Baugh backed for long-occupied chair

Alicia Robinson

Orange County GOP Chairman Tom Fuentes will step down in April after

two decades heading the party, but local Republicans can expect him

to remain politically active, perhaps even more than he has been.

“As party chairman, one has to be very removed and objective in

the primary process,” Fuentes said. “Not being chairman will allow me

to rally conservatives and work with fellow conservatives to sustain

our presence in the party and encourage conservative nominees.”

Fuentes told party members on Monday that he’ll retire next month.

He recommended attorney Scott Baugh as his successor.

“Scott is an energetic and proven young dynamic social and

conservative leader,” Fuentes said. “He is pro-life; he is

pro-family; he is a devoted churchgoer; he is an accomplished

lawyer.”

Baugh said that if the party central committee elects him

chairman, he’ll try to continue the party’s main work of raising

money, registering new voters and encouraging them to vote.

“My job in a broad sense will be to unite the donor communities

with the activist communities so we can target all our efforts toward

defeating Democrats locally and statewide in the fall,” Baugh said.

Not everyone agrees that Fuentes remained objective and removed

during the buildup to primary elections, however. UC Irvine political

science professor Mark Petracca -- a confessed liberal Democrat --

said moderate Republicans, especially women, didn’t think the party

under Fuentes had been supportive of them.

“The guy ran the party with an iron fist,” Petracca said of

Fuentes. “He hasn’t been able to deal with the conflicts within his

own party very well because it’s all or nothing with him.”

Petracca said it’s unlikely the party will ever retain a chairman

as long again. Fuentes said his predecessor served for eight years,

and the average term of a county Republican party chairman in

California is two and a half years.

Commission to look at county’s ballot snafu

Technology is apparently not always superior to the old-fashioned

method.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors this week agreed to form a

special commission to look at errors in the March 2 primary election,

the first time the county used electronic voting machines. Problems

included voters getting the wrong ballots, casting ballots before

they were ready or being turned away when polling places failed to

open on time.

Supervisors Bill Campbell and Chris Norby will form the committee,

which Campbell said will talk to poll workers, the county registrar

of voters, the voting machine provider and voters to find out how the

process can be improved. Public meetings are planned to solicit

comments from residents, but no dates are set, he said.

“The objective is that we want to make sure that everybody gets

the right ballot and everybody gets to vote the way they want to vote

in the next election, because that didn’t happen this time,” Campbell

said.

Election losers still fishing for votes on the Internet

In the post election wind-down, some defeated candidates seem to

have forgotten to wind things down, leaving their websites online to

beckon unwitting net surfers to vote for them or contribute money.

Former 70th Assembly District Republican candidates Long Pham, Don

Wagner and Marianne Zippi were still taking up cyberspace as of

Wednesday without letting voters know they’d lost their election

bids. In the same race, Chonchol Gupta and Cristi Cristich did update

their sites after the election to thank voters for their support and

wish the best to the victor, Chuck DeVore.