Pretty Fly for a White Guy! GOP luvs them some Tom Daly in AD-69

Daly - pretty fly for a white guy

If they had had any guts, Daly's pollsters would have made the results "uno dos tres, quatro cinco cinco seis!"

AND SO IT BEGINS....

“Some polling results” that were “conducted by the Daly campaign” of “those likely to participate in the June 2012 primary election” that Republican Area Blog OC Political apparently “got a hold of” show “convincingly” (well, Pedroza bought it) that, as it stands, the next California State Assembly representative from the Santa Ana area is going to be either a white unknown Republican or … a white quasi-Republican.

Given the reassuringly accurate title of “2010 AD 69 Primary Preference,” the Daly campaign sets forth the news thusly.  (Note: the three numbers shown after “overall” for Daly, Martinez, and Perez are for a “simulated race” that presumably involves only the three of them.  (Sorry, Paco!  Polls are expensive; Daly can’t waste time on you!)

Tom Daly (D) — 25% overall; 30% of Democrats, 18% of Republicans, 30% of independents
Michele Martinez (D) — 13% overall; 21% of Democrats, 1% of Republicans, 17% of independents
Julio Perez (D) — 4% overall; 7% of Democrats, 0% of Republicans, 3% of independents
Francisco Barrigan (D) — 5% overall
Robert Hammond (R) — 25% overall
Undecided — 28% overall

OC Political noted that a Democrat will likely win the seat, given the 2-1 Democratic registration edge, and that only Daly’s support is notably transpartisan.

I haven’t even gotten to the good part yet.  Get this “news report”:

“When voters hear more about the background, experience, qualifications and accomplishments of Daly, they react very positively. Daly’s initial positive sentiment of 35% moves to 80% after voters hear a short paragraph providing these basic facts.

As the campaign commences and voters begin to focus on the candidates for State Assembly, this survey shows that Daly, with his experience as the Orange County Clerk-Recorder and as former Mayor of Anaheim, is in a strong position to win this contest.”

A reminder about the those polled “hearing more about the background, experience, qualifications and accomplishments of Daly”: this poll was conducted by the Daly campaign.  They got to write the script about the “basic facts.” Yeah, I’ll bet that those “basic facts” moved him from 35% to 80%!   They probably left out the “basic fact” about Perez that he’s going into the race armed with more that a leaky can of Indian casino money and the Pulido machine, like Martinez, and a platform that, like Daly’s, doesn’t mostly involve just pretending to be really sorry that Democratic goals can’t be met.  (“Really.  It’s a shame.  Too bad the rest of the Assembly Democrats who are voting against the Republicans are insane.”)

Add the fact that voters have little information about the candidates and that they probably described Perez as something between “union thug” and “no apparent qualification” rather than as “reformist policy scholar who knows how to kick ass,” this isn’t a surprising result.  (I hope that Hammond is happy with the 25%, because he won’t be there for long, not with the Republicans apparently in the bag for their man Tom Daly.)

Now, I know why OC Political would be serving as Daly’s unquestioning PR unit here: they know that Hammond is not going to win and that their best shot at getting most of what they want is to elect Daly — whose campaign at this point seems to be located almost entirely in the offices of anti-Labor groups planning on independent expenditures.

And I know why lonely OC Politics auteur Art Pedroza immediately did his part and trumpeted for all Latinos besides Martinez to get out of the race now now now for the good of la raza.  Once Julio — the actual threat to the political establishment — is out of the race, then (so long as Paco doesn’t catch fire like Rick Santorum) Republicans can be happy with all the remaining choices.  Daly is their mole within the Dems; Martinez will, if somehow elected, go along to get along.

But why, you may ask, am I highlighting this poll?  It’s because I want people to pay attention.  This poll of “likely voters” (and my bet is that they were disproportionately white, and that the people collecting the data were too — and probably not venturing into some of the areas where Perez is rounding up support) with almost no real info about the candidates may be hooey, but it’s is a glimpse of what’s coming down the pike.  The anti-reformers are desperate not to let the charismatic and brilliant reformer, Perez, into the runoff — so they gave information that would put him at the bottom.

Simple: I want people to see what we’re up against — not great candidates, but great willingness to twist and distort.

That means that people in AD-69 (and those of us who care about who’s in OC’s most likely Democratic Assembly seat) need to organize now to fend them off, because a Perez win will clearly be the kind of freshening breeze through the Party that Central County needs but that its elite cannot bear.  The mailers from outside groups, with Daly kept happily in the dark, are going to be expensive, plentiful, lying, mean and anonymous.  People can let them get away with it, or not — this is a test of Democratic mettle.  Perez is, it’s clear from the endorsement process, the Democratic candidate in the race.  The question is whether we can earn his representing our county.

Meanwhile, I have a proposition for anyone who can figure out a way to allow legal wagering on the results.  Perez’s support here is a little under 1/6 of Daly’s and Hammond’s, a little under 1/3 of Martinez’s, and a little less than equal to Barragan’s.  So I’ll tell you what — I’ll give you an advantage.  I’ll put down $1 on Perez against each of the candidates, and you put down $6 on Daly, $6 on Hammond, $3 on Martinez, and $1 on Paco.  Come the end of the primary, we’ll multiply my $1 times each of the other candidates’ percentage of the primary vote (times 100, so 25% would equal $25), and I’ll give it to you.  Then we’ll multiply your $6, $6, $3, and $1 times Julio’s percentage of the vote, and you give it to me.

I just did the math; based on the numbers in this poll.  I’d owe you $25+$25+$13+$5, or $68, and you’d owe me $24+$24+$12+$4, or $64.  You’d win $4 — almost 6%!  Have you ever seen an easier, more surefire way to make money?

Wait, wait — don’t walk away!  Don’t you have faith in the poll?  C’mon, Emami and Pedroza, at least you two should be willing to take me up on it, given how seriously you’re taking the results!  Come on, have some faith!  I’m giving you good odds here!

(Unless you don’t believe the numbers either, I guess….)

Let’s go to the video to take us out.

Offspring- Pretty Fly For A White Guy by Dan_of_the_Land


About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that. Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too. He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.) His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)