O.C. Democrats Turn to Old Pro for Revival Effort

The call one morning last week was from state Democratic Party Chairman Edmund G. Brown Jr.: What, he asked, did Howard Adler think about this new California senator from Anaheim, John Seymour?

A short time later, another call came to Adler’s Irvine office from Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, who, like Brown, is a prospective candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1992: How did Adler think the field of Democratic candidates was shaping up for that race?

As a millionaire and a passionately dedicated Democratic activist for more than 30 years, Adler’s opinion is important to many of the party’s statewide candidates.

And now, approaching its most crucial election cycle in a decade, the beleaguered Orange County Democratic Party has also turned to Adler. Last week, he accepted a draft to serve a two-year term as chairman of the county party.

“I am a political junkie and a true believer in the Democratic Party and a two-party system--even in Orange County,” Adler, 48, said in a fund-raising letter mailed just days after his unanimous election. “I have always answered to the call of the party when I really believed I was needed.”

A lot is at stake in the next two years for both parties.

Orange County Democrats are coming out of a decade that ended with the party broke, torn by infighting and having hardly any representation in county, state or federal office. Whether that bleak role continues could well be decided in 1992.

In the next two years, both parties will play major roles in campaigns for two U.S. Senate seats and the presidency. Also, several legislative and congressional races are expected to be unusually competitive as district lines are redrawn under reapportionment and some incumbents leave to seek higher office.

“This is the most important election in my lifetime,” said John Hanna, former chairman of the county Democratic Party. “The significance cannot be overstated--seats that are lost in this election could be gone for a decade.”

At such a moment, Orange County Democrats have turned to the same leadership that saw the party through its last heyday in the 1970s. Back then, Adler and another millionaire developer, Richard J. O’Neill, directed much of the party’s effort in Orange County.

O’Neill was chairman of the state and county Democratic Party committees during that decade, and Adler worked on several state and local campaigns. Adler chaired the county Democratic Party in 1982.

For at least 25 years, Adler and O’Neill have been the Democratic “dynamic duo” of Orange County. Close personal friends as well as political soulmates and business partners, the portly O’Neill and thin Adler were described by one local activist as the party’s “Laurel and Hardy.”

Now, just as Adler takes the helm of the central committee, O’Neill has been named chairman of the Democratic Foundation, the party’s wealthiest and most influential club.

“It’s made a lot of people very excited,” said George Urch, aide to newly elected Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove).

Adler was the chief fund-raiser for Umberg in a hotly contested race last year against incumbent Curt Pringle. The race was a test for Adler, who thought that Umberg was such a strong candidate that if he could not win, Orange County had truly become a lost cause for Democrats.

“I was going to give up politics,” Adler said.

But Adler said Umberg’s victory reignited his political fire. It showed that Democrats could win with good candidates and strong campaigns, he thought. Now that he has accepted the challenge, Adler talks about the Democrats’ future with excitement.

“I think we’re at the beginning of a new cycle,” he said. “We can, if we develop the resources and commitments early enough . . . change the dynamics in this county to reduce the Republican margin of victory.”

Republicans also voted for a party chairman recently, deciding to reelect Thomas Fuentes to his fourth two-year term. Fuentes, who has overseen some of the GOP’s strongest election performances, said he expects the trend to continue.

“We go into this cycle with a 240,000 registration margin of more Republicans than Democrats in Orange County,” Fuentes said. “There’s no question that the representation that comes from these districts will be solidly conservative.”

Adler, the son of a milkman and Teamsters Union member, was drawn to politics in 1959 when he was a 17-year-old Anaheim High School student called on to chauffeur Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy to Disneyland.

He later joined the Washington staff of Democratic Rep. Richard Hanna after graduating from Cal State Long Beach in 1966 and directing the congressman’s campaign.

On his return to Orange County, Adler began work as a developer with expertise he learned through Hanna’s role in the House Banking and Currency Committee. And he continued his job as a campaign consultant, actually managing the first elections of two of Orange County’s most notable Republicans: Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) and Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder.

Dannemeyer at the time was a Democrat, but Adler has a friendly relationship with many of Orange County’s top Republicans. He has contributed to most of the Republican supervisors. And one of his close and longtime friends is Gus Owen, a fellow developer and president of the influential Republican Lincoln Club.

Today, Adler is a partner with O’Neill in OAS Investors Inc., which has developed several Orange County shopping centers. And he is chairman of Adler Droz Inc., a management and graphics company. He lives in Laguna Hills.

At his desk in an Irvine office park near John Wayne Airport, Adler is surrounded by planning maps, public service awards and a desktop Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle doll, a sign of the humor he mixes with all of his conversations.

He is respected by many of Orange County’s large developers, even though many do not share all of his political predictions.

“Orange County has not treated the Democratic Party kindly, and I don’t see that changing,” Owen said. “Howard may think he’s right, but if he’s wrong, we’ll have a glass of wine and laugh about it.”