Prominent GOP Members Back Clinton in O.C.

In the heart of GOP territory, a group of prominent California Republicans announced Monday that they are supporting President Clinton’s reelection.

The group, about 20 in all, included a member of the Orange County Republican Party’s Central Committee, two mayors, a city council member and a former county supervisor.

With the election three weeks away, and with the president set to visit Orange County later this week, the announcement was orchestrated for maximum political effect.

The Republicans backing Clinton said they have become alienated from the GOP leadership, which they said advocates extreme positions, and that Clinton’s stances on the issues better reflect their own.

Several of the defecting Republicans said they were abandoning Dole because of his stand on abortion, the environment and gun control.

“I’m the mayor of a Republican city in the heart of Republican Orange County,” said Tracy Wills Worley, the mayor of Tustin. “But things have changed. The Republicans were off base on issues like education, the environment and women’s choice.”

The group included Palo Alto Mayor Lanie Wheeler, former Orange County Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, Orange County Republican Party Central Committee member William Dougherty and several business people from Los Angeles and Orange counties.

The group’s members made their announcement at a news conference held at Cristek Interconnects Inc., a defense electronics manufacturing firm.

It’s unclear how great a political risk the Republicans are taking by endorsing Clinton. The leadership of the Orange County GOP has often ostracized Republicans who bucked the party line.

For instance, when former state Assemblywoman Doris Allen sided with Democrats to become Assembly speaker, she was ousted in a recall election.

The Republicans in attendance Monday said they were willing to pay the price of speaking their minds.

“I am assuming there will be fallout,” said Worley, the Tustin mayor. “That is one of the reasons why people have turned away from the party.”

The news conference did not go unnoticed by party activists. Outside the company warehouse where the news conference was held, a group of about a dozen supporters of the party’s standard-bearers gathered with Dole-Kemp signs.

“Turncoats,” read the sign carried by Ray White of Anaheim.

“It’s un-American, what they’re doing,” White said.

Thomas A. Fuentes, chairman of the Orange County GOP, scoffed at the Republicans endorsing Clinton. He said their impact on the election would be negligible, and that they were endorsing Clinton for personal gain.

Fuentes compared the group to the French politicians who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II, when they set up a puppet government in the city of Vichy.

“This is a very small cadre of Vichy Republicans who all received their 30 pieces of silver from Clinton,” he said.

He pointed to Roger Johnson, an Orange County business executive who endorsed Clinton in 1992. Johnson was still a Republican then, and after the election he was named director of the General Services Administration.

And Fuentes also pointed to Wieder, who endorsed Clinton in 1992, and was appointed by Clinton earlier this year to a commission that advises the president on Asian trade issues.

“Self-interest,” Fuentes said.

The Republicans in attendance Monday denied that they had been promised anything. Harry Jeffrey, a history professor and a Republican who endorsed Clinton in 1992, said the only thing he had received from Clinton was “a Christmas card.”

Of course, the conversion by the Republicans delighted those working for Clinton’s reelection in California. They helped set up the news conference. And they are hoping the defection by prominent party members presages similar moves by voters across California.

The Democrats published a list of some 750 Republicans who stated their intention to vote for Clinton.

“We would like to get as many Republicans as we can,” said Tom Umberg, chairman of the Clinton campaign in California.

No one will know until election day. Polls show Clinton ahead in California, but Dole with a slight lead in Orange County. To carry California, Dole would likely need to win in Orange County by a big margin.

The group that gathered Monday included many of the same Republicans who declared for Clinton in 1992. Four years ago, a group of eight prominent business people and political figures publicly broke with Bush to endorse Clinton’s election.

Among the eight who attended Monday’s meeting were Wieder, Dana Point Councilwoman Judy Curreri and Cal State Fullerton professor Harry Jeffrey. Developer Kathryn G. Thompson has again endorsed Clinton, as she did in 1992, but could not attend Monday’s news conference.

Roger Johnson, a business executive who endorsed Clinton four years ago and went on to work for the administration, changed his registration to Democrat. Two other Republicans for Clinton, advertising executive Bob Nelson and Anita Mangels, an abortion rights activist, did not return phone messages left at their offices.

Del Weber, a former president of the California Teacher’s Assn. who also joined the group, died last year.

Some members of the 1992 group said that they had suffered for their endorsement of Clinton. Jeffrey, for instance, said he was ousted from the board of the California Republican League.

“A lot of people really attacked us,” said Johnson, who headed the GSA until last year.

Other Republican members of the group that convened Monday and are from Orange County are Ken Collins, a board member of the Orange County Elections Committee; Jean H. Watt, a councilwoman from Newport Beach; and Ron Shenkman, former mayor of Huntington Beach.

Cristi Cristich, president of the company where the news conference was held, said the Republican hierarchy should be less concerned with what some Republican politicians have decided to do, and more concerned with the views of rank-and-file Republican voters.

Voters, she said, are attracted more and more to Clinton’s handling of the economy, and to his support of women’s issues, trade and the environment.

“They should not be concerned about Republican politicians switching parties,” she said. “They should be concerned about Republicans like me.”

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