Reagan Revs Up for GOP Stretch Drive : Politics: In Garden Grove, the former President supports freshman Assemblyman Curt Pringle.

Like watching a classic old movie where everybody knows the lines by heart, Orange County Republicans gathered around former President Ronald Reagan on Friday and basked in the glow of another campaign finale.

“Can I ask one favor of you?” Reagan finally said to a crowd already anticipating the next sentence. “Let’s go out and win this one for the Gipper.”

This time Reagan was referring to Garden Grove’s freshman Assemblyman Curt Pringle, who is locked in California’s most hotly contested legislative race against his Democratic challenger, Tom Umberg.

Before joining the audience of about 400 people at the Hyatt Alicante, Reagan jumped into a Republican phone bank and made three telephone calls to urge surprised voters to support Pringle in Tuesday’s election.

One call was to 71-year-old Minnie Ledesma of Newport Beach, whom Reagan encouraged to vote for Pringle--even though she doesn’t live in the assemblyman’s 72nd District.

Ledesma said she wasn’t quite sure it was really the former President on the telephone. “At first, I thought it was a tape or something,” she said. “His voice just sounded the same as always, a little slower, maybe. I asked him for his wife, Nancy, because I wanted to be sure it was President Reagan.

“He said for a couple of days she’s had something in her throat, and she couldn’t talk. Then he said, ‘I don’t like it when she doesn’t talk.’

“I said, ‘You’re the first man I’ve ever heard who misses his wife talking.’ ”

Ledesma added that Reagan “wasn’t pushy or anything, he was a gentleman.”

She said he encouraged her to vote, but never suggested which party to support, so she never told him she is a Democrat.

In his speech about the downfall of communism and the high-spending Democrats, Reagan barely referred to Pringle.

But Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) warmed up the audience, saying, “Curt Pringle is in the fight of his life, and that is why President Reagan is down here: to help Curt Pringle.”

Reagan’s visit was the first event of a four-day campaign swing through Southern California that will include stops today in the Inland Empire, Sunday in San Diego and a final visit to Orange County on Monday.

The former President’s mission is to rally Republican troops. To convey that message he once again recalled one of his favorite quotes: “Will Rogers once said the people we send to office are no better than those who send them. But they’re all better than those who don’t vote.”

Reagan talked about his recent visit to Moscow, where he saw lines outside a McDonald’s outlet. Asking one man why he was standing in line, Reagan said he was told, “It’s the only glimpse we can get of the United States.”

“You might be interested to know how much people in Moscow go out of their way to say how much they want to be like us,” said Reagan, wearing a black suit and tie after appearing Friday morning at the funeral for William French Smith, who was U.S. attorney general in the Reagan Administration.

In addition to Dornan, Reagan was joined on stage by Reps. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-Long Beach). Other Republican candidates included State Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), who is running for lieutenant governor; Orange County Dist. Atty. Michael Capizzi, and State Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim).