TV’s ‘Lobdell Group’ Agrees to Disagree : Cable: ‘McLaughlin’ clone’s lively panelists take on local issues. Among topics debated are toll roads, officials’ salaries, condom distribution at schools.

The best way to describe cable TV’s “The Lobdell Group” is to use the words of host and namesake Bill Lobdell: “It’s a total rip-off of ‘The McLaughlin Group.’ ”

Like the nationally syndicated “McLaughlin Group,” the Lobdell Group brings together political pundits who aren’t afraid to be lively--that is, rude--while discussing the week’s political events in front of a TV camera. The major difference with Lobdell’s community-access cable show, besides the title, is that Lobdell’s four panelists chew up and spit out issues tied almost exclusively to Orange County.

“I’m a big fan of ‘The McLaughlin Group,’ and I thought that it would be a good idea to do a local version,” said Lobdell, editor of the Newport Beach-Costa Mesa Daily Pilot. “So what I needed to do was get together people who couldn’t agree on anything and (who) were entertaining.”

Among the subjects they haven’t agreed on are toll roads, city officials’ salaries, condom distribution at public schools, even the question of whether a Newport Beach family should be allowed to keep a life-sized ceramic cow in its front yard despite complaints from neighbors.

Lobdell’s panelists, recruited for their political diversity as well as their willingness to work without pay, jump into each topic, swinging opinions freely. They trade verbal punches with opponents who sit politically on the opposite end of the spectrum and physically at the other end of a cheap, wood coffee table on the Costa Mesa set.

In the studio each week are Mark P. Petracca, a UC Irvine political science professor introduced by Lobdell as “on the far left,” and Will Swaim, editor of World Trade magazine (“near left”). On the other side are Hugh Hewitt, an Irvine attorney and former executive director of the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace (“near right”), and Jo Ellen Allen, president of the anti-abortion Eagle Forum and recent candidate for California Assembly (“far right”).

Lobdell sits center stage, sometimes injecting his own opinions but most often acting as moderator.

The low-budget political round-table, which has been running for nearly a year on cable channels in Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa and Irvine, is the outgrowth of community-access television--non-commercial programs cable companies promise in their franchise agreements to produce and carry. So far, those are the only communities that have access to the Lobdell Group’s weekly 30-minute episodes. But Lobdell said he has received some “interest” from larger distributors.

The show’s goal is to keep the discussion lively, Lobdell tells his guests. That means interjecting an opinion even if that means shouting, pointing and interrupting.

“You’ve got to entertain first and hope to inform second,” Lobdell said. “If you try to inform people and you’re boring, they’re just going to turn it off. So entertainment is No. 1 on the hit parade. And if people get informed along the way, that’s great, too.”

When the debate gets going, panelists hurl sarcasm and take other playfully critical jabs. Petracca calls it the “verbal slapstick” quality of the show.

Sample a recent debate on whether Costa Mesa should proceed with plans to cut arts funding in order to divert the money to “essential” city services.

In tight economic times, Allen said, funding for arts programs should always take back seat to more traditional city services. Subbing for Hewitt that evening, John Moorlach, president of the Costa Mesa Republican Assembly, went even further, saying that cities should never spend a dime on art.

Petracca: “So only the wealthy should be able to enjoy art?”

Allen: “Oh, that’s nonsense.”

Moorlach: “That’s a pretty shallow argument, Mark. If the city has money to fund art, then it has too much money and we should have a rebate. . . . “

Petracca: “Government exists not just to provide roads and not just to provide national defense or civil defense. Government exists to ennoble the souls of the body politic.”

Allen: “Where do you get that?”

Moorlach: “Thank you, Big Brother.”

Later that night, the panel discussed the distribution of condoms outside a public high school by AIDS-activist group Act Up! Orange County.

Allen and Moorlach argued that no one under 18 should be allowed to buy condoms, let alone receive them free, because it would encourage sexual activity and give a false sense of protection against AIDS.

Petracca and Swaim countered that condoms should be freely available to young people.

Swaim: “The presence of a risk does not necessarily persuade people not to engage in that risky behavior. Children smoke, they use drugs, they drink. We know that.”

Allen: “I have much more faith in young people than you do.”

Swaim (jumping back in his chair and crossing his arm across his chest): “That’s very good of you, Jo Ellen. You’ve cut me to the quick.”

Over time, the show’s panelists are learning what buttons to push to take more jabs at each other, Lobdell said.

Hewitt likens the debate to dinner conversation among a group of politically astute friends. “It’s turned out to be quite a lot of fun,” he said.

The show also has improved since it began because the panelists--but especially the host--have become more comfortable in front of the TV, Swaim said. For the first few episodes, Swaim recalled, Lobdell was a bit stiff.

“Someone compared him to a man staring down the barrel of a loaded .44 magnum,” he said.

“More like a .22,” Lobdell countered. “I was so petrified by the camera, I would just throw out the question and duck.”