Supervisor Janet Nguyen celebrates victory amongst friends

Supervisor Janet Nguyen celebrated her victory tonight at the Azteca Restaurant in downtown Garden Grove. When I arrived at the party, at about 9:30 p.m., she was outside, speaking in Vietnamese on her cell phone, as about seven photographers took her picture.

The victory party was attended by a huge throng of backers and well-wishers. As I spoke to my fellow blogger Larry Gilbert outside, Todd Spitzer was leaving, with his entourage in tow. So was acting Sheriff Jack Anderson. I wished him well and thanked him for doing a great job, which he has, since he took over for Mike Carona. Of course Anderson had a long face as he was not chose as one of the finalists to replace Carona, in the Supervisor’s meeting today.

One of the candidates who was chosen as a finalist to be our next Sheriff, Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters, was there too. He grabbed a microphone and appeared to be singing a karaoke song. Most likely he was being interviewed by George Collins, who was also there tonight.

You have to wonder if Walters and his backer, former GOP State Senator John Lewis, cut a deal with Nguyen and the other Supervisors. Clearly the OC GOP came together behind Nguyen, and rebuffed her biggest critic, Assemblyman Van Tran, when the party endorsed her. Was Walters the other side of the deal? Oh well, at least we may finally be rid of him in Santa Ana, but now he will be the County’s problem. Good luck with that.

I spoke to Garden Grove Councilman Mark Rosen tonight and he was not the only Democrat in attendance. I also ran into our former blogger Claudio Gallegos and Anaheim school board member Jordan Brandman. And my buddy the planner was there too. But I did not see Paul Lucas. He must have been at Dina Nguyen’s party.

Other Republicans who showed up included Supervisor Bill Campbell, who easily won reelection tonight as well with over 80% of the vote, and former Supervisor Cynthia Coad. I got the heck out of there when I caught her staring at me. She is likely still upset since I helped Chris Norby beat her after she voted yes on the Orange County PLA (project labor agreement) which banned non-union contractors from bidding on county public works projects for a few years, before the Supervisors let it expire.

Our former blogger Quang Pham was there too, as was former Westminster Councilman Tony Lam and the editor of the Bolsavik blog, who was previously at Hoa Van Tran’s election night party, which had to have been a real bummer.

I also ran into Matt Harper, who works for Supervisor Nguyen and Alexandria Coronado, who is on the Orange County Board of Education. She was bummed out that her colleague Felix Rocha was losing tonight, but I wasn’t. I happily voted for his opponent, Long Pham. Rocha is arrogant and he deserved to lose. He didn’t even buy a candidate’s statement this year! Adios Felix!

Thomas Gordon was there tonight also and apparently I missed Sarah Spinosa. I left so I could go home and write this post. Sorry I missed you Sarah! But the Orange Juice was well represented tonight with four of our bloggers in attendance. Kudos to Thomas on his victory tonight as he will now be a member of the OC GOP Central Committee, in the 69th Assembly District.

Congratulations to Supervisor Janet Nguyen on her reelection! I am also told that all of the legislative candidates that Assemblyman Van Tran backed lost tonight. Looks like this is the beginning of the end of the Trannie empire…