.
.
.
I’m not on the mailing list for John Moorlach’s State Senate campaign, OF COURSE!, but someone forwarded me his latest hit piece against his opponent Don Wagner. Seriously, Mr. Moorlach? You think that people are going to believe this?
Asm. Don Wagner: Frequent guest of union-sponsored Maui junket
The March 17th primary could quickly become a nasty intra-party feud as Moorlach and his chief rival, Wagner, court the district’s high-propensity GOP voters. An early theme in the race is likely to be Wagner’s ties to labor unions that “pulled out all the stops” to defeat Moorlach in past elections.
In 2012 and 2013, Wagner attended the infamous union-sponsored Maui junket, hosted by the Independent Voter Project. The brainchild of former lawmakers turned lobbyists Steve Peace and Jeff Marston, the Independent Voter Project’s annual Maui bash provides the Capitol’s biggest special interest groups with a legal method of circumventing the state’s gift limits. The event’s organizers say that part of the bill for the luxurious Fairmont Kea Lani, “Hawaii’s only all-suite and villa luxury oceanfront resort,” is paid for by the state’s largest and most powerful labor union, “the correctional officers labor union CCPOA.”
Wagner accepted $2,179.79 in accommodation, meals, and beverages from the Independent Voter Project in 2012, according to his annual financial disclosure form. That made Wagner the odd man out of the Orange County legislative delegation –as the only Orange County legislator, Republican or Democrat, at the union-sponsored conference, according to the Sacramento Bee. Wagner’s office initially refused to confirm his attendance at the 2013 Maui conference.
As a Democrat, as I understand it, I am not supposed to be able to distinguish between public employee unions fighting for better wages and working conditions — ones towards which both Moorlach and Wagner both show hostility — and those, like the Correctional Officers, who just want to see more and more (AND MORE) people put into prison, at huge and unnecessary public expense as well as cost in lives of convicts and their dependents. (I’m not sure that this applies to Wagner, but as I know that Supervisorial candidate Lou Correa is also a major beneficiary of contributions from the prison guards’ union, I presume that it must.)
That being so, I want to offer Assemblyman Wagner equal time here. Surely, one would think, the Moorlach’s accusations towards Wagner must be in some way false, because otherwise Wagner was not looking ahead at the possibility of Mimi Walters flying off to stand at (or actually slightly behind) John Boehner’s side, and at the time of the 2013 junket plans to shove former Rep. John Campbell into a trash bin were already well underway. So, here’s an opportunity for Wagner and his supporters: explain why this Maui junket either didn’t happen, or didn’t happen in the way described, or happened but wasn’t actually bad (perhaps because it led to more brown and/or poor people being cycled through the criminal justice system, or whatever justification they had in mind), or whatever the response is going to be. Let’s not let The Moorlach get away with this sort of attack un-response-attacked!
I have to admit that I found the last portion of Moorlach’s missive a little confusing.
Orange County’s leading Republican organizations, including the influential Lincoln Club, have urged local candidates to decline financial support from labor unions.
“The Lincoln Club of Orange County believes that the problem of public employee unions and their corrupting influence at all levels of government must be taken so seriously, that the Club will not endorse a candidate who does not sign the following pledge: The undersigned on the date subscribed below will not accept campaign contributions from public employee unions,” the organization stated in its 2012 candidate questionnaire.
Now just a gol-darned second! The Lincoln Club of Orange County endorsed Kris Murray for Anaheim City Council — and she got PLENTY of money and support from the most conservative sectors of the Labor movement, ones that want ENORMOUS amounts of public resources to go to their members. So presumably, this must not be the Lincoln Club’s actual position, right? What’s the Moorlach trying to pull here? If you’re misrepresenting the Lincoln Club itself, Mr. Moorlach, then you are in deep, deep trouble! We invite a representative of the Lincoln Club to write us a piece to set THAT portion of the record straight as well!
Honestly, the Moorlach — just how gullible do you think we are?
What’s not to understand? You don’t know the difference between candidate contributions and “educational” junkets??
I don’t know what you’re getting at. These junkets to Maui are notorious. They are sponsored variously by unions – but also in the past by big energy companies. They wine, dine and golf the legislators who burn up excess campaign cash to go. It’s a disgrace.
In any case, the whole thing looks like pretty darned vanilla Republican campaigning to me – so why the upset?
Diamond – Yes, why so upset? Do you have a horse in this race? I think not.
The Prison Guards, of course!
*Great Kona Coffee, great golf, super Hawaiian print T-Shirts, Tahitian Fire Dancers, a great Nude Beach……good accomodations in Lahina and elsewhere. Maybe even a long trip to Hanna Ranch in a pink four wheel drive with a native driver. Finally, a great surfer breakfast and windsurfing outing going to the north shore. Sounds pretty hard to turn down.
Don Wagner probably just got offered three Mai Tai’s with an extra umbrella at Don the Beachcomers in Sunset Beach. That, is far easier to turn down Dr. D., as you have to admit. Voter tampering? Probably not.
I saw this while Greg was working on it, and I’m pretty sure he intended his outrage toward Moorlach to be ironic and tongue-in-cheek, that this post is meant to amplify the Wagner-union-junket meme, and yes Skally Greg does have a horse in the race, he prefers Moorlach. But if the irony goes past even Zenger….
I WAS going to suggest a different title… And an image of Wagner in a lei… “How DARE Moorlach bring up Wagner’s union-funded Hawaii junket?”
Juice-brother, you wanna try it that way, and delete this comment?
I think he’s just trying to stir up trouble among the Republicans.
*Zenger: Wow!
And who am I supposed to be able to stir up trouble among in this race if not Republicans? No Democrat is running unless Jose Solorio “moves to an apartment in Irvine,” if you know what I mean.
Vern — leave these comments up as a reminder of the continuing costs of our having allowed lead in our gol-darned drinking water.
Who is John Moorlach?
*Sasquatch or the Lock Ness Dragon …..your choice!
john moorlach is a self indulgent, self absorbed idiot who allegedly supports the private sector but cannot get a real job there. which is why he is scrambling around looking for an elective office he can win.
mr moorlach is disloyal, deceitful and ineffective. i would support a ferret before i would support john moorlach. i would, and do, support don wagner before i would support moorlach. the only ggod thing that would come out of moorlach winning would be that he would be out of the county four days out of the week.
on a good day, the moron is a stooge.
that is who john moorlach is
*What happened TDM….you weren’t invited to the Christmas party this year?
Character Assassination is always an option when you cannot identify any negative facts. Sorry TDM……it will take more than accusations of bad character to convince us. Pappa John always will engage in dialogue with anyone….even you. You might want to try it, instead of screaming about your concept of bad after shave.
Be most of that as it may, in a two-person race in the forest with a bear chasing him, all he has to be is faster than the other person.
*Or smarter….eh?
I find this whole matter out of character for John Moorlach. I even think Dan Wagner would agree his colleague has better form than to put out hit pieces without merit. I suspect it’s just an over zealous Don Wagner supporter that just lost their footing.
Oh — maybe this is as good a place as any to mention the latest tomfoolery: Thursday I got an e-mail from Don Wagner and Dave Ellis (two political figures I’ve criticized a lot on my blog in past years) which I immediately recognized as snark:
“Are you coming tonight?
“Vern- I’m following up one more time to ensure I give Dave an accurate headcount for tonight’s event. Can you make it?
“Let me know. Hope to see you this evening.
“Thanks,
Don
“PS: If you’re unable to join us tonight, please consider making an online contribution.
“Donald P. Wagner
Assembly Member, 68th District ”
(and then info about a Mimi Walters-hosted fundraiser… so many crooks and liars in one room!)
Slightly amused and bemused, I passed it on to a few friends, including The Moorlach. John immediately replied with an apology – he had sent something out without “blind carbon copy” which allowed some Wagner mole to copy over his mailing list… everyone got this joke e-mail from Wagner, and here I thought I was special.
Real mature, Wagner team!
I received the same email from Wagner, clearly a feeble attempt to be “personal” yet it was a form email. I’d suggest hitting “spam” so they get marked as spam and you and others won’t be bothered by them anymore.
The email theft is a fairly childish move by Wagner.
Much of this article was actually written by John Hrabe at CalNewsRoom, Moorlach just replicated it in his update, much like he does with many of his updates.
Moorlach did a great job getting Orange county out of bankruptcy, and did a good job as
county supervisor. I would prefer he gave up his pension, for appearance sake, but he has a right to it , just like the other supervisors.
Wagner, on the other hand, has done nothing of note in his time in the legislature, and you can bet his is also taking his pension.