New GOP Chairman to Practice What He Teaches : Politics: Richard D. Ferrier has a chance to use his lifelong field of study to unite the central committee.

He promises to lead the crusade against abortion and believes “it should be criminalized.”

He warns that he opposes “the feminist and libertine assaults on the family” and vows to promote his ideals of morality.

He eagerly volunteers that the Soviet Union, before its collapse, was every bit the “Evil Empire” that former President Ronald Reagan once called it.

Meet Richard D. Ferrier, the new chairman of Ventura County’s Republican Central Committee. He was elected last week as the voice of reason to replace the chairman, Bill Jones, ousted for making sympathetic comments about former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke.

Despite the fervor of his convictions, Ferrier is far from strident in demeanor--a trait that supporters say will help him unite the GOP committee, which is divided over abortion and other volatile issues.

Instead, this 43-year-old Santa Paula resident exudes the genial, thoughtful bearing of a college professor. In fact, he holds a doctorate in the history of science from Indiana University and is one of the most popular, well-respected instructors at Thomas Aquinas College in the hills above Santa Paula.

“He is a very fair-minded fellow in a very charitable way,” said Kevin D. Kolbeck, dean of the small Catholic college that offers a liberal arts degree through rigorous study of the classics, from ancient Greece to modern America. “He has an amazing capacity to master wildly different things.”

Now the lifelong student of politics has an opportunity to apply what he has learned from years of reading Aristotle, Plato, de Tocqueville and Machiavelli.

“Politics is a sphere in which man can perfect his soul,” Ferrier said last week, puffing on his trademark pipe. “I’m hoping that in my own life I’ll find a proper blend of high and abstract ideas and practical politics.”

Born in Berkeley and raised in Sacramento, Ferrier was not always a Republican. He worked precincts for the radical Peace and Freedom Party in 1970 and was a volunteer for Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern in 1972.

In 1980, he voted as a Democrat for Reagan and in 1984 he switched his voter registration to Republican. He converted to Catholicism a year later, even though he had been on the college faculty since 1978. Ferrier has seven children, ages 6 months to 13 years, who are being schooled at home by his wife, Kathy.

Ferrier attributes his political evolution to what he considers two great dangers at the time: “The internal decay of our culture and the family, and the external danger from the Soviet Union.”

“The Republican Party showed backbone in opposing communism and supporting the moral and intellectual traditions of the West,” he said. “We have achieved a dramatic victory over communism and now we ought to work on the next.”

Ferrier’s election as chairman of the Ventura County Republican Party comes at a time when he is teaching a seminar in ethics and politics.

His words flow with the Aristotelian notion that the aim of the statesman should be to make the citizenry more virtuous. His posture as the reluctant candidate echoed an idea advanced by Socrates: Those most fit to rule do not desire public office.

“My confrontation with Socrates as an undergraduate changed my life,” Ferrier said.

In his pre-election speech, Ferrier begged his fellow committee members not to vote for him unless they would rally behind his strategy to bring compromise and unity to the central committee that was set up to support Republican candidates for public office.

Ferrier was elected over Clara Jean Davis of Camarillo by a 16-11 vote. Davis is one of six central committee members who have been arrested and convicted of misdemeanors for antiabortion blockades of medical clinics.

For more than a year, the committee has been hamstrung by a rift between old guard Republicans and a new majority of conservative Christians, antiabortion activists and others who support the political agenda of the Christian right.

Conservative Christian committee members swept into the county’s low-profile offices during the 1990 elections as part of a statewide campaign to take over the party apparatus and steer it to the right. Central committee members are elected every two years by Republicans voting in the June primary.

The conservative Christians have assembled 15 votes to control the county’s 28-member committee, but not the two-thirds majority needed to pass resolutions calling for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, for voluntary prayer in public schools and for support of other “traditional values.”

Ferrier has joined the newcomers on most votes. But he gained recognition from the old guard by refusing to go along with a bylaws change to allow such resolutions to pass by a simple majority vote--something he considers unwise.

The intra-party struggle among Ventura County Republicans mirrors a similar battle on the state and federal levels. Moderate Republican Sen. John Seymour faces a spirited challenge from conservative Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton). President Bush is also fending off attacks from the right, voiced by presidential candidate Pat Buchanan.

To end the crippling discord on the central committee, Ferrier realizes he will have to draw upon his experience of guiding vigorous debates at college seminars and his knowledge of western society’s great political philosophers.

Yet unlike Socrates, who found his power to steer debate by claiming to hold no philosophical views of his own, Ferrier has already made up his mind on most of the divisive issues.

In his speech to the committee, Ferrier warned: “I oppose the feminist and libertine assaults on the family. I oppose abortion. If you make me chairman, you can be sure that your chairman will promote these ideals and oppose those who oppose them.”

His personal convictions and the art of political compromise will meet their first test at the central committee’s next meeting, Jan. 22.

Steve Frank, chief strategist for the committee’s conservative Christian coalition, said he has devised a way to get around the two-thirds vote requirement that has blocked the committee’s public pronouncement against abortion.

The conservative Christian majority plans to instruct Ferrier to write to the chairman of the California Republican Party, saying a majority on the committee want an antiabortion plank in the state party platform. Such a motion requires only a majority vote, Frank said.

At the meeting, Ferrier also will finalize his selection of delegates to the state party convention in February. So far, the delegates he has named all hold antiabortion views, with one remaining vacancy.

In addition, the new chairman must appoint members to leadership positions on the panel. Immediately after his election last week, Ferrier appointed Al Pacheco of Camarillo as his second vice chairman, making the committee’s officers unanimous opponents of abortion.

Some old guard members of the committee believe in abortion rights and others fear that making the antiabortion message a high-visibility issue will alienate some people as the Republican Party continues to grow.

Some of these old guard members, who said they are embarrassed about losing control to the conservative Christian faction, want to be included in the committee leadership and among the state party delegates to show that the committee does not speak with one voice on the emotional issue.

“A lot of us were a little surprised and a little disappointed in his appointments,” said Bob Larkin, a leading member of the old guard.

Ferrier said he plans to be “scrupulously honest and careful” in his leadership. He pledges to leave no one out, to remain independent of both groups and to guide the factions to common ground whenever possible.

But Larkin said he expects some loyalty. He points out that he recruited Ferrier as the new leader for the committee and engineered his rise to power. “Had I not done the first 30 or 40 hours of phone calls, he wouldn’t be chairman,” Larkin said.

Ferrier would not be a central committee member at all, however, if it were not for the conservative Christian coalition. He was urged to enter the race for central committee member by a Thomas Aquinas College alumnus who was lining up candidates espousing “traditional values,” he said.

Ferrier said he did not campaign during the June, 1990, primary, but won the third-highest number of votes among the six central committee candidates running for five seats in his district.

Frank said the coalition, organized largely by former workers in Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson’s presidential campaign, did the campaigning for him. The coalition included Ferrier’s name on the slate of candidates in political mailers sent to Republicans who belong to conservative churches and other organizations, he said.

“He could not have been elected without appearing on our slate,” Frank said. “Is he going to dance with Bob Larkin, or the majority who brung him to the party?”