GOP Leaders List High-Ranking Women

I thought the “big lie” technique was gone with the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.

Unfortunately, leftist UCI Professor Mark Petracca of (the former Peoples Republic of) Irvine still clings to the old socialist trick (“GOP Males Hinder Political Careers of Women Candidates,” Letters, June 21). Petracca’s big lie is that women are not in leadership in the Republican Party of Orange County.

Petracca also says Orange County’s GOP should elect more Republican women. With this one point, I agree!

Petracca’s own hometown was liberated a few years ago with the election as mayor of a fine Republican woman, Sally Anne Sheridan. In (Sheridan’s) victory, Irvine citizens ousted Petracca’s male leftist crony, Mayor Larry Agran, liberal sweetheart of the far left.

If Petracca wants to help the GOP elect women, I urge him to do so now. We want to elect Dr. Jo Ellen Allen, our party’s distinguished and brilliant conservative Republican nominee against liberal Democrat Tom Umberg in central Orange County’s 69th Assembly District. Umberg is Willie Brown’s local puppet.

We want to return the very able and dedicated Marian Bergeson to the state Senate in November. We want to reelect Assemblywoman Doris Allen in Orange County’s 67th Assembly District.

Let me refresh Mr. Petracca’s memory: The Republican Party of Orange County is the party of leadership in this county and is the party of opportunity for women.

My immediate predecessor, the outstanding Republican professional political consultant, Lois Lundberg, served our party with distinction for eight years as chairwoman. Our California Republican national committeewoman is Orange Countian Charlotte Mousel. As a Republican, (Harriett M. Wieder has been elected) to the City Council and the Board of Supervisors in this county.

The leadership of the Orange County GOP and its Central Committee is energized by women. My good colleagues on the Executive Committee are Vice Chairwoman Dorothy Hughes, assistant to conservative Republican Assemblyman Gil Ferguson; Treasurer Marcia Gilchrist, who also serves as secretary of the California Republican Party and chief deputy to conservative Republican Sen. Edward R. Royce, and Alberta Christy, a leader among Orange County black Republicans, who is secretary of the county party.

On our Executive Committee are able and talented Republican women. They include Dorothy Summerhays, a senior member of the committee from San Clemente; Nina Hull, a well-recognized leader on the Orange County Commission on the Status of Women, and Rhonda Carmony, champion woman surfer and leader among conservative young Republicans. Barbara Brown, president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, is likewise a member of our Executive Committee.

With my nomination and her own most dedicated record of service as a Republican woman volunteer at our county party headquarters, Emily Sanford of Huntington Beach will be a California delegate to the Republican National Convention in August.

Such organizations as the Republican Women Federated Clubs and our independent Republican women’s clubs are the very heart and soul of the Republican Party of Orange County. They have earned Orange County its reputation for having the finest Republican volunteer organization in the nation.

Petracca’s problem is either gross ignorance or the fact he just doesn’t like the conservative Republican philosophical and political beliefs of the women who have risen to leadership in our county’s GOP.

He’s a revisionist of local history. His Democratic Party has miserably failed this community.

For his recent letter to The Times, Petracca gets an “F.”

THOMAS A. FUENTES, Chairman, Republican Party of Orange County