GOP Meetings Are Open to All Comers

As a loyal Republican, I was offended by your Column One article in the July 7 Times (“GOP in O.C.: Setting Sights on the State”).

You claim that on election day in Orange County the drill is always the same: Each Republican “must state his or her name and then point to another person who can vouch that he or she is, indeed, a registered Republican.” You claim “this ritual continues until the last person is . . . vouched for.”

Who told you that story?

I am serving in my 10th (and last) year as a member of the Orange County Republican Central Committee. In that decade I have attended virtually every meeting unless I was out of town.

The only ritual oath we take is an oath to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California.”

The only thing we pledge allegiance to at every meeting is the “flag of the United States of America.”

Your story [quotes a party member as saying the tone set is] “Infiltrator beware.” Nothing could be further from the truth. As Republican volunteers we are proud of what we do. Republican Central Committee meetings are open to the public, regardless of party affiliation. The press is welcome. Why don’t you send a reporter sometime and get the facts firsthand?

DEBRA E. ALLEN

Santa Ana

* You will never do lunch again in Orange County! You are unveiling all those dirty little secrets, known but unacknowledged by many. What is worse, you are compiling them, putting them back-to-back to show how the right-wing Republicans have gained and kept control here--money and threats and intolerance.

I have viewed the county political scene for the past 30 years. I have been here during the Day of the Democrat (when 42 of them and one Republican were indicted and some even went to jail) and through the days of the John Birch Society, which made inroads mostly in local school boards but did not have money to go much further, John Schmitz being their only standard-bearer.

You seem to have missed one item in the growing legacy of one-party control, however: the Republican run on Democratic school board and City Council members. Republicans would threaten to run a candidate (with money) against them if they did not change their registration. Many Democrats switched rather than fight, others just did not bother to run, thereby tilting the whole playing field of farm teams.

But now it seems even the prestigious Lincoln Club has met its match, at least money-wise, in the overwhelming challenge by state Sen. Rob Hurtt (R-Garden Grove) and Howard Ahmanson and the California Independent Business PAC. Strange as it may seem, I find myself rooting for the Lincoln Club.

EILEEN GERSHON

Orange

* Your Lincoln Club article was very knowledgeable. One name, however, should have been mentioned because of his fantastic charm, wit and wisdom. I am referring to club President Emeritus Colson Morris, who reigned for 14 years, from 1972 to 1986, and helped make the Lincoln Club the powerful club it became.

Colson’s disciples would sincerely appreciate your giving him the honor he so richly deserves!

LEE BURSTEIN

Newport Beach