Republicans Toss a Grand Old Convention : Politics: Delegates play down their differences and play up what unites them--the battle to gain control over the Legislature.

If you are a loyal Republican, walked your precincts, licked all those envelopes, slaved at the phone banks on Election Day--this is your reward. A weekend of politics at the state Republican Party convention. The harvest of the grass roots.

Delegates began arriving Friday and by Saturday numbered 900 for this ritual held twice a year. Reporters, consultants, operatives and politicians pushed the total participation to perhaps 1,200 or more--to hear the ballyhoos of a party with growing hopes of attaining majorityhood, but still uneasy with anything that alters its old-fashioned conservative principles.

Most Californians know of state political conventions as simple platforms at some remote hotel where office and publicity seekers speak over the heads of the delegates, through the news media, to voters at large. In other words, a hot air show.

But for delegates, this is Democracy in full flourish--for better or worse, and sometimes both. This is what Democracy looks like 200-plus years after a revolution.

“You know how you got started in politics. You go to a meeting. Your reward is you get invited back to another meeting. . . . Pretty soon, you’re in charge,” state Sen. Marian Bergeson said by way of tribute to the delegates. Many of whom said it took up to five years of work to get this far.

From the vantage point of the rank and file, the convention is part social, part personal--but always political.

“Without these gatherings, you get the blahs,” said longtime Laguna Niguel activist Dorothy Hughes.

Friday was the day when the leaders of the state GOP, chiefly Chairman Frank Visco, a good-natured Lancaster insurance man, tried to establish the tone for the weekend.

This time, the effort was to try and channel the energy of the delegates away from internal squabbles about those issues that divide Republicans--and toward a matter that unites them: reapportionment.

Visco and the party announced that they had budgeted $400,000 for television commercials to support a pair of June ballot initiatives--Propositions 118 and 119--to stop Democratic control over the drawing of legislative and congressional districts. One initiative would establish a commission to draw districts, the other would require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature instead of a simple majority.

The GOP argues that majority Democrats have gerrymandered lines unfairly to concentrate Republicans in the fewest number of districts. This results in Democrats “unfairly” having 60% of the congressional seats. Visco said if either Proposition 118 or 119 passed and resulted in the “fair” drawing of district lines, the Republicans would have up to 60% of the seats.

One of the highlights of the convention occurred later Friday night--a forum for 16 of the party’s candidates for statewide office, from lieutenant governor down. It was an unusual mix of the obscure, the serious, the odd and unexpected, as candidates scrambled to say something compelling about themselves in a brief allotment of time.

John Harden is one of those little-known candidates unbothered by having to pander for votes. A La Habra claims adjuster, he is running for insurance commissioner under the terms of the 1988 insurance revolt initiative, Proposition 103. Harden will take the office, all right, but as for Proposition 103: “It’s a hysterical group of people getting together about something of which they know nothing!” he huffed.

For those who say politicians never have any new ideas there was insurance commissioner candidate John Parise, a soft-spoken insurance lawyer. He proposed a 20-cent increase of the gasoline tax to provide basic insurance for all motorists--a low paper work fee directly tied to the amount of driving a person does.

Los Angeles Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores figured everyone in California would like to spend more of their lives involved with politics, just like the delegates. She said that if elected California’s secretary of state, she would lead the way to televise proceedings of the Legislature.

“Even in Moscow, debates of the government get No. 1 ratings. Where is the leadership here?” she demanded.

Her rival, conservative Los Angeles Deputy Dist. Atty. Gordon Levy, tried the politics of confrontation. Not with her, but with the delegates. He listed all the lawyers running for office, and added with a snarl, “And I’m a lawyer.”

The crowd booed enthusiastically.

The party’s two lieutenant governor candidates were given a chance to debate face to face. Although both scored points with supporters as they recounted their views, Sen. Bergeson bested Sen. John Seymour on the matter of memorable one-liners, or sound bites.

On the question of drugs, Bergeson won when she emphasized that she is against legalization. Period. “Read my lipstick!”

Seymour lost with his explanation of political leadership. “Leadership is the ability to stand up and be counted when it counts.”

Delegates then broke for a giant lobby party at the Santa Clara Marriott, which lasted long into Saturday morning. There was no allowance for hangovers at this convention, however.

At 7:30 a.m. delegates were threading past hawkers selling buttons and conservative books, past an anti-abortion booth with graphic displays of fetuses, past all kinds of pamphleteers, to hear a 40-minute wake-up speech from U.S. Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary Jack Kemp.

A favorite of conservatives, Kemp was invited to attend the convention in an effort to generate some excitement on the party’s right flank for its moderate nominee-apparent for governor, Pete Wilson.

For his part, Wilson acknowledged that not just conservatives but some important agribusiness leaders are expressing early discontent with his campaign. Agricultural interests worry that he is trying too hard to please environmentalists on state regulation of pesticides. They are trying to nudge him back into their corner.

Wilson, a two-term U.S. senator, said farmers would come to see that he is acting in their long-term interest by proposing the creation of a state environmental protection agency.

The most ubiquitous figure at the convention was former Rep. Dan Lungren. He officially announced his candidacy for attorney general with a record four speeches in less than 18 hours at the hotel.

Delegates had to look harder, to peer behind the scenes, to watch some of the politics that party leaders wanted to de-emphasize at this convention. Abortion is a case in point.

Unlike the national Republican Party, the California GOP is officially silent on the touchy question. Its candidates are deeply divided--from Pete Wilson, who is strongly in favor of a woman’s right to choose an abortion, to Lungren, who is just as strongly opposed.

This is just the kind of fight some delegates like to stir up, but Visco and other party officials strived to defuse it. “We’re leaning more toward becoming an umbrella party rather than one of single issues,” he said.

He said party leaders are seeking a compromise abortion plank in the 1990 platform that “everyone is happy with.”

But wouldn’t such a statement have to be bland and meaningless? Visco was asked.

“That,” he said cheerfully, “is exactly what we’re hoping for.”

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Daniel M. Weintraub and David Lesher.

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