THE POLITICAL LANDSCAPE:

Conservatives in Orange County like to brag that it’s the most Republican county in the country. Or at least the second most, depending on whom you talk to.

Republicans hold a 13% edge in registered voters countywide, and Orange County Republicans provide serious financial support for conservative candidates all over the country. Locally there are 34% more Republicans than Democrats in Costa Mesa and almost three times more Republicans than Democrats in Newport Beach.

It’s not a stretch to say that neither city is a likely pickup for any Democratic hopeful, no matter what the year.

But in an election when many red strongholds across the country were painted blue by Barack Obama, the president-elect won Costa Mesa by six points. And he narrowly lost the county by only a few percentage points.

Let that sink in for a moment. A Democratic presidential candidate hasn’t won Orange County since FDR.

No such victory to match Costa Mesa’s, though, was notched in Newport Beach, which John McCain won by more than 15 points, but with a 3-1 registration advantage even that statistic is not one that the Republican Party is eager to trumpet.

Laura Dietz, a board member of the Newport Harbor Republican Women, doesn’t think that the trend will necessarily last, though.

“It could snap back in four years because every election is different. Every election is in a different context, and the context of this election dramatically changed when the financial market went bananas,” Dietz said.

She thinks Costa Mesa’s generally younger population and the presence of Orange Coast College helped boost the Obama vote.

Melahat Rafiei, executive director of the Democratic Party of Orange County, says frustration with Republican economic policies could make the swing stick, though.

“Countywide we came within three percentage points of McCain. To be that close in Orange County is amazing,” Rafiei said, looking back to 2004 when John Kerry was overwhelmingly defeated in the county.

Either way, the county is certainly not a bellwether for the rest of the state, which has gone consistently Democratic in presidential elections for many years, with Orange County an anomalous footnote.

It’s OK to talk about politics at their table

Scott Baugh and Frank Barbaro, Orange County’s top political bosses, on Tuesday had their traditional election-night dinner again.

This time the party chairmen dined at the Clubhouse restaurant at South Coast Plaza. They both debated how President-elect Obama would govern.

Baugh worries that Obama would govern as an ultra-liberal, but Barbaro was convinced that Obama would govern as a pragmatic centrist.

“He’s a liberal’s liberal, and I don’t think this country’s ready to be that liberal,” Baugh said.

“He’s going to look at things from the standpoint of what will work,” Barbaro said.

Baugh countered that Barbaro was indulging in wishful thinking, projecting his own centrist beliefs on to Obama. Baugh thinks Obama is clever enough to know that if he yanks the country too far to the left he will hurt himself with independent voters and could get punished in the mid-term elections.

Both men recognize that a lot of healing has to happen now. The country remains divided in many ways.

“We’re beyond ideology now,” Barbaro said. “We have to be problem solvers.”

Ironically, Obama’s victory makes Baugh’s job easier, he said.

“We go back to basics of limited government. We set a standard that people are calling for,” Baugh said.

Republicans in DC made a mistake running up huge deficits under Bush and now they have to learn the lesson, Baugh said. It’s why we’re seeing so many more “decline to state” voters. Those are “disaffected Republicans,” Baugh said.

Barbaro recalled how in 1978 he had managed to make Democrats the majority party, and then he retired. It was post-Watergate, Jimmy Carter was midway through his term, and Gov. Jerry Brown ruled California.

But then the Reagan Revolution came two years later and the GOP has reigned since then.

It’s amazing how things come full circle. Barbaro predicts Brown will return to the governor’s office and the Democrats are picking up registrations.

“In the past 15 months the Democrats have netted 60,000 new registrations,” Barbaro said.

Baugh was quick to point out that happened “in the context” of an unpopular war in Iraq, an unpopular Republican president and a collapse of the markets.

Barbaro believes Obama’s victory will help generate more fundraising for county the Democrats in Orange County. That, of course, remains to be seen.

By the time of dinner’s end, Ohio had been called for Obama, and it was pretty clear he would win, so I asked Baugh what his thoughts were on the historic nature of the first black commander in chief.

“It’s important to this country. It’s a unique point in time,” Baugh said. “But it should be more about the direction of the country than the color of a man’s skin.”

The full version of this article can be found online at dailypilot.com/dailyblogger/ panderson.

PAUL ANDERSON is the city editor for the Daily Pilot. He may be reached at (714) 966-4633 or at paul.anderson@latimes.com. ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at alan.blank@latimes.com.