Alicia RobinsonAt 81 years old and with...

Alicia Robinson

At 81 years old and with six diverse careers under his belt, you’d

think Gil Ferguson had earned his retirement.

Tell that to his friends and supporters in Principles Over

Politics, a political group he founded 20 years ago and tried to shut

down in December.

A career Marine and Republican state assemblyman who represented

Newport Beach for 10 years, Ferguson has a lengthy list of friends

and acquaintances who read his newsletter and attend his monthly

political breakfasts at the Balboa Bay Club. He announced in late

2004 that the annual Christmas breakfast would be the group’s last.

“Considering my health and the health of my wife, I want to spend

as much time as possible smelling the roses,” Ferguson said.

His wife, Anita, who has been an integral part of Principles Over

Politics, is recovering from ovarian cancer, and Ferguson suffered a

heart attack in 1997. Late last year, he had a bout with pneumonia.

But retiring wasn’t that easy. A number of people who attend the

breakfasts didn’t want to see them end, so they volunteered to do the

organizing -- taking reservations, lining up speakers, proofreading

the newsletter -- if Ferguson would stay at the group’s helm.

ON THE POLITICAL AND

MILITARY FIRING LINE

Throughout his various professional careers, Ferguson has made an

impression on hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people. A veteran of

World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and a Marine for 26 years, Ferguson

has undoubtedly won respect from some with his military career. But

he’s also been a political activist, a journalist, a corporate man

and a legislator.

Throughout his military service, he wrote articles for American

and European publications and military magazines. During his last few

years in the Marine Corps, he was assigned to counter the bad rap the

armed forces were getting. He ran the Scout, Camp Pendleton’s

newspaper, and made promotional films for the military, including one

called “A Day in Vietnam.”

“Walter Cronkite called it the greatest piece of military

propaganda ever put out by the service, which I considered a

compliment,” Ferguson said.

After retiring from the Corps, he got a job at the Irvine Co. and

was quickly made a vice president. In 1970, as a way to directly

reach people in the communities the company was building, Ferguson

created the Irvine World News, a free newspaper paid for by the

company.

When he left the corporate world, he and his wife started a

home-building company that built their Newport Beach home. And his

next venture was to form a political group that brought together

union bigwigs and corporate interests to fight what they saw as the

dangerous influence of the anti-growth, pro-environment movement.

In 1984, he was elected to the Assembly, where he was a

controversial figure for 10 years. He was among a handful of

legislators known as the “cavemen” because of their uncompromising --

some might say antiquated -- attitudes.

“[Ferguson was a] big guy, tough guy, didn’t like social welfare,

[was] opposed to admitting that there had been any misconduct by the

federal government in interning the Japanese [during World War II],”

said Mark Petracca, a UC Irvine political scientist and avowed

Democrat, who has spoken at Ferguson’s breakfasts.

“Even though I think that many of the principles the Gil stands

for are probably wrong, he’s someone who’s been consistent.”

Ferguson said he started out as an idealist, but the environment

in Sacramento sucked that out of him.

“I actually thought, like ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,’ that you

could stand up and be eloquent and win over the other side,” Ferguson

said. “It was certainly a different experience to find out that it

had very little to do with what was good for the people, and everyone

on both sides had their minds made up long before they appeared on

the floor for committee or debate.”

As a strict conservative in a Democrat-controlled legislature,

Ferguson found himself championing unpopular causes -- he wrote a

bill introducing term limits, which was swiftly killed -- and over

time it wore him down.

“I hated losing every day,” he said. “I’d been a winner all my

life, whether it was in business or on the battlefield.”

His final loss came when he left the Assembly to run for an open

state Senate seat. Orange County’s Republican bigwigs backed someone

else, and Ferguson lost the primary and left legislative politics.

THE BREAKFAST TABLE

Hoping to harness the power of people, Ferguson formed Principles

Over Politics in 1984, while he was running for office.

“It was purely a matter of getting elected,” he said. “I knew that

I could be outspent, and I knew that because of my political

philosophy, I would always be challenged.”

But he also realized he and his wife knew thousands of people.

Today, he maintains that he had the largest number of individual

campaign donors whenever he ran.

Ferguson set up monthly breakfasts, inviting speakers who included

conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan, political

figures including Oliver North and Tom McClintock, authors,

journalists and military personnel as well.

He also wrote a monthly newsletter of his uncensored thoughts on

politics, from the local to the international. Never one to pussyfoot

around, Ferguson has had choice words for Democrats -- he called Sen.

Barbara Boxer “one of the dumbest people ever to be elected to the

U.S. Senate” -- as well as Republicans -- his estimation of Gov.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was “he is no politician, and the Democrats

rolled him like some hick that just fell off the turnip truck on the

way to town.”

Perhaps because of such candor, about 3,000 people get his

newsletter every month, and his breakfasts have been hugely popular.

They generally draw about 150 people, but sometimes as many as 300

show up, said supporter Marianne Zippi, whom Ferguson supported when

she ran for his old Assembly seat last year.

“He’s very witty, and he’s a keen observer of the political

landscape, and as such, people love to listen to him to hear what he

has to say,” Zippi said.

The breakfasts are social, the speakers are interesting, and it’s

not always just about politics, said Shirley Jackson, who has been

attending with her husband for about five years.

NO FIGUREHEAD POSITION

In October Ferguson announced in his newsletter that he would end

the 20-year run of Principles Over Politics. The December breakfast

was supposed to be the last, but afterward, about 20 people --

including Zippi and her husband -- stuck around, hoping to figure out

a way to keep the group going.

Everyone offered to volunteer their services wherever needed, as

long as Ferguson would stay involved.

The secret to the group’s popularity is partly the interesting mix

of speakers and social atmosphere of the breakfasts and partly

Ferguson’s personal magnetism.

“It’s a great public service,” said Ron Winship, who has

participated for more than a decade. “It involves people in the

political process, but it doesn’t matter if you’re from one end of

the spectrum or the other.”

Ferguson was always outspoken and didn’t just go along with the

party line, and he’s respected for that, Zippi said.

“I would say he’s a person that has very high character and

moral,” Jackson said. “He was wonderful as an Assemblyman. He and his

wife are both very hospitable [and] self-sacrificing.”

The support of Principles Over Politics is gratifying to Ferguson,

just like when he had heart surgery and people he didn’t even know

sent flowers and wished him well.

“That, along with this, is a very humbling thought, that people

would remember you and feel that way about you,” he said.

So, they’ve persuaded him to stick around, with the next breakfast

likely to take place in March.

Even in this largely social group, Ferguson will maintain the

fierce independence that characterized his political career.

“As long as they don’t think they’re a board of directors and tell

me how to do things,” Ferguson said, he’ll continue to run Principles

Over Politics.

“I learned in political activism, in an endeavor, you can only

have one boss, and if you don’t like that boss, you get rid of him.”

There doesn’t seem to be any chance of that happening here.

“Principles Over Politics exists because of Gil Ferguson,” Zippi

said. “There’s no way that you can take him out of the equation.”

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers government and politics. She may be

reached at (714) 966-4626 or by e-mail at

alicia.robinson@latimes.com.