County Looms Large in Treasurer’s Race : Campaign: There’s no clear line of difference or clear leader in Republican primary contest.

Orange County is crucial to the success of any Republican candidate for state office, but in the primary race for California treasurer it could be the major battlefield.

Angela (Bay) Buchanan, the Irvine candidate with powerful conservative credentials, has a strong pull on local Republican heartstrings. But Gov. George Deukmejian has made support for incumbent Thomas Hayes a test of Republican loyalty.

Deukmejian was in Irvine on Wednesday night for a fund-raiser hosted by the county’s major developers. Three weeks earlier in the same city, Buchanan held her biggest fund-raiser with her famous brother, former presidential adviser and conservative commentator Pat Buchanan.

Orange County Republicans are split between the two candidates, and so, insiders say, the GOP’s mother lode is up for grabs in the June primary. A recent California Poll also said the race is a virtual tie statewide.

“There are no tea leaves to be read as yet,” said Orange County Republican Party Chairman Thomas A. Fuentes, who is neutral in the race. “I would suspect the county will be a place of high-level campaigning by both candidates. I don’t see any necessarily exclusive turf for either side.”

Orange County’s Republican Party has shown repeatedly that it is not a monolith. Its wing of philosophical conservatives has broken ranks with the large Republican business community over issues such as last month’s unsuccessful county sales-tax proposal.

While conservatives opposed Measure M because it was a tax increase, the business community bankrolled most of its $2.4-million campaign.

The treasurer’s race has the potential to split the party along similar lines, with Hayes running as a nonpolitical fiscal manager and Buchanan appealing to conservatives and calling herself “the real Republican.”

The fund-raiser for Hayes, who was appointed treasurer by Deukmejian last year, was hosted by three of the county’s biggest developers and Republican contributors--William Lyon, Kathryn Thompson and George Argyros.

Along with Newport Beach businessman Michael Parker, the event included four of the six Orange County members of Team 100, a club for $100,000 contributors to President Bush’s 1988 campaign.

Brian Lungren, Hayes’ campaign manager, said more than 100 people attended the closed-door event Wednesday at the Pacific Club in Irvine. At $1,000 per couple, he said it raised about $60,000.

Buchanan, meanwhile, a former U.S. treasurer under President Reagan, had her biggest week so far in late October when her campaign said it raised $100,000 in three events that included former secretary of state Alexander M. Haig, Utah’s Republican Sen. Orrin G. Hatch and Patrick J. Buchanan.

Despite the candidate’s differing strategies, however, Fuentes and others said the lines between the two camps are blurred in Orange County.

“I see conservatives and moderates in both camps; I see dollar people in both; I see volunteer people in both,” Fuentes said. “I don’t detect any trend . . . in one direction or the other.”

This blurring of lines is illustrated by the endorsements of Orange County’s elected officials. Conservative Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) has sided with Hayes while conservative state Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights) is with Buchanan.

Hayes’ Orange County endorsements also include Assembly members Doris Allen (R-Cypress); Nolan Frizzelle (R-Huntington Beach); state Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim) and Supervisors Thomas F. Riley and Gaddi H. Vasquez.

Buchanan, meanwhile, has enlisted Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange), state Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Fullerton), Reps. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) and Supervisors Don R. Roth and Roger R. Stanton.

“They’ll probably divide it up pretty evenly,” one Republican insider, who asked not to be identified, said of the endorsements.

Normally, Buchanan would be a stronger candidate in Orange County, the official said. “But because the governor has backed up Hayes so strongly and because Hayes is the only Republican statewide incumbent up for re-election, many people are saying it’s crazy to give up that advantage of incumbency, even if they like Bay better.”

Both campaigns said Orange County is a priority.

Hayes manager Lungren said the campaign is trying to “solidify the Republican support before we go to the general election. And Orange County is the anchor to that.”

Scott Hart, a manager in the Buchanan campaign, said many Hayes supporters in Orange County were signed on by the governor before Buchanan became a candidate.

“We expect Hayes to make inroads in areas throughout the state, including Orange County,” he said. “But I think people are really fed up with what’s been going on in Sacramento. They’re ready for a change.”

The winner of the Republican primary is expected to face Democrat Kathleen Brown in the November general election. Brown, the daughter and sister of California’s two most recent Democratic governors, was campaigning in Orange County just last week.

At a gathering in Santa Ana on Thursday, Brown told her audience, “I’m not going to concede Orange County. You’re my secret weapon.”