Conventional Qualifications : For Some GOP Stalwarts, It’s Hard Work That Gives Them Delegate Status

Meet 74-year old Eleanor Ashford of Arleta, a self-described “spring chicken” who hopped aboard the California delegation train Saturday as it headed south to the GOP convention in San Diego.

If hard work and persistence are what matters, Ashford has earned her spot as a convention delegate, what with all the envelope-stuffing and what-have-you that she’s done for the party since 1960.

That was the year her own five kids were settled in and she was casting about for something meaningful to do.

“I asked, ‘What can I do for my country?’ ” Ashford recalled.

The answer, one that still satisfies this grandmother of four, was to become the kind of Republican Party stalwart without whom politics cannot do.

“I’ve been at it,” said Ashford, whose perennial task is rounding up volunteers to work at Republican headquarters.

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This will be Ashford’s fourth convention. She was selected by Gov. Pete Wilson as a delegate in her home congressional district, the 26th, which to Ashford’s chagrin is “quite Democratic.”

But never mind that this week.

Ashford is one of 156 regular California delegates--three from each congressional district--going to San Diego to raise the flag for Bob Dole, “a fine man,” Ashford said with conviction.

The delegates from the five congressional districts that embrace portions of the local valleys include grass-roots workers such as Ashford and Sharon Y. Runner of Lancaster, a fund-raiser for nonprofit groups who worked 50 hours a week in Wilson’s 1994 reelection campaign.

“Some people think you have to give a lot of money to be a delegate,” said Runner, whose husband, George, is a past mayor of Lancaster who is running for the Assembly this year.

In San Diego, Runner and Ashford will rub elbows with the chairman of the board of Arco, Lodwrick M. Cook, a member of the Dole finance committee from Sherman Oaks, and former state GOP Chairman Frank Visco of Lancaster, a six-time delegate.

The president of the California Christian Coalition, Sara DiVito Hardman of Tarzana, is a delegation member, as is Wilson legal affairs secretary Daniel M. Kolkey of Encino.

Like many others, Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Paul M. Kim of North Hollywood said he did not ask Gov. Wilson to select him as a delegate.

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Kim is the first Asian American to reach the rank of captain in the LAPD and a member of the California Community College Board of Governors. He said he was looking forward to the group dynamics of the convention.

“This is our duty as citizens,” he said. “The whole democracy is based on a foundation of participation.”

Pak-yan Liang of Granada Hills is a Republican Party Central Committee member and former Los Angeles Human Relations Commission member who will be attending his first convention as a delegate from the 25th Congressional District.

The Rockwell aerospace engineer said his concerns over morals and values are what sparked his interest in becoming a delegate.

“The country is at a critical turning point,” Liang said. “Whether I can do something or not, I’d like to be a part of it.”

From across the Valley in Toluca Lake, Michelle Eunjoo Park-Steel, an activist in Korean American organizations, as well as in GOP politics, won a seat on the delegation from the 26th Congressional District.

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The 27th District contingent features some familiar faces: Supervisor Mike Antonovich and Assemblyman James Rogan (R-Glendale), who is seeking election to Congress from this district.

One of the delegates’ tasks in San Diego will be to demonstrate that despite division on such issues as abortion, the tent of the Grand Old Party is big enough to accommodate one and all.

No problem, the Valley delegates say.

Both Runner, a social conservative abortion foe, and Ashford, who considers abortion a private matter between a woman and her doctor, say they have their eye on their mutual agenda--winning back the White House.

Ashford concedes a grudging admiration for President Clinton’s politically glib tongue, coupled with the worry that voters will be lulled into reelecting him.

“I tell you, old Clinton is something else,” Ashford said. “If he’s elected, heaven help us.”