.
.
.
This is the first post of the OC Shadow. My first post is a year’s best column. Feel free to comment if you agree or disagree or want to add a different point of view.
Biggest Political Defeat- Team Van Tran’s year long losses at the polls and within the party. First came Dina’s attempt at winning the Supervisor’s Seat. The effort was an utter and total failure. Van’s personal appeal to the OC GOP to not endorse Janet and his ham handed letter signed by his pal Paul Lucas was rejected by the OC GOP Central Committee. Trung’s attempt to obtain a City Council seat was also a failure. And then Van barely beat little known Ken Arnold. All in all Van has had a very bad year.
Biggest Victory- After only winning her first race by three votes, Janet Nguyen’s second defeat of Team Van Tran with the help of the Anglo GOP establishment in the June Primary was most impressive.
Biggest Waste of Money- Planned Parenthood ‘s $200,000 Farm Team Debacle. Planned Parenthood wanted to create a farm team by electing progressive pro-choice candidates to high school school boards. Only one of their candidates won, Dr. Kim Oahn Nguyen Lam and she was an incumbent. Not much bang for the buck.
And runner-up. The Orange County Central Labor Council’s and Patrick Kelly’s $60,000 IE expenditure for losing candidates Garden Grove City Council Candidates Paul Lucas and Linh Ho. Both of these thirty somethings candidates behaved like children and ran poor campaigns while pro-labor and community activist Robin Marcario failed to get support from labor and the Democratic Party.
Best New Star- Hard charging Deborah Gavello who started her campaign during filing period and put in the hard work to win a seat on the Tustin City Council.
Runner up awards goes to Jordan Brandman and Tim Shaw. While not really a new candidates both should get credit for picking up the ball and running with it. Jordan won a seat on the Anaheim Union High School Board when racist Harold Martin was dumped by the voters in Anaheim. Another successful Sophomore attempt was Tim Shaw getting the most votes to get win and a seat on the La Habra City Council.
Best Candidate who got no help from the Party- Bill Hedrick ran a brilliant race for the 44th Congressional District and won the Riverside portion of the district and got little or no help from the Orange County Democratic Party (Same Old, Same Old) and lost Orange County and the race to the harlot chasing Ken Calvert.
Most racist Campaign Literature- Mimi Walter’s anti Indo-American Bollywood mailer, sent out to trash her opponent Harry Sidhu in the 34th State Senate Primary. Great minority outreach, OC GOP.
Hamlet Award- Should I run, Should I not, “What should I do?” goes to former State Senator Joe Dunn. First he was in and then suddenly he was out. Rumors abound as to why he dropped out but it left Democrats in a lurch which brings us to,
Most Embarrassing/ Most Operatic Democratic Campaign- Hoa Van Tran for Supervisor- After Joe Dunn dropped out the only Democrat who remained in the race (Paul Lucas paid his fee but dropped out after Democrats urged him to leave). Hoa’s campaign had trouble from the start. Edgardo Reynoso (Lou Correa’s Brother-In-Law) came back to OC to run a campaign replete with charges of financial irregularities, including rumors of illegal cash payments, and to my knowlege the only campaign that I can remember that had its campaign workers under indictment for murder. Plus two women staffers claimed harassment by Mr. Reynoso. Wow, what a mess. By the way, Hoa lost.
Luckiest Politician- Nut job Dana Rohrabacher was lucky he did not get swept up the Obama Wave. Luckily for him Debbie Cook ran a lackluster and from what I hear amateurish campaign.
“Luckily for him Debbie Cook ran a lackluster and from what I hear amateurish campaign.”
Vern?
How about “honorable mention” where the OCGOP Central Committee endorsed Rich Atkinson in Mission Viejo simply because he was endorsed by Mayor Trish Kelley, Vice Mayor Frank Ury and Laguna Niguel Mayor Paul Glaab.
Mr. Atkinson spent thousands of dollars in losing including being on 11 “slate mailers” while Cathy Schlicht, who finished second with 13,681 votes, 3500 more than the OCGOP endorsed candidate Atkinson, was on ZERO slates. You see. Campaign managers typically lock up all the slates for the incumbents and, in this example, their running mates.
The GOP should NEVER engage in local non-partisan elections. Pay attention Scott Baugh. How can a Central Committee person from Yorba Linda know anything about issues and candidates in San Clemente whom they endorse.
The system is rigged. Incumbents who apply get an automatic endorsement unless a Central Committee member opposes the application. What a joke.
“Biggest waste of money-runner up: Orange County Labor Federation”
The Orange County Labor Federation had an amazing showing in other cities. Key example: Anaheim City Council. Lorri Gallaway kicked ass because of the support she was able to garner from rank and file members through the Labor Feds’ operation.
OC Shadow,
Welcome to the Orange Juice! It is great to have your perspective on board. Great first post…
Citing Lorri Galloway as an example of the Central Labor victory is taking credit at the finish line. While AFSCE did donate much to Lorri’s race, Lorri spent well over 100,000 before the Labor Council ever endorsed her.
However, I was not discussing Lorri Galloway. My reference was the huge waste of money on Paul Lucas and L. Ho while Robin who fought valiantly against Wal-Mart in Garden Grove was left in the lurch. So Get it Right, I think you got it wrong. —- The Shadow Knows——-
You have any opinions about Irvine? Seems like you covered pretty much everywhere else! 😉
Bill Hedrick is going to kick Ken Calvert’s lying, scheming @$$ all the way back to Corona come 2010. Mark your calendars for a fight in the 44th, the likes of which the OC has never seen! Maybe this time the establishment will get it right and give Hedrick the support he deserves.
Shadow,
Your bias is as clear as your facts are muddy. You gave credit to Robin on the Wal Martfight but you obvioulsy ommitted my efforts in that fight as well. Either youre a Johnny come lately or youre just outright lying.
The fact is that with regards to the Wal Mart, which you canfact check with Rick Eiden, I worked my ass off on that fight. Walked Precincts, attended and spoke out against Wal mart at Plannig meetings,put signs out all over the city, stood aginst milliopns of dollars in free infrastructure to Wal mart on the Sanitary District, the list goes on and on.
“Either youre a Johnny come lately or youre just outright lying.”
Paul, your a Jonny come lately and a liar. So what does it matter to you?
Either way, all the work you did on beating back Walmart did nothing for your campaign, otherwise we would be calling you Mr. Honorable.
Mr. Lucas,
While you may have walked precincts for the anti-Walmart fight your association with anti-labor, anti-Demcoratic Values Team Van Tran hurts your case for being considered the pro-labor candidate. Also, your low brow antics are fit for a punk rock stage but not a city council room. I know it is hard for a tiger to lose his stripes, but I recommend you do some serious reevalution of your behavior before you attempt to run again as you embarrassed yourself, Democrats, and the labor movement this year.
—Tha Shadow Knows—–
Paul
With regard to your comment, “put signs out all over the city” could you kindly remove you giant sign that on on the freeway fence at the exit/entrance onto the freeway at Trask.
It starting to be blight and I’m about to call Caltrans to pick it up.
Paul is correct in his Wal-mart claim. Whatever his faults, he does do the hard door-to-door grunt work, which is why a lot of Democrats continue to stand by him.
Allright, Debbie Cook ran a lackluster and from what I hear amateurish campaign.
Amateurish? Maybe. It was a real grassroots, bootstraps operation, with little or no help from where we should have got it – the DCCC and state party. Our brief few weeks with a paid campaign manager (fresh from Hillary’s defeat) was ill-fated. I can only imagine who the Shadow’s pajaritos are, bitching and grousing to him about our amateurishness. I’ve got a couple of ideas.
“Lackluster” though? Hardly. That’s a subjective word of course, but anyone who’d seen our hundreds of tireless enthusiastic volunteers and our creativity and humor wouldn’t use it on us. And Debbie’s TV spots were certainly neither amateurish nor lackluster. (Or my song for that matter)
Some of us, frustrated from our experiences in the Cook campaign, Pritchard campaign and others, are discussing the creation of a new Democratic organization to do the kind of supportive infrastructure work we would normally have expected from the state and county parties. You heard it here first, and as usual I have said too much.
Re. #7 Hedrick v. Calvert 2010 certainly will be a race to get behind. If Debbie doesn’t run again here and we don’t get another viable opponent to Dana, I may be spending a lot of my time down in San Clemente helping my friend Bill H!
“Your association with anti-labor, anti-Democratic Values Team Van Tran hurts your case for being considered the pro-labor candidate.”
Shadow, Ill call you that for now because your identity is quite clear; you keep trying to sell this fantasy of some “Association with van Tran. Trust me; no one is buying it anymore. You know why? Because there is no There There. If you read the quotes from all Vietnamese candidates you will see that they acknowledge that he fighting between them is what cost them the wins they were hoping to gain this year. And although Andrew Do, the candidate you helped without knowing it, and Truong Diep narrowly won their races, it was not cheap nor did it come easy for them. Additionally it can be safely assumed that Van Tran is in a cage of his own making and has no where to go but for Lou Correa’s seats which I guarantee he will make a valiant although fruitless effort to obtain.
Unlike you and your ilk, I am a true blue activist. I will never shy away from an opportunity to even give the enemy the poison that is his downfall. Nor to give them a new shovel to help them dig the hole they are in deeper and deeper. You and your ilk are just plain cowards. No spine. No guts. No sense of guerilla tactics behind enemy lines.
So before you go and try and sell the same fantasy that the planner keeps trying to sell to save his oily hide, you should remember that you were unable to steal the DPOC Endorsement from. You were unable to steal the Labor Endorsement from me. You were unable to steal anything from me because your story has no meat to it and there is no there there.
But by all means, if you want to slowly burn the fuse that will eventually lead to the explosion of anger and ire from the activists that has befallen the likes of the planner and soon the rest of his puppets, please be my guest. Ill even give you the shovel.
Never try to sell someone a new friend over an old friend. Its never profitable.
OMG Vern, Paul didn’t do the walking! Just ask the folks in Labor. He showed up to eat, took a precinct packet, went to smoke, came back with the packet, went home.
He spent this entire campaign trying to get others to walk for him and did as little work possible. Whenever there was food, he showed up, spent a few minutes after eating and then left.
And Paul, we’re sick of you claiming to have fought against Walmart. You showed up for the free food and delivered a few signs. BFD.
You didn’t do half the work that Robin and the good folks at the Methodist church did. I was at those meetings and never saw you there. But you sure showed up for the victory picnic.
The only reason Paul got as many votes as he did was because labor mailed slates with his name on them. Even the good folks at AARP who originally endorsed him, dropped him like a hot potato after he was caught talking out of both sides of his mouth about fireworks.
He also insinuated that he was pro prop 8 when he spoke to the Baptist church. Mr. “I was raised a good Catholic” will say anything to get people to vote for him and that doesn’t even work. He forgot that people go to more than one forum and heard him lie like a rug.
While I cannot comment on Paul’s conduct I can, and will, commend him for throwing his hat into the ring.
How many of those writing here have made the same committment? It’s so easy to be a Monday morning quarterback and berate those of us who at least put on the cleats and took it to incumbents.
I think of those who have spoken against Art in his campaign effort.
While none of us are perfect, let’s keep in mind the freedom we still have to engage in the process
Larry,
Mr. Lucas threw his hat to into the ring to the detriment of the true progressive in the race, Robin Marcario. Without Mr. Lucas name on the ballot Robin could have been able to pick up some more votes and won the seat. Exactly want Team Van and Team Janet wanted, another name to split the Anglo vote. My sources tell me that Mr. Lucas is in it for the wrong reasons, the attention, and the prestige. You can see from Labor in GG that Mr. Lucas talks the talk but doesnt walk the walk.
I want to wish everyone in the blogosphere a Happy Thanksgiving. Please be safe and joyful this year and remeber those who are less fortunate than yourslelves. Lord knows there are a lo of them out there with the economy the way it is now.