Larkin Will Lead County Republicans : Politics: He hopes to move beyond infighting that hurt GOP image and led to Democratic gains.

Bob Larkin of Simi Valley, a longtime Republican Party activist, was elected Monday as the new chairman of the Ventura County Republican Central Committee.

Larkin said afterward that it was time for Republicans to rebound after the fractious debate between conservative and moderate blocs that split the party during the past year--and that helped the Democrats make major registration inroads in the county.

“The vote was to unify the committee and get the job done,” said Larkin, 56, an insurance agent.

Larkin defeated Kenneth Caldwell, an executive with a Camarillo-based computer firm, for the leadership of the county’s Republicans by a 14-12 vote. There was one abstention in the secret balloting.

Among those backing Caldwell, who was elected the committee’s first vice chairman, were about half a dozen members led by Bill Jones, who is associated with the party’s Christian fundamentalist bloc.

Larkin led the January, 1992, ouster of Jones after Jones had served only three months as Central Committee chairman.

Both Larkin and Caldwell, 35, are fiscal conservatives but are moderate on social issues, such as abortion rights, which Jones opposes.

“The liberals won,” said Jones, 43, of Simi Valley after the vote at the county Hall of Administration in Ventura.

Larkin succeeded Richard Ferrier, 43, of Santa Paula, a college professor who was knocked off the Central Committee by voters in the June primary election.

The viability of the Republican Party in Ventura County was also at stake in the vote, Republican activists said, citing the events of last year, when Democrats out-registered Republicans by about a 2-1 margin.

Last April 1, two months before the primary, Republicans held a sizable lead over registered Democrats in the county. The margin was 46.5% to 40%, according to the registrar of voters.

But a well-organized Democratic Party effort has narrowed that gap to 43.8% for the Republicans and 41.1% for the Democrats, the registrar’s figures show.

The lesson was not lost on Larkin, who believes that such a turn of events in a traditionally Republican county has a lot to do with the party’s highly publicized infighting. The squabbling dried up funds, leaving virtually no dollars to underwrite a registration effort last year, he says.

“The No. 1 thing is to raise funds and get the registration system set up,” Larkin said. “We have no money.”

Larkin said he hopes to raise about $20,000 for the almost penniless committee through a direct-mail campaign and a spring dinner in an effort to underwrite a serious voter-registration drive.

The party’s plight and image problem in the county, Larkin maintained, was largely rooted in the right-wing faction led by Jones.

Jones triggered sharp controversy when, in November, 1991, he expressed sympathy for former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke’s gubernatorial campaign in Louisiana, a position that triggered outrage from more moderate elements of the party.

In the vote Monday, Larkin counted on the fact that he has lived in Ventura County for 24 years to aid him, as well as his intimate knowledge of the party and its problems. “I’ve chaired seven nonpartisan races in the county,” he said.

Caldwell, who has lived in Ventura County for 15 months, moved from Northern California, where he was a member of the Alameda County Republican Central Committee for four years.

“I represent new blood,” he said. “The differences between me and Larkin are small. Bob has been around the county more and people tend to love him or hate him more.”

The committee also elected Peggy Sadler of Simi Valley secretary and Bill Bennett of Thousand Oaks treasurer. Larkin also named Karen Kurta of Ventura as the committee’s other vice chairwoman.