GOP Crowd Warms to Clinton : Politics: Democratic candidate is applauded by mostly Republican audience at Newport Beach. Organizers vow financial support.

Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton brought his prescription for economic health to a largely Republican audience of worried Orange County business leaders Friday, saying that he is “a different kind of Democrat” with a message that crosses partisan lines.

After an hourlong breakfast at the exclusive Pacific Club, its two prominent Republican hosts said they would financially support the Arkansas governor in his bid for the Democratic nomination, but both stopped short of saying they would vote against President Bush in November.

Developer Kathryn G. Thompson, a member of Bush’s elite Team 100 top contributors in 1988, and Western Digital Corp. Chairman Roger W. Johnson stunned local GOP leaders earlier in the week by inviting fellow Republicans to a breakfast with Clinton titled “Looking for a Leader--Identifying Alternatives.”

The welcoming of a Democrat into California’s most Republican county sent ripples nationwide as political observers wondered whether this was an aberration or an indication of the economy’s damaging effect on the President’s core support.

Friday, the participants said the White House should consider the breakfast to be an expression of serious concern about the nation’s future and that Bush should respond with a new economic growth package immediately--before his State of the Union address next month.

“What I’ve heard the governor say that is appealing are words like growth, cut costs, real investment, competitiveness around the world,” said Johnson, whose Irvine-based computer parts company lost $172 million in the last five quarters. “Those are not partisan words, those are words that I can support.”

Thompson added: “He has some excellent ideas. I hope that he wins the nomination for the Democratic primary but I have not abandoned my support for President Bush at this time.”

The audience of about 60 people was nearly double the number that had been invited. There were some Democrats in the audience, but it was mostly Republicans, including several members of the county’s prestigious GOP Lincoln Club.

The breakfast was closed to the media, but some guests said afterward that the governor’s address focused almost entirely on the economy and they said that it was well received. Several times, participants said, the candidate’s comments were interrupted by applause.

“One guy said that what you are talking about is what I hoped to hear from our President,” said Richard J. O’Neill, a former state Democratic chairman and an Orange County developer. “They all had problems. They’re all worried as hell.”

Clinton said he told the audience about his package of reforms for economic growth, including an investment tax credit plan to encourage business growth in the United States. He also outlined banking reforms to avoid housing foreclosures and he called for more attention from the White House on energy, trade and education.

“I think that’s what we need in this country again--someone who will try to bring us together across racial and income and gender and regional lines and tell people that we can all change and we’re going to have to,” Clinton said. “That’s what this breakfast was about today.”

Rick Muth, president of Orco Block Co. in Stanton, said most Republicans in the audience appeared to go to the breakfast with an open mind and came away impressed, but not yet convinced to vote Democratic.

“I think the people went there in the same sense that we went to school--let’s try to open up our minds and let’s try to learn,” he said. “I still intend on voting for the President, but this is a good thing to do.”

Tom Tucker, a Newport Beach developer, also said Clinton had the right message for Friday’s audience and that he appeared to be well received.

“I think his message was that if you close your eyes, he could very easily be at least a moderate Republican,” Tucker said. “I didn’t talk to anybody who left that room who said this was a negative thing. I don’t believe people are willing to say that we are jumping ship and leaving Bush. But most people thought this was something positive.”

Clinton, a 45-year-old Rhodes scholar, has been criticized by liberal Democrats who say his campaign is filled with warmed-over Republican proposals. Friday, he addressed that perception by saying that he is not trying to move the Democratic Party to the right but instead, to create a broad-based coalition of voters.

“What I hope this (breakfast) means is that I have a broad national appeal because I am a different kind of Democrat,” he said. “The message I gave these folks today is no different than what I’ve said when I’m in inner-city Los Angeles.”

The breakfast was intended as a “meet and greet” to introduce the candidate rather than to raise money. But Clinton told the audience that if they would like to see him face Bush in a general election, they should support him in the Democratic primary.

Both Johnson and Thompson said they would give Clinton the maximum financial support they are allowed in the Democratic primary. But they said that hosting the breakfast was as far as they would go to encourage others to do the same.

Both hosts also said they have received overwhelming response to the Clinton breakfast, almost entirely positive. Local Republican leaders, however, have expressed outrage at the event and said they consider the two hosts to be Republican mutineers.

Thompson said Friday that she was told to expect a call from the White House about the breakfast, but she had not received it yet. Thursday, officials at the Republican National Committee sought to downplay the significance of the event, saying that it does not reflect a weakness of the President.

But when Johnson was asked Friday whether he liked Clinton’s message more than Bush’s, he said: “Right now, (Clinton) sounds very good. I have yet to hear from Mr. Bush.”