County Republican Panel Sharply Denounces Duke : Politics: Remarks by the group’s chairman prompted the action. He says his comments were distorted.

Ventura County’s Republican Central Committee, responding to seemingly sympathetic comments by its chairman about former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke, has sharply denounced Duke because of his association with hate groups.

Last weekend, committee Chairman Bill Jones suggested to reporters that Duke’s candidacy for the Louisiana governorship might be good for the party.

“It (the Duke candidacy) will show people how far you can go by just standing up and saying what you believe in,” Jones said.

Jones’ statements about Duke, who was resoundingly defeated last Saturday, caused considerable hand-wringing among Republicans both in Ventura County and Washington.

Some Republicans even demanded Jones’ resignation.

Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Ventura) immediately declared that Jones’ remarks did not represent “the views of any other Republican I know in the county.”

Now the 41-year-old Jones says his remarks were taken out of context and distorted.

“I’m not a seasoned political person,” he said in a telephone interview Thursday from his Simi Valley home. “Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t have given the interviews.”

To be sure, Jones said, he caught several angry blasts from local Republicans after his comments were published.

“Imagine if you were a Republican,” said Jones. “You would say, ‘Who is this guy?’ ”

Moving quickly to clarify its views on Duke, the seven-member committee voted Monday to denounce Duke in a terse statement, and then mailed it to local news media.

The statement declared that the committee unanimously “finds the KKK and the American Nazi Party hostile to reason and justice, and condemns the past and any future campaigns of David Duke because of his long and extensive association with these hate groups.”

In a further effort to put out political brush fires, Jones called a special meeting of the committee for next month to explain the weekend brouhaha, said Richard Ferrier of Santa Paula, the panel’s vice chairman.

“I think the air will be cleared at that time,” Ferrier said in a telephone interview from Washington.

Ferrier said it was important to disseminate the position statement “to correct the impression that what was printed over the weekend was the policy of the Central Committee.”

Jones, who owns a computer sales business and became committee chairman last month, said the executive panel faced a dilemma after his comments.

To put out a statement, he said, might be redundant in defending a position already taken by many Republicans.

Not to put out a statement, however, might suggest to some people that the committee had no quarrel with what was printed over the weekend, Jones said.

When pressed on his personal views about Duke, Jones asserted that if he had been a Louisiana voter he would have done some homework on Duke’s background before automatically condemning him.

“From this distance, I see the wild hysteria and what a dangerous person (Duke) is,” Jones said. “People say the guy’s a Nazi and a member of the KKK.

“Then I see all those people supporting him (Duke received 39% of the vote). The truth must lie somewhere in between.”

Jones, a conservative Republican, reiterated his opinion that President Bush should not have urged the Louisiana electorate to vote for Democrat Edwin Edwards.

“Bush should have stayed out of it,” Jones said. “I’m uneasy with Bush endorsing a Democrat.”

Two other members of the county GOP committee reached by The Times said they did not want to say much about the brief anti-Duke statement.

Linda Vahl of Oxnard said the Jones remarks that were published were “harmful to both Jones and the party.” But she was quick to add that she did not believe what she read in the first place.

“I know how the media messes things up,” she said. “I don’t trust the media.”

Craig Primo, an administrative assistant in charge of the Camarillo office of Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), said, “I really don’t feel like I have anything to add” to the statement.

Jones, whose term as committee chairman will run through next year, took the weekend flap philosophically.

“You’ve always got enemies, and certain people seized on this to make some political hay out of it,” he said. “You’ve always got that in any party.”