Republican Party Orange County

In the last two years, state Republican Party chairman Michael Schroeder has helped raise record amounts of money, operated a smooth absentee ballot program and financed an extensive get-out-the-vote effort. But when the votes were counted last November, California Republicans took their worst drubbing in 40 years. That makes Schroeder the captain of the Titanic in the eyes of some, even if others, such as gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren, helped steer the ship into the electoral iceberg.

Longtime Republican activist Virgel L. Nickell was removed from his seat on the Orange County GOP central committee Monday for endorsing Democratic Assembly candidate Lou Correa in the November election. Correa defeated Republican incumbent Jim Morrissey. The action made Nickell the second member of the GOP committee, the local party's governing board, to be ousted in recent years for backing a Democrat. William A.

Republican Brian Smith was happy to see President Clinton's yearlong impeachment battle come to an end Friday, but couldn't shake misgivings about how the GOP's fixation on the ordeal may have damaged the party and its future in Orange County. "I just can't understand what they were thinking," said Smith, a data processing expert, who was enjoying a beer at the Goat Hill Tavern in Costa Mesa after a morning of golf. "All that stuff just turned me off. It turned a lot of Republicans off."

Orange County Republicans reelected Thomas A. Fuentes to an unprecedented eighth two-year term as party chairman Monday night, choosing him to lead them into pivotal 2000 elections. Fuentes was elected over a lone "no" during a voice vote at an overflow meeting of about 225 people, including members of the county GOP central committee, their alternates and onlookers.

For 14 years, Thomas A. Fuentes has shaped the image of the Republican Party in Orange County into that of a dogmatic conservative powerhouse that has helped set the state GOP agenda. Fuentes is expected to win another two-year term as county chairman at tonight's party elections, but many party leaders are signaling that this probably will be his last.

Democrats and independents accounted for more new Orange County voters in November than Republicans, which helped build a winning cushion for Democrats in several key races, according to a Times Orange County analysis. Republicans claimed 44% of the new voters, well below their 51% share of all registered voters, a computer analysis of the election by political analyst Dick Lewis of Newport Beach showed. Democrats drew 33% of first-timers, slightly above their overall registration.

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.

Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez rolled to a crushing victory Tuesday night over Republican Robert K. Dornan in a bitter Orange County rematch that attracted a nationwide audience and became the most expensive congressional race this year. With more than half the vote counted, the Democratic incumbent proclaimed victory, saying she hoped it would end debate over her narrow 1996 defeat of Dornan and the contentious voter fraud investigation that followed.

Twin snafus by Republican and Democratic voter drives in crucial central Orange County races left about 260 residents in doubt about whether they are registered to vote in Tuesday's election. Both parties failed to turn in registration cards received before the Oct. 5 deadline for registering. But attorneys working for Assembly Democrats obtained a Superior Court order Thursday requiring county officials to process the registrations of 163 Democrats whose cards were turned in late.

It is a delightful political position for Dick Ackerman. In the swirl of the campaign season, he doesn't really have to campaign. The two-term Republican assemblyman from Fullerton is using lawn signs recycled from his first race. His campaign war room is a room at home. "I have no radio spots, no TV," he noted. In fact, Ackerman mulled long and hard before grudgingly digging into his political piggy bank to finance a lone district mailer "to keep my name out in front of folks."