Kemp Racing in and out of Laguna

While much of the nation’s attention is focused on the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the residents who live in the million-dollar homes on a small, U-shaped street here are more interested in who’s visiting next door.

It’s Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp, who is spending the week at his brother Tom’s oceanfront home--motorcade included.

“It’s exciting. It’s marvelous,” said a woman who has lived for 66 years in one of the street’s showcase homes overlooking the crashing surf of tiny Crescent Bay. “You get 30 or 40 motorcycles coming in, and all the police cars and the escorts and the Secret Service and everything. It’s fun to see.”

Marine Drive is now lined with temporary “no parking” signs that have been mounted on fluorescent orange poles since Monday, when Kemp arrived. Secret Service agents maintain vigil at the Kemp’s house--on Wednesday one sat at a little desk staring out from the open garage.

For residents, Jack Kemp’s visit has become somewhat of a show. Each morning, as Kemp heads out to campaign events and political engagements, a handful of residents rush from their homes to watch him leave. They come out again each afternoon when they hear the roar of motorcycles that signals the return of the Kemp entourage. He usually waves, they say.

“There goes the neighborhood,” Kemp was heard to say when he first arrived at his brother’s home. He is expected to stay through Saturday.

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Kemp’s visit will culminate in a Friday morning campaign rally with GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole at the Orange County Fairgrounds. Campaign officials are billing it as the California kickoff, but both candidates have been campaigning throughout the state since the Republican convention earlier this month in San Diego.

Dole and Kemp will make a joint appearance in the fairground’s 6,000-seat Rodeo Arena, said Bill Christiansen, executive director of the county Republican Party. Gates open at 7:30 a.m. to the public, with Dole scheduled to take the podium at 9 a.m.

“Dole is looking to win California, and Orange County is the key to that,” Christiansen said from newly opened Dole-Kemp campaign headquarters in Newport Beach, where volunteers were busily painting political signs for the Friday morning rally.

“I’ve never seen the Republican presidential campaign this aggressive here, this soon,” he said. “It’s completely different than 1992.”

Laguna residents turned out again Wednesday morning as Kemp left for a campaign outing in South Central Los Angeles, where he visited the Boys and Girls Club and toured a Kmart and McDonald’s restaurant.

He also held a two-hour round-table discussion with a dozen handpicked black and Latino community leaders and 300 invited guests.

“This party cannot survive having one party take the African American vote for granted and having the other party write it off,” Kemp said, drawing a round of a applause. “This is not the Grand Old Party. This is the Grand New Party. Keep your eyes open, your ears open and your minds open.”

Kemp returned to the Laguna Beach neighborhood about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, sandwiched among a phalanx of California Highway Patrol cars, motorcycles and Secret Service vehicles. As Kemp’s dark-colored sedan turned the corner onto his brother’s street, he waved to startled beach-goers who stood nearby, towels and body boards in hand.

“I don’t see why they need quite as many police cars,” said 44-year resident Ouida Jensen as the motorcade passed by her frontyard. ‘And I kind of wonder who’s paying for all of this.”

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But most neighbors said Kemp’s visit has had little effect on their daily lives, except when the motorcade comes and goes.

“I was sitting in my car and couldn’t get around the corner to my street because the police had everything blocked off,” resident Louanne Williamson said. “I looked up at one policeman and he said, ‘Just lean on your horn.’ And I said, ‘I don’t think so.’ ”

Next-door neighbor Nathan Gebhard, a 20-year-old college student who lives with his parents and works in a local surf shop, said Secret Service agents scanned the outside of his house with metal detectors and have set up temporary headquarters in a nearby house whose owners are away.

“There’s telescopes and stuff in there,” Gebhard said. “It’s kind of funny when you think about it. They’re Secret Service, but everybody knows they’re here.”

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Hector Tobar.