Bush’s O.C. Tally Hits 56-Year Low for GOP : Results: Election is landmark for Democrats whose assault, combined with Perot campaign, cut President’s support.

Orange County’s Republican fortress succumbed to a historic assault from Democrats and a popular independent campaign Tuesday, leaving GOP support for President Bush at the lowest level for a Republican national ticket in more than 50 years.

California’s two Republican Senate candidates--John Seymour and Bruce Herschensohn--ran stronger than the President in Orange County, but their support fell short of the winning margin they needed to offset Democratic strongholds in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area.

For Orange County Democrats, it was a landmark election.

“These results are too good to be true,” said Democratic activist Reuben Martinez. “This is the beginning of something new in Orange County.”

Dianne Feinstein, who unseated appointed U.S. Sen. Seymour, was running ahead of her party’s level of registration in Orange County. And while Herschensohn had a wide lead in the county over Barbara Boxer--winner of the seat held by retiring Sen. Alan Cranston--the Democratic vote did not splinter, as it has for the last decade.

Independent candidate Ross Perot struck a chord with Orange County voters, scoring higher than any independent candidate in Orange County for the last 50 years and doing better locally than he was doing in the state and national returns.

Perot’s tally--combined with votes for Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton--reduced Bush’s support from California’s most Republican county to the lowest level for a GOP presidential candidate since 1936.

Euphoric Democratic leaders celebrated their milestone Tuesday night in a ballroom of the Anaheim Hilton and Towers that was so crowded it was briefly closed by a city fire marshal.

Party leaders marked the historic moment by dropping an orange curtain from the stage to symbolize their success in hurdling the formidable Republican barrier. And when Bush conceded the race, giddy Democratic volunteers broke into a song from the Wizard of Oz: “Ding, dong, the witch is dead.”

“The Democratic Party of Orange County is back,” a triumphant Howard Adler, the party chairman, declared. “This is so exciting. This is a new era.”

Richard J. O’Neill, a former state Democratic chairman and the patriarch of Orange County’s party, was practically incredulous.

“I have waited 30 years for this,” he said. “I love every bit of it. This entire election has stunned me.”

Orange County Republican leaders who gathered at the Westin South Coast Plaza hotel in Costa Mesa said they were disappointed in the election results, but they were emphatic that the county will remain a GOP dynasty and they warned about the upcoming dark days of a Democratic Administration.

As evidence, GOP leaders noted that every Republican incumbent in the Congress and Legislature was reelected.

“Everyone is saddened by the President’s loss,” said Thomas A. Fuentes, chairman of the county GOP. “On the other hand, I think everyone is very much moved by his grace and character in his concession speech. That’s why we love him. That’s why we have always felt so strongly for him.”

GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach blamed his own party, charging that moderate Republicans crippled the campaign and that Bush himself had bumbled his reelection.

Bush “ran one of the most incompetent campaigns in history,” Rohrabacher charged at the GOP gathering. “ . . . Bush handed the presidency to the Democrats.”

Based on the results and earlier polls, it appeared that Clinton probably kept Bush below the level he needed to win in Orange County. But it was Perot’s popularity among Orange County Republicans that drove the President’s level of support to its historic low.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Hubert Putnam, co-chair of Perot’s Orange County operation, said at the Irvine campaign headquarters Tuesday night. “We worked really hard. . . . Most people told others, who told others (about Perot).”

The returns for Clinton found him running about even with the Democratic registration in the county, meaning that he was apparently able to unite the once wayward Reagan Democrats of Santa Ana and that he probably gained some independent or Republican support for his coalition. That would leave Bush and Perot to split the Republican and independent vote.

Bush fell short of the county’s Republican level of registration, apparently losing a significant chunk of GOP support to Perot.

Democrats Feinstein and Boxer received support in proportions similar to Clinton and the Democratic registration margin in Orange County. At the same time, their Republican opponents--Seymour and Herschensohn--scored higher than Bush, indicating that they received some of Perot’s support.

There were also reminders Tuesday night of the early days in the presidential campaign and Orange County’s role in giving an obscure candidate named Clinton one of his first shots at a national stage. Last December, a group of prominent Orange County Republican business leaders shocked GOP insiders and the national media when they hosted Clinton for a lecture on the economy.

Developer Kathryn Thompson, a prominent Bush supporter in 1988 who stuck with Clinton through the 1992 campaign, was at the Orange County Democratic celebration Tuesday wearing a large “I trust Bill” campaign button. “I think he is the leader who is best for America,” she said. “He is pro-business. He thinks business needs incentives to create jobs and I think he is going to do that.”

Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, who was the only elected Republican official in the county to break ranks with her party, joined Thompson at the Democratic celebration Tuesday. “This is the best thing that could happen to America,” she said.

In other races around Orange County, voters in Anaheim were deciding a hotly contested match for the mayor’s office. Councilman Tom Daly appeared headed for a surprising victory over two-term incumbent Mayor Fred Hunter.

In Santa Ana, Mayor Daniel H. Young was holding off a challenge from Councilman John Acosta.

County GOP Chairman Fuentes pointed to the party’s victories in most of the county’s other races--including the reelection of every incumbent congressman and legislator--as evidence that the party’s influence will continue. “That’s a clear indication that we are very much the Republican stronghold,” he said.

There were four incumbent congressmen on the ballot in Orange County--Rohrabacher in Huntington Beach, Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) and Ron Packard (R-Oceanside).

Each was winning handily, although Dornan’s margin over Democrat Robert Banuelos was thin. Banuelos ran an almost invisible campaign, but he also challenged Dornan in the only Congressional district in Orange County where a majority of the residents are Democratic.

Two freshman congressman were elected to seats that represent portions of Orange County. State Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim) won a seat vacated by Rep. William Dannemeyer, who left the House to run in the GOP primary last spring for the U.S. Senate. Republican Jay Kim was also elected to a Congressional seat that Orange County shares with San Bernardino County.

In the Legislature, there were five Orange County incumbents on the ballot. All appeared headed for victory, including the county’s only Democratic state officeholder, Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove), who held off a spirited challenge from Republican Jo Ellen Allen.

The county also elected two new lawmakers to the state Assembly. Curt Pringle, who served one term in the Assembly before losing to Umberg in 1990, won another seat in Sacramento. And Republican Bill Morrow won election in South County.

On the slate of statewide propositions, Orange County voters found much to dislike. The county rejected several measures that required increased funding, including a plan for bonds to pay for school facilities.

County voters were strongly in favor--by almost a 3-to-1 margin--of Proposition 164, which would limit terms for members of Congress. Support in Orange County was considerably stronger than it was statewide.

Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposal to cut welfare benefits and alter the state budgeting process was also faring much better in Orange County than it was statewide. And a plan to cut the snack tax was winning in Orange County.

Even before Tuesday’s election, it was a historic year in Orange County politics, setting a new benchmark for future campaigns to measure party influence.

Instead of being a place where Republican campaigns came to display their political strength, Orange County in 1992 was a rear guard action where GOP candidates were forced to protect their flank.

In the presidential race, Orange County was perceived by the national and world press as perhaps the most striking example in the country of Bush’s deteriorating base.

Contributing to election coverage in Orange County were: Bill Billiter, Jim Carr, Marla Cone, Debra Cano, Willson Cummer, Shelby Grad, Andrea Heiman, Matt Lait, Davan Maharaj, Tom McQueeney, Frank Messina, John Nalick, Lynda Natali, Jeffrey A. Perlman, Terry Spencer, Danny Sullivan, Dan Weikel and Jodi Wilgoren.