Angry Local GOP Leaders Criticize State Chair

Two days after Democrats improved their beachhead in central Orange County, state Republican Party Chairman Michael Schroeder came under fire from local party leaders for what they called his squandering of $100,000 on a losing mayoral candidate in Anaheim.

Schroeder angered moderate Republicans by diverting money to the nonpartisan race while two incumbent GOP lawmakers in the central cities were locked in close races. They ended up losing.

Republicans also were upset that the party was even meddling in local elections where partisan politics are supposed to be taboo, said Brea Mayor Bev Perry, a Republican.

“People were happy with [Mayor] Tom Daly and to make it a partisan issue was wrong,” she said. “The party should have stayed out of it. There were council people in every city talking about what they were doing” in the Anaheim race.

On Tuesday, Democrats Lou Correa and Joe Dunn upset Assemblyman Jim Morrissey of Santa Ana and state Sen. Rob Hurtt of Garden Grove. The victories, together with the reelection of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), gave local Democrats seats in both federal and state delegations for the first time in 14 years.

The GOP didn’t feel the sting of defeat only in Orange County. Statewide, Republicans lost five seats in the Assembly, where Democrats dominate with 48 of the 80 seats. Democrats also outnumber Republicans 25 to 15 in the state Senate.

Republican backers said party money spent on Anaheim mayoral candidate Bob Zemel could have made a difference in close partisan races. The state party ran independent campaigns for only two candidates: attorney general nominee Dave Stirling and Zemel.

“We shouldn’t have spent any energy on nonpartisan races that diluted our resources,” said Huntington Beach developer Haydee Tillotson, who ran a phone bank for GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren out of her business.

“That’s not what the party is there to do,” said Tillotson, who previously has criticized local party Chairman Thomas A. Fuentes. “It’s time for new leadership.”

Schroeder was vacationing in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, on Thursday and couldn’t be reached for comment. He gives up his party post in January when current Vice Chairman John McGraw of San Jose takes over. Fuentes also could not be reached.

Last week, Schroeder said that the party was spending $100,000 for Zemel because officials believed it would spur Republican turnout in Anaheim, where GOP voters outnumber Democrats. He said beating incumbent Mayor Daly was a priority because Daly is “the only liberal activist Democratic mayor of a Republican-majority city in California.”

But by the time returns were counted, Zemel lost with 40% of the vote to Daly’s 54%. Lungren also lost in Anaheim.

The decision to aid Zemel probably hurt Republicans in Central County by energizing Daly supporters, said lobbyist Randy Smith, a longtime member of the Lincoln Club of Orange County, a GOP fund-raising group.

“It had the exact opposite effect of energizing a lot of people who wanted to see Tom Daly retained, and they may have voted for other Democrats once they were there,” Smith said.

He said Schroeder and Fuentes aided Zemel more for their own personal agenda “rather than what was in the party’s best interests.”

Fuentes works for Anaheim Councilman Tom Tait, a close voting ally of Zemel on the council. Several Republicans said the backlash could affect Fuentes, who is up for election by the county Republican Central Committee in January.

Mike Madrid, the state party’s policy director, defended the strategy Thursday, saying, “Hindsight is 20-20.”

The party sent six mailers for Zemel to Anaheim Republicans, including two pieces in the final days of the election, Madrid said. The state party also enlisted phone callers from a company in Provo, Utah, to call Anaheim residents urging votes for Zemel and criticizing Daly.

The GOP spent $320,000 on a radio campaign urging the defeat of Democratic attorney general candidate Bill Lockyer. The rest of the party’s spending, estimated in the millions by Madrid, was for voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives.

The county party also endorsed Zemel but didn’t spend money separately on his election, said Bill Christianson, county GOP executive director.

However, the county GOP put Zemel’s name atop an invitation for Republicans to attend the election night party in Newport Beach. And GOP workers urged support for Zemel in calls from phone banks partially funded by Zemel’s campaign.

Others figured that the margins for Democrats in central county were high enough that $100,000 more in spending probably wouldn’t have mattered. Correa won the Assembly seat by 4,000 votes; Dunn won the Senate seat by 2,700 votes.

“It was a radioactive zone down there,” said Daven Oswalt, press secretary for GOP Assembly Leader Bill Leonard, who resigned his post Wednesday in the wake of the election. “It’s hard to say how much more money would have helped.”

* PASSING THE TEST: With voters content, all but two school board incumbents in county won reelection. B4