Delegates Optimistic About Bush : Republicans: Activists from Ventura County scoff at negative signals in the polls and anticipate a unified convention in Houston.

Don’t talk to Republican activists Gwen Tillemans of Oxnard and Peggy Sadler of Simi Valley about gloom and doom in the polls and dissension in the party.

The two Republican officials remain optimistic that President Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle will be reelected in November. The first big step in that direction, they contend, will be the GOP’s Aug. 17-20 national convention in Houston.

Tillemans and Sadler--with 45 years of political experience between them--will represent Ventura County as Bush delegates at the quadrennial gathering in the Astrodome. They anticipate an upbeat, unified four days that will give the Republican ticket a major boost toward turning around a summer of discontent for the Grand Old Party.

“I feel that there’s something that’s going to happen--and I don’t know what--that’s going to change the polls,” said Tillemans, a member of the Ventura County Republican Central Committee and its former chairwoman. “I think, for the good of the country, that something very good is coming out of this convention.”

Sadler, a member of the state Republican Central Committee, believes she knows just what that something should be.

“We’ve got to get the message out,” she said. “It has not been getting out. What has happened and what can happen and what the President’s programs are that have been sitting on the table.

“And we don’t need another Jimmy Carter in the White House,” she said, referring to Democratic nominee Bill Clinton.

Tillemans and Sadler are Bush delegates from the 23rd Congressional District, which includes all of Ventura County with the exception of most of Thousand Oaks, as well as part of Carpinteria in Santa Barbara County. The district’s third delegate is Emily Wullbrandt, an 18-year state committee member from Carpinteria.

All the delegates and alternates are pledged to Bush; he carried the county with 72% of the Republican vote in the June 2 primary. Pat Buchanan won the remaining 28% of the tally.

The alternates, who attend the convention but vote only if a delegate is unable to do so, are Oxnard Mayor Nao Takasugi, who is also a candidate for the state Assembly; Dorothy Lee, who has taught for 36 years at the Will Rogers Elementary School in Ventura and is a member of the state Board of Education, and Barbara Hurd, a retired nurse and longtime Republican activist from Carpinteria.

“I’m elated over it,” Lee said of attending the convention, her first. Recalling that her father came to California from Canton, China, in 1922 to drive a produce truck, she called her selection as an alternate “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

No delegates or alternates from Ventura County were among those chosen from the new 24th District, that takes in most of Thousand Oaks as well as parts of the San Fernando Valley and Malibu. Those delegates are three Tarzana residents: Sara Devito Hardman, state director of Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition and state vice chairwoman of the Bush-Quayle campaign; Al Villalobos, an investment banker active in Republican politics, and Carol Matchette, president of the Los Angeles Federation of Republican Women.

Moreover, no Ventura County residents were chosen among the at-large delegates or alternates selected from around the state.

Three individuals from the county will be attending, however, as honorary delegates, but will not participate in the formal convention deliberations. They are Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino (R-Ventura), who has long represented the county; Marshall C. Milligan of Ventura, president and chief executive officer of Levy Bancorp, a holding company of the Bank of A. Levy, and Kenneth Caldwell, a Camarillo businessman and member-elect of the county committee.

Lagomarsino, who has held city, state and federal office since 1958, was defeated in the Republican primary in June in his bid to win a 10th congressional term representing a new Santa Barbara County-based seat.

Missing from the convention will be two of the county’s biggest political names: Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) and Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), who is also the GOP congressional nominee in the 24th District.

Gallegly, who attended the 1988 convention and has been strongly supported by Bush in his previous campaigns, said through a spokesman that he has other priorities, such as providing constituent service.

The spokesman said that Gallegly, who faces a surprisingly spirited challenge against Democratic nominee Anita Perez Ferguson in November, is not seeking to distance himself from a Republican presidential ticket that may be in trouble.

McClintock, in contrast, made it abundantly clear that he harbors no enthusiasm for Bush--much as he has sharply criticized moderate Republican Gov. Pete Wilson.

“I have been disenchanted with George Bush from the day he entered the race for the Republican nomination four years ago,” said McClintock, a fervently anti-tax conservative. “Unfortunately, that disenchantment has been reinforced over the four years.”

When Texas billionaire Ross Perot appeared a likely presidential candidate last month, McClintock said he was uncertain whether he would vote for Bush or the independent Perot. He blasted Bush’s decision to raise taxes in 1990 as part of a budget agreement with Congress as well as Bush’s “disinterest in containing the massive growth of the federal government.”

Following Perot’s decision not to enter the race, McClintock said recently, “There are so few alternatives, I will probably end up supporting Bush for reelection, but it will be the most unenthusiastic endorsement I’ve ever given.”

California Republicans will send 201 delegates and the same number of alternates to the convention. Each of the state’s 52 congressional districts was given three delegate positions and three alternates’ slots. The Republicans have fewer delegates overall than the Democrats.

Another 45 delegates and alternates were chosen at-large from Republicans around the state. About 200 honorary delegates--many of them elected, party officials and major financial contributors--will also be in Houston.