O.C. Primary Campaign Still Waiting for the First Hurrah : Politics: The busiest office belongs to a candidate not even on the ballot. Leaders blame torpor on certain Bush, Clinton wins.

Look at the presidential campaigns in Orange County and see why the experts think 1992 is one strange political year.

The county’s busiest campaign office probably belongs to Ross Perot, and he’s not even on the June 2 ballot. Meanwhile, the Republican and Democratic front-runners have yet to open headquarters in Orange County even though their opponents in the June 2 primary have launched spirited grass-roots operations.

“I can’t tell what’s going to happen, and I’m the Democratic chairman,” said Howard Adler, head of the county party. “This is about the quietest I have ever seen a presidential primary.”

Adler’s Republican counterpart, Tom Fuentes, agreed. “I can never recall so quiet a month of May in (election) years past. There seems to be little happening on all fronts.”

Both party leaders attributed the low tenor of the county’s presidential campaigns in part to a feeling of resignation among voters, since President Bush and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton have nearly locked up their party’s nominations. The two candidates are also leading in statewide polls for the California primary.

But among the challengers and insurgents, campaign volunteers say they are still hard at work. And for Democrats, the California race between Clinton and former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., especially, is still close enough to energize a campaign team.

“If you look at both . . . campaigns (in Orange County), you would find the Clinton campaign is the traditional Democratic Party (leaders) and the Brown campaign is a lot of activists,” said Tim Carpenter, county head of the Brown campaign. “Just as Brown nationally has put together an insurgent campaign, we have done the same thing here.”

Brown’s supporters say they have registered more than 900 voters in Orange County and that more than 1,100 people have called the campaign to make contributions or volunteer their help. Coordinators of the Orange County Brown campaign meet in Santa Ana every Thursday night to plan strategy.

Brown was in Laguna Beach earlier this week for a rally that drew more than 600 people. The same day, Clinton’s supporters hosted an Orange County event that attracted a crowd of a few dozen.

But political observers from both parties questioned how much difference can be made in a statewide California primary by organization at the grass-roots level. Even with a few hundred volunteers making phone calls and knocking on doors, they said, voters are still most likely to be influenced by television commercials or news coverage.

“I don’t think either local organization for Clinton or Brown is going to make much of an impact here,” said Adler.

Adler is a Clinton supporter, but he said Brown could win in Orange County and maybe statewide because he is better-known. “At this point, I’d still say that Clinton is the underdog and Brown has a shot at winning (the primary),” he said.

Orange County’s Democratic Party has more than 370,000 registered voters who range the political spectrum from liberal environmentalists in Laguna Beach to young professional moderates and Ronald Reagan crossovers.

Bill Podlich, the head of the Clinton campaign in the county, said it is a place where the Arkansas governor could find support but, like Adler, he agreed that Brown probably has the edge.

“I think we started this thing feeling that we were very much the underdog and that Jerry would win most of Orange County just because he has so much presence here and Clinton has so little,” said Podlich, a businessman in Newport Beach.

Former Irvine Mayor Larry Agran said this week that he will reignite his long shot bid for president after qualifying Thursday for at least $100,000 in federal matching campaign funds. Agran said he would campaign statewide in California, but he is not expecting to exceed the 1% return that has been his highest tally during the primary season.

On the Republican side, Bush has been a frequent visitor to Orange County during his presidential term, but his campaign has not yet scheduled a local event for the President or any other prominent member of the Administration.

Bush also does not have a campaign headquarters in Orange County, although some of the top leaders in the President’s California effort are from the area--notably state director Jack Flanigan, a former Irvine Co. executive, and Newport Beach businessman John Cronin, the campaign’s southern regional finance chief.

Bush’s Republican rival, Patrick J. Buchanan, has set up a county campaign headquarters, where supporters say they have enlisted 340 volunteers. Buchanan was in the county for two days this week for fund-raisers and visits to the Leisure World communities in Seal Beach and Laguna Hills.

But Bush has already collected all the delegates he needs to win the party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention in August. And statewide polls show that he is leading Buchanan by a wide margin in California.

As a result, Buchanan acknowledged at one of his Orange County visits this week, the campaign is now more focused on a debate of conservative issues than it is on winning the White House.

Still, Buchanan’s campaign staff said it plans a major effort in California and particularly in Republican-rich Orange County.

Curt Lohbeck, Southern California coordinator for the Buchanan campaign, said the campaign’s regional headquarters was established in the county “primarily because there were so many enthusiastic volunteers.”

“I am expecting a higher percentage in Orange County than elsewhere in the state because you have a large group of disenchanted Republicans, businessmen and professional people who feel a sense of betrayal with the Administration,” Lohbeck said. “The core group is angry and frustrated conservative Republicans.”

County GOP leaders, however, are not anticipating any surprises for the President.

Almost all of the county’s Republican elected officials have endorsed Bush and, while there was some threat of dissenters early in the year, they say the party has come together since Bush won the support he needs for the nomination.

On another front, a mini-mall office near the John Wayne Airport has been bustling every day for several weeks with volunteers working to elect Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire who is an undeclared independent candidate.

Like a corporate command structure, the campaign office has divided into color-coded teams that have targeted five different slices of the county. Each area has signature-gathering goals and team leaders who report to headquarters.

Marcy Ferren, coordinator of the office, said the campaign has already signed up 6,000 volunteers in Orange County from all different ages, political parties, ethnic groups and neighborhoods.

“It’s kind of a glorified garage operation,” she said of the campaign office. “A lot of us own our own businesses and a few of us have organizational skills. It’s wonderful. Everybody is working together to make it work.”

How to Contact Campaigns Here are the phone numbers for the campaigns of the presidential candidates:

Candidate * Phone Number Bill Clinton 262-2668 Edmund G. Brown Jr. 558-3329 Larry Agran 250-7340 George Bush 558-1992 Patrick J. Buchanan 250-5870 Ross Perot 752-7677

* Area code 714 unless noted.