One good Tom deserves another

PETER BUFFA

Question: What do Benjamin Franklin and Tom Fuentes have in common?

Answer: Ben Franklin invented the lightning rod; Tom Fuentes is one.

You can’t do something as long and as well as Tom has and not get

into some brawls along the way.

Last Monday night, at the Republican Party of Orange County’s

monthly meeting, Tom delivered his Douglas MacArthur address, closing

the book on a 20-year tour of duty as Chairman of the Orange County

GOP. Former Assemblyman Scott Baugh, a savvy, personable politico who

gave up a career as a professional golfer to become a Dome Warrior in

Sacramento for the GOP, took over the reins.

If you’re not a political junkie, you may not realize how

remarkable 20 years as a county chair is, not just in terms of

longevity but for what the Orange County GOP became during Fuentes’

tenure. Most county parties are little more than political clubs, a

monthly excuse for like-minded people to get together over a cup of

java and talk about how great their team is and how miserable the

other team is. The annual dinner or picnic is the heaviest lifting of

the year and takes about eight months and four committees to plan.

There is just nothing out there, up and down this really long state

or in any other, to compare with the Orange County GOP.

With Generalissimo Fuentes at the helm, the county GOP’s army of

well-trained, well-organized volunteers has delivered the White House

and the governor’s mansion (a figure of speech in this state) on at

least three occasions over the last 20 years by tipping the state

into the GOP column, which ain’t easy. Yankee Stadium may be the

house that Ruth built, but the Orange County GOP is the house that

Fuentes built, on a foundation poured and shaped by Lois Lundberg.

Better yet, it’s a story of local boy makes good. Tom’s home may

be in Lake Forest, but his heart is in Newport Beach. He’s a

30-year-plus member of the Bay Club, and the only person I know who

owns an entire block of Newport Beach, on University Drive. How’s

this for a creature of habit? He still uses the dry cleaner next door

to Irvine Ranch Market on Irvine Boulevard where he’s been a customer

for 20 years, rather than one of the 73 dry cleaners in Lake Forest.

Tom is best known to his friends, and foes, as a hard-core,

right-wing conservative -- to which he always says “thank you!” But

I’ll let you in on a secret. There are few people who speak up and

step up more for those who have the least and need the most. In 1983,

Tom had two really good ideas. He married his wife, Jolene, the best

idea he ever had, and he co-founded the Food Distribution Center of

Orange County, now known as the Orange County Food Bank. Prior to

that, he and Jolene would buy as many groceries as they could afford

once a week and personally deliver them to a low-income family

somewhere in Orange County.

Today, the Orange County Food bank delivers 1 million pounds of

food every month to poor people across the county. For years, Tom

hosted a “Thanksgiving Non-Lunch” at Antonello’s, where Orange County

movers and shakers were served nothing but a thin soup to get them

focused on what some people would be having on Thursday instead of

the big Butterball. To this day, Tom organizes regular jaunts to the

Baja, where he delivers food and used clothing to the poorest

families he can find. Last year, President Bush appointed Tom to

serve on the board of the Legal Services Corporation, a federally

funded organization that provides assistance to low-income Americans

in civil law proceedings.

As Tom hands over the gavel to Scott Baugh, his home and his

office have been hit with a blizzard of flowers and letters from

well-wishers from around the world. Some of them are famous, like

William Rusher, syndicated columnist and the founder and publisher of

National Review, who offered his thoughts on the subject in a recent

column: “Tom Fuentes, the GOP chairman in Orange County -- the most

Republican county in that supposedly liberal hotbed, California -- is

stepping down after 20 years,” Rusher said. “Why aren’t there more

counties like Orange? Maybe the question should be, why aren’t there

more county leaders like Fuentes?” But most of the notes and letters

are from men and women whom Tom helped along the way and who have

never forgotten it, or him.

Of course, it hasn’t been all serious, all the time. One of the

perquisites of being chair of the Orange County GOP is that you get

to hobnob with presidents and kings, princes and rogues, and Tom has

hobnobbed with quite a few of each. On one of Barbara Bush’s visits

to Orange County, Fuentes was the emcee of a rally that was organized

in her honor. While a speaker was at the microphone, Tom was seated

onstage between Barbara and Sally Dornan, wife of former Rep. Bob

Dornan. At one point, Barbara leaned over and asked Sally how life

was treating her. Sally said not too well, and launched into a

detailed account of recent allegations in the press that Bob had been

beating her. Barbara Bush listened politely, nodding now and then,

while Tom squeezed his eyes shut, clicked his heels, and tried to

wish himself somewhere else, anywhere else.

Tom may have decided to take that episode out on me, at a rally

for the troops during Desert Storm in 1991. A sizable crowd had

marched down Bear Street from South Coast Plaza and gathered in

Shiffer Park to hear a few speakers, most notably the late Col. Bill

Barber, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient and a 100%, bona fide, hands-down American hero. Tom and I shared the emcee duties and when

all the words had been said and all the flags had been waved, I took

the mic to thank everyone and send them on their way.

But then Fuentes tapped me on the shoulder. No problem, I thought.

There must be one more announcement to make. Tom leaned close and

whispered in my ear, “Why don’t we sing ‘God Bless America?’” “Good

idea!” I said. “Who’s going to start?” “You are,” he said. I was, in

a word, stunned. Lot’s wife had nothing on me. I was just as still

and twice as salty.

I have spent a lot of time at microphones over the years and I’ve

said a lot of words, but an amplified note has never made it out of

my mouth alive. That’s mostly because my singing voice is a

combination of Marjorie Main, Selma Diamond and Froggy from the

Little Rascals. But there was no way out. It was patriotism’s darkest

hour, and I apologized to America, our troops and Kate Smith.

Thankfully, I only had to butcher “God” and “bless” before everyone

joined in. So there you have it. Just a small chapter in the history

of Thomas A. Fuentes, Chairman Emeritus, Orange County GOP. I gotta

go.

* PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs

Sundays. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].