O.C. Delegates Marching to Houston, Loyal but Leery

When it comes to electing presidents, there has long been a Republican mantra in these parts: As goes the GOP vote in Orange County, so goes California; and as goes the state, so goes the nation.

Time and again, Orange County has delivered a Republican electoral avalanche, making the difference for victorious candidates from Nixon to Reagan to George Herbert Walker Bush.

But this year, that conventional wisdom could be put to the test. As the county’s GOP delegation prepares for the start Monday of the Republican National Convention in Houston, polls show President Bush badly trailing Democratic challenger Bill Clinton--even here in Orange County.

It is little wonder, then, that delegates such as Brian Bennett are a bit antsy. “Honestly, we all know everything isn’t hunky-dory and anyone who says so is just being a good foot soldier and toeing the party line in expectation that it will change,” said Bennett, former chief of staff for Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove). “I’m a big George Bush fan. . . . But I’m also a realist.”

For the Orange County contingent, the presidential stakes heading into the convention are as high as they have been in more than a decade. Most local delegates concede that the Bush/Quayle ticket needs a hefty boost in Houston to energize party activists and recapture recalcitrant voters back home.

Despite this grim picture, the delegates are putting their best face forward, suggesting Bush’s predicament is merely the ebb and flow of political life. Publicly, most predict the nationally televised political extravaganza from Texas will dramatically hoist the President’s prospects, pushing Bush ahead in Orange County--if not the nation--soon after the convention’s end.

“I think it’s going to be great,” said Christine Diemer, executive director of the Orange County Building Industry Assn. and an alternate delegate. “I think the President will pull a lot out of the hat at the convention.”

Such bullish talk about Bush is not surprising in a region that has not supported a Democrat for President since the Great Depression. Orange County’s delegates are unwavering GOP stalwarts.

“The American people have to be shown why it seems that nobody is doing anything in Washington,” said alternate delegate Marcia Gilchrist, the Orange County GOP treasurer. “The President does have a plan to revitalize the economy, but the Democrats have not allowed him to enact it. . . . The message we’ve got to get out is that the 38-year Democratic stranglehold on Congress is the problem, not the President.”

Despite their common allegiance, the Orange County contingent in Houston is a varied lot. More than 40 strong, the contingent includes delegates, alternates and at-large representatives. Joining political veterans such as Gilchrist in the climate-controlled environs of the Astrodome this week will be a Latino police chief, a scattering of attorneys, a prominent gay activist and a University of California regent.

Others include the nation’s first Vietnamese delegate, a Latino health care official and a 20-year-old business entrepreneur. A variety of political groups will be represented in the delegation, most notably the well-heeled Lincoln Club and the large Orange County Republican Women’s Federated.

“Overall, the feeling I get from Republican activists is that they’re very eager to start campaigning,” said Greg Haskin, executive director of the county Republican Party. “The President has held fast to his pledge to not start the campaign until after the convention, and that’s been a little bit frustrating for a lot of people. They’re looking for a message to take to the streets.”

As usual, the building industry will have its share of voices at the convention. Irvine Co. Chairman Donald L. Bren will be there, albeit not as a delegate. Disgruntled GOP stalwart Kathryn G. Thompson, the developer who in 1988 was a prominent Bush fund-raiser and attended the past three conventions, will be staying home to mull over whether she will back the President this time.

Thompson served as an early harbinger of the budding problems facing Bush. Nearly a year ago, she and other top campaign contributors met with the President to discuss concerns about the economy and were told there was no recession. Troubled by the President’s stance, she hosted a breakfast for Democratic challenger Bill Clinton in December, and earlier this year carefully eyed the maverick campaign of Texas billionaire Ross Perot.

“I wish I had something positive to say. I really want to wait for the President to come out and show us he is a leader and the best man for the job, not the lesser of two evils,” Thompson said. “I don’t think he has an economic plan. I haven’t seen it, or seen him fight for it, and I think there’s only so much blaming one can do of the Democratic Congress.”

Her concerns are hardly unique these days. Of late, a collective angst has seemed to settle over the county electorate. Defense and aerospace cutbacks have combined with the national economic slump to strip the county of 50,000 jobs, douse the formerly red-hot housing market and cast a cumulus of pessimism over a region once described as among the most recession-proof in the country.

There are other troublesome signs for Bush. While the county remains fiscally conservative, it is increasingly dominated by young professionals sporting moderate social beliefs often at odds with the Bush message, in particular the President’s bow to the religious right. On abortion, for instance, polls consistently find that two of three people in Orange County say they advocate abortion rights.

Abortion has become a flash point at the convention, and Orange County will have its share of participants on both sides of the debate. U.S. Senator John Seymour, a former Orange County state legislator, is expected to be a leader of the abortion rights forces, while conservative Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) will likely be out front on the anti-abortion side.

Whether the county delegation, which is divided between abortion rights advocates and anti-abortion believers, takes an active roll in any tussle remains to be seen. Heading into the convention, even abortion rights advocates--who have the most to gain--acted as if they would rather not rock the boat, lest they create the sort of disturbance that could hurt Bush’s chances in November.

“I’m pro-choice, but I don’t want it to become a big deal. I don’t feel the election should be decided on that,” said Gus Owen, president of the Lincoln Club and a staunch Bush supporter.

Of late, the Orange County electorate has not been so loyal. In the last week of July, an independent poll found Clinton leading Bush in Orange County 43% to 22%, shocking news for a President who throttled 1988 challenger Michael A. Dukakis in the county 69% to 31%.

Meanwhile, the grand old Orange County party has seen its huge edge in registered voters begin to erode ever so slightly. In recent weeks, the once-moribund Orange County Democratic Party has signed up more than two times as many voters as the Republicans, a trend that is at odds with 1988, when the GOP was gaining new voters at better than a 2-to-1 clip.

“The Republicans seem to be complacent,” suggested George Urch, chief of staff for Orange County’s only Democratic state or federal lawmaker, Assemblyman Tom Umberg of Garden Grove.

“They’re not hungry like they used to be. They used to pound the heck out of us, raise money like crazy, register voters, get the vote out. The enthusiasm isn’t there,” Urch said. “With Bush they’ve got the same old, same old. And it’s hard to whip up the troops with the same old, same old.”

None of this is good news in a county that state Republican leaders consistently count on to deliver the goods come Election Day. Orange County has in recent elections provided a huge cushion of votes for Republican presidential candidates, offsetting Democratic pluralities in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Some say it can be counted on to do it again.

“July poll results are really irrelevant to what’s going to be happening in November,” said Haskin, Orange County GOP executive director. “It’s like saying if Christmas were today one particular toy might be the most popular on the market. But when Christmas finally does roll around, it’s a different story.”

But several GOP stalwarts remain worried that 1992 could be a bust. They do not doubt that many waffling party loyalists will return to the fold when they finally face the prospect of actually voting for a Democrat come November. The question is whether the county can deliver the massive margin of victory prognosticators say will be necessary to take the state.

“I think that come Election Day George Bush will win Orange County, but he probably won’t get enough to keep the state,” predicted Bennett, Southern California Edison’s Orange County government affairs manager.

Bennett has his own recipe for Bush to win back Orange County. First, the President must shrug off his “Gentleman George” image and bash Clinton and the Democrats in Congress, he said. Bush should also return to the conservative roots of Ronald Reagan Republicanism.

“George Bush has lost his ideological compass,” Bennett said. “He has to go back to the themes that work. As much as his advisers hate to admit it, it’s Ronald Reagan conservatism that has kept us in the White House.”

Other delegates share the view that Clinton has gotten off far too easy so far.

“Bill Clinton has had a little bit of a honeymoon on his policy, and the press hasn’t even begun to scrutinize (Democratic Vice President nominee Albert) Gore,” said the Lincoln Club’s Owen. “When it starts getting spelled out in detail, the public will all of a sudden start falling off.”

The Orange County delegation seems upbeat, at least in public, about Vice President Dan Quayle. “I think he’s been a great asset,” said Gilchrist, an aide to state Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim). “He’s been totally maligned from Day One, but he is actually a very bright guy.”

Even as the delegates prepared for a week of high humidity and handshaking in Houston, most were holding their breath, hopeful the convention can add some sheen and luster to the Republican ticket.

“The pressure is really on the Republicans,” said the Democrats’ Urch. “They always say: ‘As goes Orange County, so goes the state.’ Well, if they’re in this much trouble here, they’re in deep trouble everywhere else in California. If they don’t get a bounce from this convention, they’re not going to have another opportunity.”

ORANGE COUNTY AND THE Republican Convention

* Sunday Briefing: What’s in store for the Orange County delegation at the Republican National Convention? The GOP extravaganza starts Monday in Houston, and more than 40 delegates, alternates and at-large representatives from the county will be at the Astrodome to help shape the party platform and rally behind the standard bearers, President George Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle. Today, The Times presents a status report on the delegation and some of the issues they will face in the days to come. B3.