Latinos’ Support Needed, GOP Chairman Says : Politics: Republican Party chief tells county leaders that recruitment of such voters ‘is hugely important’ in key upcoming races, including Gov. Wilson’s reelection battle.

COSTA MESA —  Hoping to build on the party’s victories of 1993, national Republican Party Chairman Haley Barbour told Orange County leaders Wednesday that the recruitment of Latino voters “is hugely important” to the GOP’s future.

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The victories, which included the elections of Republican mayors in Los Angeles and New York, were partly accomplished with increased support from Latino voters, Barbour said. That strategy should be integrated into the party’s efforts to reelect Gov. Pete Wilson and to capture the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Dianne Feinstein, he urged.

“I am sick of our leaving those (Latino) votes on the table,” Barbour said during a speech sponsored by the California Republican Party and the Orange County Republican Party’s Hispanic Committee. “We don’t have to, we are not going to and the success that we had in 1993 can be replicated over and over again across the country in 1994.”

Barbour said Wilson’s reelection would be the national party’s top priority this year.

“In 1994, California must be the superstar state of the Republican Party,” Barbour said. “There’s no more important race in the U.S. to the Republican Party than the reelection of Pete Wilson.”

Local Democratic Party Chairwoman Dorianne Garcia said later that the pitch for Latino voters must mean Republicans are “running scared.”

“They never gave a damn about Latino voters before,” she said.

Garcia said Latinos have not forgotten the 1990 Assembly campaign in central Orange County when the Republican Party and its then-candidate Curt Pringle hired uniformed security guards to stand outside polling places in largely Latino precincts in Santa Ana.

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“The only way Republicans are going to get Latino votes is to buy them,” Garcia said, referring to their ability to finance voter registration drives. “They are going to do what they can to get out the vote--or to suppress votes. Latinos have seen that in the past.”

But during his speech at the Center Club, Barbour said there is “no more important place” than California--and Orange County, in particular--to recruit Latino voters.

Noting that he had been introduced to the audience by state Republican Party Chairman Tirso del Junco, who in turn, had been introduced by Orange County party Chairman Tom Fuentes, Barbour quipped: “ . . . I feel like I’m the Anglo representative” on the program.

“Hispanic voters share our views and values about family, about small business, about opportunity, about a strong national defense, yet so many Hispanic voters voted Democrat despite the fact that they think like us,” Barbour said. “This is a party that has the tools to take the message into the community.”

Turning his attention to campaign strategy, Barbour said Feinstein “is not invincible.”

He said that in voting to cut defense spending, Feinstein caused the loss of thousands of jobs in the state and “cut the throat of the economy of California.”

Barbour said the party also would attempt to persuade voters that although President Clinton might sound like a conservative, he is not likely to follow through on his “tough on crime” and “welfare reform” promises.