ANALYSIS : Unruliness Disrupts Politics as Usual in County : The close presidential race has rankled ruling Republicans and emboldened Democrats, sparking clashes at several recent events.

The typically polite campaign decorum of conservative Orange County has been jostled in recent weeks by a spate of unruly incidents, the likes of which several campaign consultants and politicians say they’ve rarely seen.

Some attribute it to the remarkably close presidential race. Others blame it on the emotions of issue-driven extremists. Still others trace its roots to the tone set by hard-line conservatives at the GOP convention.

“It’s something unprecedented for Orange County,” said Martin Wattenberg, a UC Irvine political science professor. “You bring two-party politics to Orange County and suddenly it starts looking like politics in the rest of the country. It’s not as staid as it used to be.”

Some highlights:

- A group of GOP stalwarts led by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) heckled a coming-out event last month for several longtime Orange County Republicans announcing their support for Democratic presidential challenger Bill Clinton.

- At an Orange County appearance by First Lady Barbara Bush, several college-aged Republicans engaged in a confrontation with a cluster of Republicans for Clinton.

- GOP organizers of an Anaheim rally last weekend for President Bush and former President Ronald Reagan said they were shocked when some Clinton supporters hefting placards pushed their way to the front and began shouting epithets at the nation’s chief executive.

- Finally, an event Tuesday in Newport Beach for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Barbara Boxer was disrupted when about 20 college-aged supporters of Republican Bruce Herschensohn showed up, prompting Boxer to abruptly shift the rally to a Santa Ana union hall.

Wattenberg and others say the ascent of Clinton, who is running neck-and-neck with Bush in Orange County polls, has sparked an old-fashioned rivalry between the ruling Republican Party and the normally moribund Democrats.

The protesting Republicans seem to be particularly rankled by the highly-publicized defection to the Clinton camp of GOP notables such as developer and former Bush “Team 100” top contributor Kathryn Thompson, Western Digital Chairman Roger W. Johnson and Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder. Democrats, meanwhile, appear to be newly emboldened, ready to hit the hustings and prove to the long-dominant GOP that they can heckle and hassle with the best of them.

Some campaign consultants say factors such as the woeful economy may have people a bit more testy. Polarizing issues such as abortion, family values and gay rights also may be playing a role in the unruliness.

“It seems like a lot of the debate lately is being driven by people interested less in the candidates than in the issues,” said Sal Russo, a Sacramento political consultant. “These are the true-believer types--and the true believers can get carried away.”

After the crescendo of the Boxer debacle, Orange County Democratic Chairman Howard Adler said he had seen enough. He dashed off a letter to his GOP counterpart that described the Herschensohn supporters as “shouting young bullies” and called on the Republican Party to put a stop to what Adler said seemed to be a “deliberately planned campaign of harassment and intimidation.”

Within hours, GOP Chairman Thomas A. Fuentes fired back a fax of his own, calling Adler’s missive “a press stunt,” suggesting that the protests were “purely spontaneous” and that his party “has had no role in promoting such activity.” Not to be one-upped, Fuentes took note of “the irreverent and disrespectful Democrat rowdies” at President Bush’s Orange County rally last weekend, adding that “the Democrat intruders were absolutely rude.”

In an interview, Adler acknowledged that some Democrat activists have stepped over the line. But he said he has written party regulars advising them to shelve any nasty tactics. “I’ll admit some Democrats have been doing it,” Adler said. “But we’ve been doing something about it. Apparently, Tom Fuentes doesn’t want to take credit for the Republicans. And I think those guys have been more violent and rude.”

Orange County Republican Party officials, meanwhile, played down the significance of the various incidents, suggesting they are mostly the product of a Democrat effort to incite trouble.

“I think the few little disruptions that have taken place have been fairly minor,” said Greg Haskin, GOP executive director in Orange County. He added that Republican officials have taken pains to ease tensions, even calling on the crowd at the weekend Bush rally to welcome Clinton supporters and not allow frictions to ignite.

Dave Ellis, a Costa Mesa campaign consultant, suggested the recent episodes really aren’t all that unusual for Orange County. “Campaign dirty tricks are as old as this country,” Ellis said. “There are ideologues in each party and they tend to do things in the extreme. You witness it on the Republican side and on the Democrat side. It’s nothing new.”

But others suggest the disruptions represent a sinister trend.

“This is intimidation,” said Harvey Englander, a Newport Beach GOP political consultant. “You might see that in a pop-gun dictatorship, but not America. . . . I certainly wasn’t around in 1930s Germany, but you sort of wonder if that wasn’t the way Adolf Hitler got rid of opposing parties--by disrupting their rallies.”

Englander said he was particularly troubled by events at the Boxer rally, comparing the college-age GOP protesters to the whipped-up youths in the audience for liberal-baiting commentator Wally George’s TV shows. “It was their right to be there, but not to intimidate, just like it was wrong for Clinton supporters to disrupt the Bush rally,” he said.

Wieder, meanwhile, thinks the attitude of Republican protesters springs from their party’s national convention.

“What I saw being reflected in that convention is being acted out right here now,” Wieder said. “It’s kind of like the zealots and fanatics have come out. They’re not dealing in the American way, they’re dealing in emotion. It’s being expressed physically and verbally. And it’s scary.”

Political shenanigans have been escalating for years, said UC Irvine’s Wattenberg. In the 1948 presidential race between Harry Truman and Thomas Dewey, neither man even mentioned his opponent’s name, choosing instead to campaign on individual merits. Since then, however, there’s been a steady increase of negative campaigning, Wattenberg said.

“Politics is a reflection of the kind of society we have,” Wattenberg said. “As our society has become more divisive, these sorts of open political battles have erupted. If we say we have a more violent brand of politics, well, we have a more violent society.”

Lois Lundberg, a consultant and former county Republican chairwoman, suggests the spate of incidents “certainly don’t represent the mainstream of either party.” Instead, she said, “it’s the newcomer who doesn’t realize there are definite standards that apply to politics.”

Republican Party leaders like Haskin say the defections of Thompson and others hasn’t made a dent in the GOP’s moral or efforts, but Lundberg maintained it has prompted frustration in the ranks.

“I don’t think it’s anger, it’s more irritation and frustration,” she said. “I know Kathryn well and she’s entitled to do whatever she wants. But it’s difficult to believe a dyed-in-wool Republican could really bring themselves to change sides.”

Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, however, suggested it is Clinton’s strong local showing that most stirs the ire of Republicans, who have grown used to seeing Orange County deliver the big windfall of votes that traditionally puts GOP candidates over the top in California.

“I think that’s the thing causing the greatest emotions,” Riley said. “We sort of got used to that role. And when people are frustrated, they sometimes act a little different than they normally would.”

Riley said the campaign episodes have been a hot topic of conversation at recent social events he has attended. The reviews, he said, aren’t good: “I think most of the people I’ve talked to don’t feel very proud about it.”