Teacher joins Truth Squad on road trip

By Trudy Stephenson Willis

Tiffany Cooper-Ortega had a feeling the news on Election Day was going to be good. As she rode around Southern California on the Truth Squad bus tour with screen celebrities Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, select media representatives and major players in the Alliance for a Better California, she got the feeling that a win was in store.

"Everyone had worked really hard, and now it was starting to feel like it had paid off (knock on wood). We're going to defeat the governor's crazy ideas."

That final Saturday before the election was a long day for her, "but worth it," says the second-grade teacher from Oceanside. "It was the experience of a lifetime."

At 7:30 a.m., she joined alliance representatives — CTA President Barbara E. Kerr, California Professional Firefighters President Lou Paulson, and Peace Officers Research Association of California board member Buddy Magor — along with California Nurses Association President Deborah Burger, and took her seat on the bus beside Kerr. "We're both kindergarten teachers at heart," says Cooper-Ortega.

The first stop was a rally with 250 precinct walkers at one of eight such gathering spots for campaign activity in San Diego that day.

Bening, a San Diego native, drew squeals of delight from teachers in the crowd as she listed the schools she had attended there. When she mentioned Patrick Henry High School, Beatty chimed in that that reminded him of a famous saying: "Give me liberty or give me Annette Bening."

He could get away with it because actress Bening is his wife.

The couple's playfulness continued on the bus as Beatty couldn't resist grabbing the tour guide's microphone, only to be talked down gently by Bening.

After shaking hands with Beatty and Bening, Cooper-Ortega was encouraged to share photos of her four children, ages 1, 2, 3 and 7, since they too have four children. "I have to admit to being a little starstruck. I'm from Mississippi, and we don't see that many stars down there."

The most exciting stop of the day was a small airport in San Diego where the governor was addressing a hangar full of invited supporters. "We watched from behind a chain-link fence as Warren stole Arnold's thunder," says Cooper-Ortega. When Beatty and Bening tried to gain entrance to the hangar, they were denied admission because they weren't on the guest list.

According to press reports, Bening challenged the gatekeepers, insisting that the governor represents the people of California, and they were there as citizens who wanted to hear what he had to say.

The stars persisted in standing just outside the huge garage-style door, where they were an obvious distraction, says Cooper-Ortega, who was stationed 70 yards away on the tarmac. At one point, the event organizers closed the door, but officials made them reopen them to avoid violating crowd size ordinances.

While speakers like radio commentator Roger Hedgecock made disparaging remarks about the quality of Beatty's movies and called him a "B-list actor," Beatty tried to be respectful, says Cooper-Ortega. He put his finger over his mouth to hush the gaggle of reporters as he listened to the governor and other speakers. "Beatty impressed me. He was not at all contentious."

Beatty, of course, spent much of the day repeatedly denying that he was ramping up for a run at the gubernatorial job himself. "He said he wasn't seeking it now," says Cooper-Ortega. "He was just doing his part as a citizen and letting voters know how the governor's propositions were an attempt to violate their rights. He said he's in the highest 1 percent of citizens in terms of income, but even he sees that it's absolutely wrong — what they're trying to do to working people."

In most cases, when the bus stopped, the media and interested citizens would form a semi-circle around Truth Squad members and engage in open discussion. It was a sharp contrast to the governor's events being held behind closed doors. "It was very refreshing."

But it was a different scene in Anaheim, where the governor was giving a speech long on enthusiasm but short on substance in an industrial park. When the bus pulled up directly across from the warehouse entrance and discharged its occupants, reporters, hungry for a story, flocked to them, encouraged by the Truth Squad's accessibility.

The governor's supporters were none too happy about it. They acted as if they "smelled blood," says Cooper-Ortega. "The event was marred by their contentiousness."

They tried to drown out interviews with Beatty.

"This isn't personal," Beatty told reporters graciously. "But the governor seems to be more concerned with corporate interests than with the people's interests."

That was Cooper-Ortega's first exposure to the dark side of politics. "Up until then, everything I had seen was positive."

From there, the bus was scheduled to go to Riverside, but had to skip the stop entirely in order to make a timely arrival at a Los Angeles rally designed around them.

The Truth Squad was welcomed by a crowd of precinct walkers packed onto the roof of the Service Employees International Union Local 347 headquarters. Beatty, Bening, Kerr, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Executive Secretary-Treasurer Martin Ludlow all addressed the crowd, stressing the importance of getting out the vote on Election Day.

"Everyone was so positive," says Cooper-Ortega. They already had an almost triumphant tone.

Finally home at 9:45 p.m. to relieve her husband, Rene Ortega, also a teacher, from his baby tending duties, she let herself say it. "We're gonna pull it off!"