Democrats on a Mission Arrive in O.C.

The quotation on Mary Stanley’s Eleanor Roosevelt T-shirt said it all: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

Make no mistake about it. Stanley, who is 73, did not feel the least bit inferior Friday as she stood in the Anaheim Convention Center, where the state Democratic Party is holding its first-ever confab in traditionally Republican Orange County.

“What’s wrong with us being in Orange County?” the Fresno woman asked. “If you’re fishing, you have to go where the fish are.”

That was the popular sentiment of some of the 2,300 party activists who were registering for the weekend event at the Hilton next door.

That’s enough Democrats to fill a squadron of former Orange County congressman Bob Dornan’s B-1 bombers.

“Orange County is certainly Republican,” said Bill Miller, co-chairman of the credentials committee. “Orange County equals wealth. Wealth equals Republican.

“But, you know, there are rich Democrats too.”

Miller, a political consultant who lives in Long Beach, could count himself among them. He drives a BMW motorcycle. His wife, a vice president for the Robinsons-May department store, has a Jaguar.

Which just goes to show that stereotypes in politics--as in real life--are usually misleading.

And even harder to break.

“The voting population here has changed a lot in 10 years,” said Kathy Bowler, the state party’s executive director. “It’s not totally a Republican stronghold anymore.”

Sure, President Richard Nixon may be buried here, but Democrat Loretta Sanchez now holds the central Orange County seat that ultraconservative Dornan once had locked up.

And sure, registered Republicans still outnumber registered Democrats. But as the newly released 2000 census shows, Orange County is changing fast.

It’s more diverse than ever, flooded with newcomers--and, Democrats hope, awash in potential members.

“There’s so many Latinos here,” said Maria Diaz C-Vivian, 37, of Redwood City. “Their issues--the issues of working people--are our babies in the Democratic Party.”

John Veen and David LaPere may have entered the hotel by passing a plaque honoring the late local Republican Gene Autry. But they came up the service elevator with members of the county’s changing face--a group of Latino hotel workers that the two men from California’s Central Valley presumed could be Democrats.

Or maybe not, they conceded, because that, too, would be a stereotype.

“It’s a union hotel--that’s why we’re here,” Veen said. “Plus, the families can do Disneyland. Who knows: If we behave ourselves and don’t get too drunk, maybe the Republicans down here will think we’re not too bad and convert.”

“It’s a land of sinners,” added LaPere. “And we’re just here trying to convert a few.”