Who were the biggest political losers in Orange County this year?

These guys were both big losers in 2009

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H/T to the blue boys over at the Liberal OC.  They finally came up with a good idea  – examining the biggest political losers of 2009.  But most of their list was comprised of people their gal Janet Nguyen doesn’t like.  We think the list should be expanded a bit, to wit:

1. Disgraced former O.C. Sheriff Mike Carona – No question about this one.  He was at one time being considered for statewide office.  Thanks to the OC Weekly he is done in politics.  Thanks to the taxpayers he will still be drawing a huge pension until he croaks.
2. Disgraced former Assemblyman Mike Duvall – It must be something in the water!  Duvall was one of the biggest proponents of Prop. 8 – and yet his career was undone when he blabbed about having sex with more than one lobbyist.  His ending opened the door to Chris Norby, who seems headed to the Assembly if he can win his run-off election in January.
3. Westminster Councilman Andy Quach – He didn’t just have a DUI – he hit a power pole, resulting in no electricity for thousands of his constituents.  But his buddy Van Tran still paid him for his “consulting services” on Tran’s congressional campaign.
4. Assemblyman Van Tran – He almost got arrested the night his boy Quach got wasted, but even worse he failed to become the chosen one of the GOP, in his campaign to unseat Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez.  And he barely raised any money.  Even worse, he is being challenged by Quang X. Pham – a moderate who served in the U.S. Marines and who is widely respected not only in the OC Viet community but also by many members of the Lincoln Club of Orange County.  Could this be the end of Tran’s political career?
5. GOP carpetbagger Linda Ackerman – So much money wasted on this hack, but Norby blew her away in the Special Election to replace Duvall.  Jon Fleischman and his pal Jerbal took it hard, but there they were at Norby’s election night party…
6. Supervisor Janet Nguyen – It should have been her proudest moment – getting selecte to serve as Chair of the O.C. Board of Supervisors next year, but then she wigged out on Supervisor John Moorlach.  His subsequent email blaster her to smithereens!  Nguyen also announced she was co-chairing the Sue Perez campaign against State Senator Lou Correa, only to watch Perez pull out after she was outed as a carpetbagger.  Ruh roh!
7. Red County editor Matt “Jerbal” Cunningham – He started the year as “Jubal” and ended it as “Jerbal.”  Still tainted by his outing of molestation victims, Cunningham also failed to launch his wife’s campaign for O.C. Clerk-Recorder.  And his favorite carpetbagger Ackerman lost.  Then his other favorite carpetbagger, Sue Perez, announced she wasn’t running against State Senator Lou Correa after all.  Bad year to be a Jerbal!
8. Liberal OC blog editors Dan Chmielewski and Chris Prevatt – They should have been on top of the world after Obama won, but instead they fumbled the ball and watched their blog’s readership plummet.  Their readership averaged 17,199 hits a month in the first quarter of the year.  They ended the year averaging 13,648 readers a month in the last quarter, which included only 11,000 hits each month in October and November.  Ouch!
9. Mission Viejo Councilman Lance MacLean – He voted himself lifetime health insurance benefits, but he cannot squirm out of the grasp of his opponents, who are set to recall him from office in 2010. 
10. Disgraced former Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose – Sending out an email depicting Obama’s White House with a watermelon garden proved to be a very bad idea for this Republican loser.  Not only did he resign from the Los Alamitos City Council, he also had to clean up his business after it was pelted with, you guessed it, watermelons. 

Did I miss anyone?  Let us know.  And thanks to all for reading the Orange Juice blog.  Since we switched to WordPress you have contributed over 59,000 comments!  Keep them coming and have a Happy New Year!