander and lifelong Republican who complained about Bush’s refusal to describe his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal.

400 Buttons Distributed

Digiuseppe said the campaign’s county office has “had a number of calls from Republicans” supporting Dukakis. But she said the only proof of Democratic gains in this GOP stronghold is that the campaign had distributed about 400 “Republicans for Dukakis” buttons in the last six weeks.

“We just wanted to let the other Republicans (who support Dukakis) know they are not alone,” she said of the press conference.

Dan Behling, the retired Navy commander, said: “I thought I was alone and wacky for a little while” in deciding to support Dukakis.

Barbara Martin, a Republican from Corona del Mar, observed: “I thought I might be a member of the underground.”