PROFILE / AL VILLALOBOS : ‘Diary’ of a Delegate : A Tarzana investment banker shares his insights into the just-concluded Republican National Convention.

Al Villalobos, a Tarzana investment banker and management consultant, arrived here last week wearing many hats--including a 10-gallon one.

He was a delegate for President Bush. A major GOP campaign contributor, and one of the nation’s premier Latino fund-raisers, he was on the national finance committee of the Bush-Quayle campaign and the Republican National Committee. And he was co-chairman of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly.

Finally, he was sergeant at arms for the 402-member California delegation. This gave him power over such plums as floor passes as well as responsibility for the daunting logistics of getting everyone to the Astrodome on time and arranging media interviews.

Villalobos, 47, is a sixth-generation Angeleno who traces his roots to Mexico. A self-styled “enlightened conservative,” he says he was drawn to the GOP as a Whittier College student by the party’s commitment to free enterprise and individual initiative and the school’s most famous alumnus, Richard M. Nixon.

Villalobos, an articulate, gregarious grandfather, agreed to share his week with The Times.

Friday, Aug. 14

“I’m looking forward to the convention,” Villalobos says a day before departing for his fourth such quadrennial Republican gathering. “I think we’re going to show a tremendous amount of unity. We feel now that we’ve been beaten and bashed for the last nine months.

“I feel like a child abused, on a political basis, by the other side--the lies, the distortion, the disinformation that has been given out by the Democrats running for President and by their party is unconscionable.”

“The Democrats have all toed one line: Everything that’s wrong in America is the President’s fault. There is nothing further from the truth. Congress is one party and 34 states are headed by Democratic governors.” (Actually, it’s 28, not 34.) But it won’t be all platform fights and partisan speechmaking: Villalobos allows that he relishes the dawn to post-midnight social events more than the actual focus of the convention--the floor proceedings.

Saturday, Aug. 15

Villalobos arises at 4 a.m. for his chartered flight to Houston. Upon arriving, he and his fellow delegates are greeted by a country-Western band and red, white and blue balloons.

The Californians are 1,200 strong, including guests and honorary delegates.

After checking in at the Adam’s Mark hotel, Villalobos reviews former President Ronald Reagan’s speech to be delivered Monday evening.

He, among others, was sent an advance text to make sure that it contains nothing objectionable. Villalobos pronounces it “excellent.”

At 6 p.m., Villalobos and his colleagues are bused to a rodeo and barbecue thrown by the Houston Host Committee.

Cowboys rope steers and ride bulls in the center ring and cheerleaders prance about as the Republicans chow down on barbecued beef, chili and brownies.

Villalobos dines with Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. and Donald P. Hodel, former secretary of both Interior and Energy. Villalobos, who insists he never mixes his work with politics, chats with Hodel about mountain climbing, an interest they share. Later, the party loyalist, who is divorced, hits the hotel disco until 2 a.m.

Sunday, Aug. 16

Villalobos sleeps through a scheduled 6 a.m. golf game. But he’s up for an 8:30 Asian-American Coalition breakfast and the first daily meeting of the California Hispanic caucus, which he heads. A record-setting 83 Latinos are among the state’s 402 delegates and alternates. California is an exception in the heavily Anglo convention.

The morning’s main event is Gov. Pete Wilson’s address via satellite to the California delegation as a possible floor fight looms over the proposed platform ban on abortions.

Villalobos believes that government should not inject itself into such a private matter. But he is persuaded by Wilson, who favors abortion rights and to whom Villalobos is devoted, to avoid a divisive showdown that could hurt Bush’s reelection prospects.

Villalobos is also concerned about reports that the party platform calls for building a wall on the Mexican border to keep out illegal immigrants. “This is no time to put up walls in North America when we just spent 39 years tearing down walls in Eastern Europe,” he says.

But, when he obtains a copy of the document, he says he is relieved to find that it advocates only adding more border guards and repairing existing fences--something he supports.

That evening, a casually attired Villalobos downs margaritas served from a giant wooden cactus and eats venison sliced from huge slabs on a spit in an urban park amid the skyscrapers of downtown Houston. The reception sponsors include Arco and Enron, a Houston oil company.

“I’m tired,” he sighs. “And it’s only Sunday.”

Monday, Aug. 17

The convention officially opens. After the morning Hispanic and state delegation meetings, the Californians make their way to the Astrodome for the first time. It takes 1 1/2 hours to get the group through security and seated near the podium. Musical chairs-type arrangements are hammered out to keep each of the coveted delegate seats filled at all times.

A television reporter asks Villalobos about the naming of ex-San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros as a senior adviser to Democratic nominee Bill Clinton’s campaign. “Birds of a feather flock together,” Villalobos cracks, alluding to both men’s alleged marital infidelities. He then calls them both “skirt chasers.” Later, he wonders aloud if he went too far.

Villalobos enjoys Patrick Buchanan’s speech but complains that the conservative commentator’s attack on gays “seemed a bit intolerant.” It is Reagan’s talk, though, that really turns him on. Hours later, during a post-midnight dinner at the hotel, he recalls favorite lines.

“He’s the soul of our party,” says Villalobos, who volunteered in Reagan’s first gubernatorial campaign in 1966. “There were some people with tears in their eyes. It was almost like he was saying farewell.”

Tuesday, Aug. 18

HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William K. Reilly, Small Business Administrator Pat Saiki and Veterans Affairs Secretary Edward J. Derwinski address the California delegation this morning.

Later, numerous Californians speak at the morning convention floor session as the delegation rises to cheer them. “Since President Reagan’s speech last night, everyone is energized,” Villalobos says.

In the afternoon, Villalobos ferries some major campaign donors from California to the Astro Arena next to the Astrodome where scores of merchants are hawking campaign memorabilia as well as other Houston souvenirs. Bill and Hillary Clinton are favorite targets.

That evening, Villalobos skips out before Texas Sen. Phil Gramm’s keynote address to have dinner with a group of other major contributors and fund-raisers at one of Houston’s toniest restaurants (promising, with a wink and nod, to bring along a portable television).

His group is seated between tables that include former California Gov. George Deukmejian, former Texas Gov. John B. Connally Jr. and U.S. Treasurer Catalina V. Villapando. Over chateaubriand of tuna and Stolichnaya kamikazes, it is like old-home week for Villalobos.

“Everyone kept coming over to me, so that the waiter asked me for my autograph,” Villalobos recalls later. “He said, ‘You must be important or an actor.’ I said, ‘I’m neither--I won’t give it to you.’ ”

Wednesday, Aug. 19

Villalobos begins his day at a breakfast hosted by Arco for Sen. John Seymour and television commentator Bruce Herschensohn, the two Republican Senate nominees in California.

At the daily California delegation session, Bush campaign heavyweights Robert Teeter and Mary Matalin reassure Golden State activists that, contrary to media reports, the presidential ticket will not write off California in November. The delegation serenades birthday girl Matalin and gives her a “Hail Mary” T-shirt.

One of the Bushes’ sons, Jeb, and his Latino wife, Columba, address the Hispanic caucus. After vowing to campaign extensively in California, they pose for pictures with each of the delegates.

Villalobos arrives on the convention floor in the evening--”Family Values Night”--bedecked in his American flag-like “Fourth of July” shirt, black jeans and ostrich-skin boots. He’s swamped with requests from VIPs for floor seats.

This evening, Marilyn Quayle and Barbara Bush are featured and the Bush clan takes the podium, including Bush’s 16-year-old Mexican-American grandson.

“It was great, definitely family night and you can’t compare that family to Bill, Hillary and Chelsea,” Villalobos says, even bringing up Clinton’s 12-year-old daughter, who alone has been spared from the familial partisan sniping from the podium.

“Not only that, it was a tremendous tie-in for the Hispanic community that the Bush grandson, who is Mexican-American, spoke for the family.”

Again, the seemingly inexhaustible delegate wraps up his day--well into the next one--in the disco.

Thursday, Aug. 20

Villalobos has breakfast with the national finance committee for the Bush-Quayle campaign. Campaign Chairman Robert A. Mosbacher and Republican National Committee Chairman Richard N. Bond are among the speakers. Villalobos has contributed the legal limit of $25,000 to federal candidates in the last year and raised many times that.

The money men are told they have already brought in the legal maximum for Bush’s campaign and must now concentrate on so-called “soft money”--funds that can be harvested, without any limits, for get-out-the-vote and other party-building activities. Villalobos say the goal is about $30 million nationwide.

In a jam-packed Astrodome that evening, an excited Villalobos is in the forefront of the California delegation for the climactic speeches by Vice President Dan Quayle and Bush. He calls Quayle’s “the best speech of his life.”

And he applauds Bush for apologizing for approving a 1990 tax increase and promising a possible tax cut, as well as for attacking Clinton’s equivocation on support of the Persian Gulf War.

“His speech was exactly what I wanted to hear,” Villalobos says. “We’re paying enough taxes and I don’t think taxes are utilized as wisely as they should be.”

Afterward, Villalobos is co-host of a Coca-Cola-sponsored party for 400 Latino delegates and other convention guests at the Four Seasons Hotel. At 2:30 a.m. he returns to his hotel with his son, Eric, 26.

“I saw 1,000 people on the front lawn,” Villalobos says. “I say to my son, ‘Did we call another rally?’ ” It turns out that a fire on the fourth floor forced an evacuation an hour earlier. Among the sleep-deprived are Seymour, Deukmejian and Atty. Gen. Dan E. Lungren, who chants “one more day” as others yell, “four more years.”

Never one to miss a social opportunity, Villalobos invites some cohorts to go to the International House of Pancakes for an early breakfast. “I wanted to see where Slick Willie got his international relations experience,” he jokes, referring to Buchanan’s zinger about Clinton’s lack of foreign-policy background.

On this night, Al Villalobos never does get to bed.

Friday, Aug. 21

“I don’t remember taking off or landing,” Villalobos says hours after arriving back in Tarzana via his return charter from Houston. “I slept that soundly.”

But, he adds: “I feel wonderful. Everyone in California came home with a nice, warm fuzzy feeling, a lot of excitement.”

He plans to see his granddaughters, soak his feet and turn off the phones.

“A lot of people think these things are ceremonial. But it’s not ceremonial,” he says, exhaustion creeping into his voice. “I hope to be in bed by 9 o’clock, or sooner.”