Airport or Park, It’s Time to Get in Touch With Our Feelings

Well, what are you, a visionary or a sucker? Do you even know? Don’t you think you’d better find out?

Or, maybe you’d like to know if you’re a clear-eyed realist or an arrogant, thoughtless bully? Again, it’s always good to know your true self.

In the months ahead, Orange County residents likely will have a rare chance to flesh out their own personality profiles by casting a single vote. Depending on how they feel about a commercial airport at the abandoned El Toro Marine base, they’ll find themselves designated as one of the above--like it or not.

Or, whether it is true or not. Because as soon as they go on record regarding the airport question, lots of other folks will be ready to reveal their deepest thoughts and true motivation.

Orange County voters, begin preparing for your ballot-box Rorschach test.

And you thought your vote on a measure supporters are trying to qualify for the March ballot would be a simple thumb up or down on a new airport or a large new park and cultural center at the former base?

Not a chance. That’s not how politics is played these days, and especially not when millions of dollars and the lifestyles of the next few generations are on the line.

Not long ago, I wrote about a series of mailers that touted the Great Park plan for the base. The park’s prime movers at this point are South County residents vehemently opposed to an airport at El Toro. They want voters countywide to get behind the park and scuttle the airport.

It was just a matter of time, I figured, until the airport supporters launched their strike. Now, it has come in the form of counter-mailers and TV ads.

The El Toro battle lines are beginning to firm up, with a recent mailer setting the tone for the pro-airport side.

The one I got features a raspberry-colored lollipop on the front, with “Great Park” embossed on it. The caption underneath reads: “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

In case you missed the point, streamed across inside of the mailer is this: “Great Park supporters hope P.T. Barnum was right.” It was Barnum, the master 19th century American showman, who was credited with coining the phrase about the proliferation of suckers in our midst.

We’ve all heard about the politics of personal destruction. Even if the phrase is a bit overheated and overused, we get the point: Why bother with your opponent’s position on the issues when you can nail him or her on personal matters.

“My opponent can’t be trusted.”

“My opponent is in league with special interests.”

The unfolding airport debate apparently will expand the art form to attack not just individuals, but to insult large blocs of people.

The anti-airport people know how to play the game too.

While the recent mailers, to their credit, have focused on the merits of their park plan, the anti-airport side has long sounded the theme that the three-member Board of Supervisors majority that favors the airport is ramming the airport down people’s throats. They’re doing that, so the argument goes, because the majority has been blinded by big-money business interests.

As for others who support the airport, well, they simply don’t care about the feelings of South County residents.

Nevermind that some airport supporters might actually believe it is in the county’s long-range interest to build the airport and that the impact on South County won’t be as severe as people think.

“Nevermind” is the operative phrase. As this campaign revs ever higher in the months ahead, you won’t hear either side cut the other much slack.

Great Park supporters can’t possibly be civic-minded visionaries who want to create a memorable aesthetic and cultural legacy. Nope, they’re suckers.

Airport supporters can’t possibly be visionaries of another stripe--people who believe this growing county needs a new airport for the new millennium. Nope, they’re self-interested cynics who don’t care what happens to people south and east of the Costa Mesa Freeway.

Rather than a duel of conflicting ideas, the El Toro debate will become a duel between suckers and bullies.

Cast your vote and join one camp or the other, like it or not.

The El Toro/Great Park mailers have begun flying. Look out below.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821; by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626; or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.