Area GOP Delegates Reaffirm Reasons to Hold Convention : Politics: Rather than merely ratifying the results of primary elections, the event is ‘a rallying point for the party,’ a veteran says.

The highlight of former Rep. Bobbi Fiedler’s national convention experience came in 1984 when the Northridge Republican was called on to second then-President Ronald Reagan’s renomination for a second term. But the thrill was not without pitfalls.

First, Reagan’s handlers offered to rewrite Fiedler’s painstakingly crafted speech the day before she was scheduled to deliver it--and well after she had memorized it. She declined.

Then, at the last minute, she was told not to wear white--as she had planned to do--because Nancy Reagan was going to do so. Too late to replace her outfit, she went ahead with it anyway.

Finally, her speech was supposed to be broadcast at prime time on national television but she was bumped off the tube because a minister who spoke before her exceeded his allotted time.

Even so, Fiedler, who is here as an alternate delegate for President Bush, recalls, “All of that was very unimportant in terms of the honor I felt to be asked by the President who I so admired.”

As Republicans gathered in the Lone Star State for the start of their 1992 national convention today, San Fernando Valley veterans of these quadrennial events fondly recalled the 1980 convention in Detroit and the 1984 conclave in Dallas that nominated native son Reagan as among their fondest memories. For many, Reagan was someone they had worked with when he was governor as well as the embodiment of conservative goals that many shared.

“The Reagan conventions were very, very exciting because he was such a dynamic personality,” Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale) said Sunday at the Adams Mark hotel, which is heralded as the California delegation headquarters by a huge state flag in the lobby.

The Valley-area delegates also disagreed with analysts who call these television-era conventions outmoded relics of an early age because they merely ratify the results of primary elections rather than actually select the nominee as conventions did decades ago.

“It’s a rallying point for the party,” said Moorhead, a Bush delegate and veteran of three previous conventions.

“It’s a time when the party can present its hopes and its aspirations and its programs for the future to the American people. It’s a time when people are interested in politics, they’re interested in the direction in which we find ourselves going.”

Fiedler, who was a Reagan alternate in 1980, a Reagan delegate in 1984 and a Bush delegate in 1988, said the convention also “brings into the process a large number of people who have been active within the party over the years but have not received anything but the satisfaction for their work. It’s a plum--a nice way to say thank you.”

For Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, the 1976 convention in Kansas City was an opportunity to play a role in advocating his conservative views in the platform drafting process. He was one of Reagan’s two California representatives on the platform committee and addressed the convention about the platform. Gerald R. Ford, who replaced Richard M. Nixon following Nixon’s resignation, was nominated that year.

“That was a very memorable experience to be involved with, a platform whose foundation has held firm with the party throughout the years,” said Antonovich, a former state assemblyman. “You had people with a cross-section of philosophical bents working together.”

Frank Visco, a Lancaster insurance broker and former state Republican chairman, is attending his fifth convention. Visco, 47, a naturalized American citizen who came to this country from Italy in 1954, views the conventions in highly personal terms.

“I get the personal satisfaction of seeing to it that I help in my own way in the process to elect a President,” he said. “This is what I’m really proud of in this country. I think we can give back a lot to this country that gave us this opportunity.”

Despite the largely preordained nature of modern conventions, several delegates recalled an element of drama in the 1988 gathering in New Orleans when nominee Bush waited until the event itself to select a little-known Indiana senator named Dan Quayle as his running mate.

Only the day before the announcement, consultant Paul Clarke, Fiedler’s husband and her former top aide, recalled seeing Quayle and his family at a popular New Orleans restaurant filled with a lunchtime crowd of prominent Republicans hobnobbing with each other.

“Nobody, but nobody, was saying bupkis to J. Danforth Quayle and his family,” Clarke said, using the Yiddish word for nothing. “The only greeting he got was from ladies who had to crawl over his table to get to the ladies’ room.

“The next day the Bush campaign made its choice. Then everyone wanted to know if you had ever met J. Danforth Quayle. What a difference a day makes.”

Antonovich, who praised Quayle as a good choice, nonetheless said he was disappointed at the time that Bush did not pick Jack Kemp, the current HUD secretary and a longtime friend.

“I had been close to Jack Kemp and was hoping he’d get the nomination,” Antonovich said. “I have great faith in Jack’s ability to innovate and inspire.”

The mood here was determinedly upbeat Sunday despite polls that show Bush badly trailing Democratic nominee Bill Clinton and a prolonged economic downturn that has produced a national cry for change.

Delegates who attended a festive rodeo barbecue Saturday evening--complete with Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and Texas-sized beer cups--appeared rarin’ to move into high gear.

“If everything isn’t exactly the way they want, people tend to be pessimistic,” Rep. Moorhead said.

“When you come to these conventions, nobody’s pessimistic. They believe in themselves, they believe in our party and they believe in our country. I don’t see many pessimists around here.”

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