GOP Club Backs the Guy Who Can Win

The only reason I hesitate to telephone Buck Johns is that he always asks about my golf game -- never a pleasant subject. By chance several years ago, I played in a foursome with Johns, a Newport Beach developer, and he taught me a thing or two about the game. He also knows a thing or two about politics -- a sport he loves as much as golf.

And there’s no better political topic on the table these days than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s run for governor of California.

“I have not had as much fun in politics since Ronald Reagan,” Johns, 61, says of the move to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis. “We [Republicans] are actually playing offense for a change.”

You can say that again. Johns, a longtime board member of Orange County’s influential Lincoln Club, can almost taste a Republican victory.

So it was late last week that the club, which has been around for 40 years and is something of a kingmaker in local conservative Republican politics, surveyed the field and endorsed Schwarzenegger.

You couldn’t call it a stunning move, but Schwarzenegger is hardly the most conservative Republican in the field. Bill Simon (to whom the club gave “six figures” when he ran for governor last year) had stronger credentials, although he withdrew Saturday. Tom McClintock also has a solid conservative reputation. Though Peter Ueberroth has the same moderate politics as Schwarzenegger, he is a hometown Newport Beach boy.

But what the Lincoln Club really wants is a winner. And while it has endorsed its share of right-wingers over the years, it also has supported moderate Republicans if they appeared to be better candidates. This time around, Johns says, the club’s board members see something special in the former Austrian bodybuilder.

“Simon is more in line with my thinking, and McClintock is probably closer to my thinking than Simon,” says Johns. “But the practical matter is that what we need to do at the end of the day is to redirect California. If we end up splitting our votes up with three candidates, we’re going to end up with [Democratic Lt. Gov.] Cruz Bustamante.”

But don’t make it sound, Johns says, as though the club is holding its nose and settling for Schwarzenegger. “We [some board members] think some of the social positions he’s taken are a little less than terrific for a number of us, but we can’t find a lot of fault in a lot of what he’s said on the fiscal side.”

Johns’ original favorite was Darrell Issa, the conservative San Diego County congressman who fueled the recall run with his own money. Then, Johns had a vision that heavyweight Orange County congressman Christopher Cox would run.

But the Schwarzenegger wave proved irresistible. While acknowledging that Schwarzenegger isn’t the philosophical descendant of the conservative Orange County Republicans that liberal critics dubbed the “cavemen,” Johns says he enthusiastically supports him.

Does Schwarzenegger’s more moderate stand give Johns some pause? “Sure it does,” he says. “There’s only been one perfect candidate, and that was Ronald Reagan. He was perfect in every sense of the word. So whoever runs and we support, they’re going to have some blemishes.”

To purists who won’t support Schwarzenegger, Johns says, “I respect those people ... but they’re wrong. I’ve been friends with McClintock and Simon for a long time, I’ve supported both in past campaigns, I know those guys and their families and they’ve been plowing and planting in the vineyards for a very long time. Schwarzenegger has not. But the objective is to be victorious come Oct. 7. There’s little doubt in my mind who’s going to be governor of California on Oct. 7, and that’s Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821, at dana.parsons@latimes.com or at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.