Orange County's Tom Fuentes Retiring

Orange County Republican Chairman Tom Fuentes, dean of party leaders in the Golden State's 58 counties, is retiring after a record 20 years of service.

Fuentes became chairman in 1984 at age 35. A successful businessman in the civil engineering field, he used his private-sector management skills to rebuild a party that had been living a "hand-to-mouth" existence. Today, it boasts a full-time staff and headquarters, and a bi-annual budget of $1 million.

Fuentes also led the party in dealing with Orange County's demographic changes. As Democrats began making inroads in a region that was once famously Republican, the GOP under Fuentes still won most elective offices and delivered handsome margins to President Bush in 2000 and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in last year's recall election.

More than just a fund-raiser or political mechanic, Fuentes was a conservative leader, making no secret of his conservative views on issues ranging from taxes to the right to life. "I never kept under any bushel basket," he says.

Fuentes also mentored young conservatives who rose to leadership roles in the party. Among these are Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle and Scott Baugh, a former legislator who next month will take over as county chairman with Fuentes' blessing.

Fuentes found that being a conservative party leader in a Republican-heavy county can bring enemies. In the late 1990s, a group of well-heeled "moderates" known as the New Majority began calling for new party leadership. "That meant they didn't like me or the majority on the county committee because we were conservative, pro-life, and felt the volunteer has the same role in the party as billions of dollars," said Fuentes.Led in part by former Nixon White House staffer Larry Higby, New Majority spent nearly $500,000 on primary challenges to the Fuentes team. But they managed to unseat only one Fuentes ally from the county central committee -- Emily Sanford, a longtime party volunteer, who is black. As Fuentes put it, "They targeted the Mexican chairman and managed to unseat the black volunteer. That's their message of 'changing the face of the Republican Party.'"

Fuentes, 55, shows no signs of fading away politically. He intends to continue his work on the boards of the Legal Services Corp., GOPAC, the National Conservative Campaign Fund, and Eagle Publishing, the parent company of HUMAN EVENTS.

The "New Majority" were backing Arnold well before the recall got underway. Basically a group of very wealthy moderates who recently decided to become politically active, many of them had no allegiance to either party. They don't like social conservatives.

Yeah... I know. I got my first exposure to the NM in 1999 - A close friend worked with them. From what I saw, they held very few principles of any kind... other than the desire of power and using unscrupulous methods to achieve it. When I saw the early contributions to AS, my antennae went up. The continuing power move is discouraging. It's too subtle for some to notice - but alarming to those paying attention.

The New Majority folks were instrumental in defeating Bill Back, a conservative pro-gun, pro-life, pro-family Catholic for California Republican Party Chairman. They did so by dredging up an article from 8 years ago that someone else wrote and contributed to a newsletter that Bill edited. The editorial was about the end of slavery and its effects in the South after the Civil War. There were enough disclaimers that editorial content was no reflection on the newsletter writers, but nothing stopped the New Majority onslaught on Bill as a "racist" etc. The timing on their part was impeccable, right after the Trent Lott "Strom Thurmond fiasco".

The New Majority only has one mission: Republicans Must Win at any cost. But their support ends if you are pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun, anti-green, pro-hetero-marriage. They've thrown all the socially conservative views out the window because they believe that social conservatism can't win in CA.

The truth is that social conservatism can win if the New Majority folks would support conservative Republican candidates.

The fact is they sit on their hands and wallets if the nominee in a statewide contest is conservative. When Bill Simon and Tom McClintock lost in 2002 by 4% and 0.2% respectively, they lost because no money was raised by these same folks.

The New Majority is successful only when we conservatives come out and support moderate candidates.

Now they've succeeded in bringing Tom Fuentes down and defeating Emily Sanford in the primary.

Here's the twist... Bill Back and Emily Sanford are now the State Volunteer Co-Chairs for the Bush-Cheney 2004 volunteer effort. These two diehards are working their butts off and inspiring thousands of volunteers across the state to work for the re-election effort.

In some ways, you can say that God works in mysterious ways. I believe strongly that with their leadership, we just may carry California for the President. It's going to take a lot of hard work at the grassroots level, but it can be done.

If you would like to be a volunteer in the campaign, let me know and I'll hook you up... :)

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