A SPECIAL REPORT: PRESIDENTS’ DAY

DEMOCRATIC ODDS: Orange County is now a regular stop on the presidential trail. President Bush has visited six times since being elected, and Democratic hopefuls Bill Clinton and Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. recently campaigned here. But Democrats face an uphill battle in Orange County. . . . Since the county’s creation in 1889, local voters have favored Republican presidential candidates by as much as 88.5% (for Calvin Coolidge in 1924). Only in the depths of the Depression did the county go Democratic and twice vote for Franklin D. Roosevelt. . . . In 1940, the county returned to the GOP fold and has not strayed since.