For Californians, a Party in Turmoil and Transition

From a Latino repair shop owner in South Los Angeles to a Korean immigrant who owns a Pasadena mini-mart to a former Voyager pilot in Rancho Cucamonga, the Californians here for the Republican Convention symbolize a state party in transition and bubbling turmoil.

“It’s bubbled and it’s burst,” commented Lorelei Kinder, a veteran of many California political battles.

Two things are obvious to anyone observing California’s huge delegation, which with 402 members and alternates far outnumbers any other state’s contingent.

First of all, the California GOP is trying to expand its base into the state’s rapidly-growing Asian and Latino communities. Closely resembling the demographic mix of the California electorate, the delegation is composed of 20% Latinos, 11% Asian-Americans, 9% blacks, 1% from other backgrounds and 59% Anglos. The slate also is divided almost evenly between men and women.

“The wave of the future for California Republicans--if this party is going to survive at all--is in letting into the party people who are going to participate. And we’re giving them the opportunity to participate,” said Bob White, chief of staff to Gov. Pete Wilson, who was primarily responsible for creating the delegation. “This party is not going to win unless we do open it up.”

Secondly, a fierce struggle is under way between moderate pragmatists and conservative ideologues for control of the state party. Many say it is reminiscent of the titanic fight three decades ago between Barry Goldwater and Nelson A. Rockefeller that resulted in conservative dominance for a generation.

“It really is a battle for the heart and soul of the party,” said attorney Robert Naylor of Menlo Park, a former state Assembly minority leader. “Movement conservatives are looking to ’96 (and the next presidential election). They don’t mind doing things that hobble a potential candidate like Pete Wilson. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a (primary reelection) challenge to Wilson in ’94.”

Frank Ricchiazzi of Laguna Beach, assistant director of the state Department of Motor Vehicles, and one of two openly gay members of the California delegation, stood bitterly on the convention floor after the party platform had been adopted Monday night and resolutely told a reporter:

“The platform is 100% extreme right wing and they’re proud of it. We moderates have given them all the rope they want. If in November this party goes down to crashing defeat, there’s going to be a lot of rope to hang a lot of people. After Nov. 3, it’s open warfare for four years.”

Beneath the balloons and amid the cheering, California delegates--many of them wearing red souvenir cowboy hats--are providing President Bush with his largest rooting section, albeit with lukewarm intensity. The main criteria for being selected as a delegate was support of the incumbent, whose beleaguered state campaign is being chaired by Wilson.

But the ethnically-diverse delegation is an odd mix of hard-line conservatives and Wilson moderates. One Wilson adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that when the slate was chosen, independent Ross Perot was running for President and as a result, more conservatives were put in the delegation. The thinking was that in a three-man race, it would be particularly crucial for Bush to solidify the conservative GOP base.

The end product is a delegation that reflects a state party in transition. But exactly where the party is headed may not be known for another election or two. The new activists--especially the Latinos and Asian-Americans beginning to play a major role in the party--are not necessarily moderates. And the Anglo old-timers are not necessarily conservative.

Robert De La Rosa, 35, who owns an automobile repair shop in South Los Angeles, only recently got involved in politics and is attending his first convention. De La Rosa signed up with the GOP to try “to help small business,” he said. As a Roman Catholic, he opposes abortion, but also resents the party’s proposed constitutional amendment to ban it. “I don’t think the issue should be anywhere near government. People should be responsible for their own acts,” he said.

Tae Ho Choi, 51, the owner of a Pasadena mini-mart, is one of roughly 40 Asian-Americans among California’s delegates and alternates. Four years ago, there were only eight. Choi did not even become a U.S. citizen until four years ago. He left South Korea penniless in 1973 and migrated to Southern California where he got a job stacking groceries. This year he ran for the state Assembly and lost, but won a seat on the Los Angeles County Republican Central Committee.

“This is first time I come to convention. I am so excited about this,” Choi said, wearing a straw cowboy hat. Choi, who is still learning English, said his political philosophy is rooted in hatred of communism and he trusts Republicans to control militant Marxism more than he does Democrats.

Another delegate who talks of himself first as an “anti-Communist” is Ky Ngo, a marketing consultant from Orange County who fled Saigon just before it collapsed in 1975. Ngo said it took him 15 years to settle in California, establish roots and start a business. “Now, it is time to become involved in politics,” he said, watching a dusty rodeo while conservatively dressed in a gray pin-striped suit.

Then there is Dick Rutan, 54, the Voyager co-pilot on the first around-the-world, nonstop flight in 1986. Born in Rancho Cucamonga where he now lives, Rutan is running against veteran Democratic Rep. George E. Brown Jr. in a new San Bernardino County district shaped to give a Republican a good chance of winning.

Rutan is not a delegate, but flew to Houston in his homemade, one-engine plane because “I heard there was a bunch of PACs (political action committees) here and I’m sniffing around for PAC money like everybody else,” he said candidly. “I’m doing very well.”

Rutan said he got into politics to keep Democrats from “taxing and spending us into oblivion.” But he opposes the GOP on abortion. “Basically, I think abortion is none of the government’s business,” he said. “I want government off my back and out of my pocketbook.”

Similarly, Michael Huffington, 44, a self-made former Texas oil baron who moved to Santa Barbara four years ago, said he is a moderate on social issues--favoring abortion and gay rights--but also a fiscal conservative. He defeated veteran Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino in the Republican primary last June and is a heavy favorite to be elected to Congress.

“I’m a very different Republican and I also believe I’m a new breed,” he said. “I grew up in the ‘60s and it’s our turn to reflect the views of our generation.”

But from the Sierra foothills east of Sacramento, Dave Titus, 35, is a member of the Christian right also attending his first convention. Sitting on a delegation bus with his 4-month-old daughter on his lap, Titus talked about his strong commitments both to “the unborn” and the President. “We’ve been kicked around,” he said of the party. “We’ve been watching our guy get beat up. We want to see him come out (of the convention) strong.”

Nao Takasugi, the mayor of Oxnard, also is one of the new breed of Republicans. A candidate for the Assembly, Takasugi said Asian-Americans are naturals for the party because many “believe in strong family units, education, the work ethic and an entrepreneur spirit.”

Asian-Americans got “a wake-up call” during the Los Angeles riots, he said. “Many of the victims were Korean-Americans. Their places were looted and vandalized, yet they really had no voice or leadership in that community. It impressed on the Korean community how important it was to get involved.”

The most prominent Asian-American on the California delegation is Matthew K. Fong, 38, whom Wilson appointed to the state Board of Equalization. Fong’s mother is Democratic Secretary of State March Fong Eu.

“In the past Asian-Americans were frightfully shy about running for office because they were afraid of losing,” Fong said, sitting in his front row delegation seat on the convention floor. “Nobody wanted to be embarrassed in the community by losing. Being successful in politics means some times you have to lose one or two times before you can win. We have overcome our shyness.”

But with Ronald Reagan no longer providing the political glue to keep California Republicans united, as he did for more than two decades, the party may be headed for another watershed bloodletting that would recall the Goldwater-Rockefeller clash of the mid-’60s.

Dana Reed, 48, a Costa Mesa attorney and member of the Orange County Transportation Authority, sided with Goldwater as a young man and still regards himself as “a Barry Goldwater conservative.” But by today’s standards he is a Wilson moderate.

“I’m not a Bible-thumping, evangelical, anti-abortion conservative,” he said. “There are a lot of them in leadership positions in the party. They’ve spent a lot of time in the last 12 years working their way up.”

Reed may have been talking about somebody like Irvine attorney Michael Schroeder, president of the volunteer California Republican Assembly and a member of the convention Rules Committee. An adamant opponent of abortion, Schroeder takes credit for helping to fight off what he says were Wilson’s attempts to pack the delegation with moderates. Now, he is backing a slate of conservative Republican candidates for the Assembly with the aim of ousting Minority Leader Bill Jones of Fresno, a Wilson backer.

“Conservatives will definitely take over the (Assembly) Republican caucus,” he vowed, in talk that signaled the party’s growing ideological war.