ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : A Santa Ana Condition in Local Politics

The Santa Ana winds were gusting through Orange County on Tuesday, a fitting sign of just how rustled politics came to be in this unpredictable, extraordinary year.

Nobody was blown out into the Pacific, and the election confirmed the conventional wisdom about the fiscal conservatism of this most symbolic of conservative American counties. However, even as the leaves were stirring, there were unmistakable signs that voters’ sentiments were too in this election season.

Bill Clinton boldly mined for votes on several visits here, and Democrats took heart. In a sign of dissatisfaction, one former member of George Bush’s circle of $100,000 contributors, developer Kathryn Thompson, abandoned the President. On Tuesday, nearly a quarter of the county’s presidential votes went to Ross Perot. Remarkable.

Women and minority candidates shook up the status quo at the local level, beginning in the primaries. The major parties sought to enlist Asian-Americans and Latinos, and Vietnamese-American candidates ventured into local politics. In Westminster, Tony Lam, a refugee from Southeast Asia in 1975, narrowly won a seat on the City Council, a first.

Voters revealed their customary aversion to government spending, bucking the state in supporting the welfare-budget-cutting initiative and turning down state and local ballot measures that ventured anywhere near their pocketbooks.

They also showed their abiding interest in more responsive and reasonable government, a true voice of moderation. A flock of campaign finance reform and local term-limitation measures won overwhelming support across the county, a clear signal to politicians that the voters want better representation.

Anaheim, for one, showed how far it has come from the 1920s, when its ideas for governance came from the Ku Klux Klan, which ran the town.

The election there this year capsulized the expectation of Orange County voters in the 1990s that local government be more attuned to ordinary people and their concerns.

Anaheim on Tuesday passed, by staggering margins, reforms for both campaign financing limits (an advisory measure) and term limitations. It also expressed disgust with the status quo by upsetting two-term incumbent Mayor Fred Hunter. He presided during a period of unprecedented flooding of special-interest money into city politics. It was a time characterized by some very unrealistic dreams of city expansion.

The political landscape in Orange County is unlikely to soon be as predictable as when Ronald Reagan’s presidency brought certainty. Politicians and pundits who have pigeon-holed--or lampooned--Orange County politics, take note.