The Political Interest: Trouble in Paradise

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This was not the "Four more years" crowd. These were defectors -- eight prominent Republican activists who had never strayed before but were about to now. They had attended G.O.P.conventions in the past; but as George Bush accepted their party's nomination in Houston, they were 1,400 miles from the action, watching on television. They chuckled at the laugh lines but mostly grimaced. They were all business, and they were taking notes. In 12 hours, they would publicly endorse Bill Clinton, and they said they were eager for fodder -- or even, as several mused, "for something that might turn" them "from this course." They didn't hear it.

On paper, this particular group of turncoats was just one of 17 similar organizations around the country that within hours of the President's speech would confirm their rumored disaffection -- the timing of their crossovers having been quietly coordinated by the Clinton campaign. But these folks were different; they live in Orange County, California, the wealthy citadel of conservative Republicanism that was home to John Wayne, a place, the Duke once joked, where "due process is a bullet."

Before the polling gap between the two candidates tightened last week, Bush's aides said privately that California was lost. Clinton's 30-point lead there was deemed insurmountable, and even in Orange County the Democrats held a seven-point advantage. But California has 54 electoral votes (a full fifth of the 270 required for victory), and history alone will force the G.O.P. to reconsider: since 1880, no Republican has captured the White House without winning California -- and no Republican in modern times has taken the state without amassing a huge plurality in Orange County. In 1988, Bush's Orange plurality of 317,000 votes represented 90% of his statewide margin.

But paradise is in trouble. "Forever, or so it seems," says sociologist Mark Baldassare, who has studied Orange County for 10 years, "this place was on the steepest of upward curves. But today, with every index down, the people who thought they were immune to recessions, the Republican white collar workers, have been caught. Bush will likely carry the county again, but if he doesn't get a 300,000-vote plurality here, there's no way he'll take California." And that, says Representative Robert Dornan, one of the county's five Congressmen, "is iffy at best, unless there is a measurable and perceived economic upturn."

It's "not just the economy," says Anita Mangels, one of the Orange Eight. "Until Clarence Thomas, I've voted Republican despite being pro-choice. Now the Supreme Court is only one vote away from outlawing abortion, and the Houston convention showed that that's what will happen if Bush is back. A majority of Orange Republicans are pro-choice, and this issue is finally resonating with them." It's "not just the economy," says Harriett Wieder, an Orange County supervisor. "I have to deal with the growing number of white collars who are crowding our emergency rooms. We need national health care, and Bush doesn't get it."