Speaker Candidate Pringle Has Worried Eye on Allen Recall : Election: His chance for top Assembly job fades if lone Democrat on the ballot should pull off an upset. The rising GOP leader endorses one of four Republicans in the race, risking enmity of others.

It’s the sort of thing that could make even the most self-possessed politician bolt upright in the middle of the night, sweat on the brow. This just might be Curt Pringle’s worst nightmare.

The newly minted GOP leader of the state Assembly pushed as hard as anyone for the recall of maverick Assemblywoman Doris Allen, a Cypress Republican who angered party brethren up and down the state by striking a deal with the Democrats last June to become Speaker of the Legislature’s lower house.

Now, with Allen’s chances of surviving the Nov. 28 recall election looking bleak, local Democrats have put up a respected and seasoned campaigner--former Huntington Beach Mayor Linda Moulton-Patterson--as a potential replacement. If the four Republicans on the ballot cleave the vote in the heavily GOP district, Moulton-Patterson could possibly slip by for a victory. It would be a stunning setback for GOP hopes of finally capturing full control of the Assembly.

Should that long-shot scenario somehow play out, no other politician would be more vulnerable than Pringle, widely considered the Speaker-in-waiting should things finally fall into place for the Republicans.

“If we somehow blow this one, the guy whose posterior would be on the line is Curt Pringle,” one irritated GOP activist in the Capitol put it bluntly.

Democrats, of course, are pinching themselves over the possibility. “I think Pringle is dead if a Republican doesn’t win that election or somehow the recall fails,” said Gale Kaufman, a strategist for Assembly Democrats. “I think the Republicans look at it that way, and I think Pringle certainly looks at it that way.”

At least in public, Pringle has expressed confidence that Allen will be recalled and a Republican will emerge victorious in the election, which is still more than three weeks away. Even so, he made moves last week trying to improve the odds.

Dumping all pretense of neutrality, he endorsed Scott Baugh, an attorney and fellow conservative, and urged party colleagues to do likewise. The move was politically risky because Pringle has been reluctant to anger another GOP contender, Haydee Tillotson, a wealthy moderate who has vowed to spend what it takes to get elected.

“We need to ensure that a Democrat does not win this seat,” Pringle declared, pointing to polls he says give Baugh a better chance of winning than Tillotson. “Haydee Tillotson is a good person and would be a fine member of the caucus, but this decision has to go beyond that. This is an odd election where someone could win with a very low turnout.”

If voters chuck out Allen, she would be replaced by the top vote-getter among the five replacement candidates on the ballot.

Many Republican stalwarts are forming a conga line behind Pringle to support Baugh. They flatly deny there is a chance that the party, which has failed to capture full control of the Assembly and the speakership despite numerical superiority over the Democrats, will let this chance slip away.

“A loss isn’t a remote possibility,” said Buck Johns of the conservative Orange County Lincoln Club. “We are going to win that seat over there. That thing is too big. That is not just another seat, it’s the most important race in the modern era. With that goes the speakership.”

As the Republican pack dashes for the finish line, the Democrats have yet to give any indication that they are ready to even bolt out of the gate. Moulton-Patterson has garnered strong support from Orange County’s feisty local operatives, who say that she could overcome the district’s 52% to 35% GOP voter registration edge. But the state party has yet to pump in the sort of campaign cash needed to fuel a big upset.

Still, for Pringle the possibility of political checkmate cannot be ignored. This is the Garden Grove conservative’s first real test as the Assembly’s Republican leader, and a loss in his own back yard would almost certainly prompt members of his caucus to shake up their leadership.

Although the GOP won a narrow majority in the Assembly last November to seize numerical superiority for the first time in a quarter of a century, they’ve spent the year trying and failing to get their floor leader elected as Assembly Speaker.

First, maverick Republican Paul Horcher bolted the party and voted for longtime Democratic Speaker Willie Brown, leaving the issue deadlocked in a 40-40 tie. A month later, Brown forced out another Assembly Republican who had been elected to the state Senate, giving the Democrat kingpin a slim majority to recapture the Speaker’s chair.

A series of special elections, including the recall of Horcher, gave Republicans a 41-39 majority again in June. But a personal quarrel once again got in the way.

One day before they regained their 41st vote, Brown stepped down and threw Democratic support to Allen, who had feuded with the Republican leadership for supporting a rival over her in a state Senate race earlier in the year.

Labeling her a puppet of Brown and traitor to the party, Republicans launched a recall against Allen. Rebuffed by her own party, Allen stepped down and lined up with the Democrats to give the speakership to Assemblyman Brian Setencich of Fresno, a 33-year-old freshman Republican and Allen’s lone GOP ally.

Some insiders say it could have been different. During Allen’s last days as Speaker, Pringle talked with her advisers in hopes of reaching an accord that would let him become Speaker in exchange for calling off the recall.

Ultimately all attempts failed, in no small part because recall leaders bulled ahead and submitted the more than 26,000 signatures needed to put the issue on the ballot even as Allen was said to be considering their offer.

“The last week I truly believe Doris would have turned the speakership over to another Republican, even under the right circumstances to Pringle,” said Tony Quinn, a onetime consultant to Allen. “I believe that had the Republicans held back that last batch of signatures, they could have convinced her that it would have been in her best interest to step aside.”

Pringle agrees that in a perfect world, Allen might eventually have caved in. But several factors weighed in to dash those chances.

For starters, the recall had developed a momentum that was hard to stop, even for party leaders. Recall organizers, which include Pringle’s chief of staff Jeff Flint, say they were worried that a Superior Court judge reviewing a lawsuit filed by Allen might suddenly hand down a ruling before they qualified the issue on the ballot.

Moreover, in the final days Allen seemed to be recaptured by the Democrats, spending long hours behind closed doors with Brown and his allies while rejecting Republican overtures that her aides attempted to pass on.

“I talked to Doris Allen’s liaison people about trying to put together something as a transition,” Pringle said. “I think what kiboshed it more than anything else was Doris Allen’s animosity against the Republican Party.”

Now some Republican insiders are grousing about the threat posed by Moulton-Patterson, arguing that Pringle and other leaders should have exerted pressure to thin out the crowded field of Republican candidates.

Orange County GOP leader Tom Fuentes contends that such practices flaunt democracy.

“If party leaders try to step in and limit the candidates, [critics] take shots,” he said. “And if they leave it wide open to the fresh air of democracy, they take shots. One way or another, the party leaders are whipping boys for the media and those who don’t have anything better to do.”

The upshot is a field littered with Republicans, including former Huntington Beach Mayor Don MacAllister and school trustee Shirley Carey. Both enjoy solid support within the district.

And while many Republicans bluster about the inevitability of recalling Allen and regaining the seat, Pringle can’t help but feel like a runner glancing back over his shoulder.

“It certainly is a test for Curt,” acknowledged Lois Lundberg, a political consultant and chairwoman emeritus of the Orange County GOP. “This would be a big loss for Curt and a lot of other people. He’s carrying some awful big burdens, some enormous weights.”