Is Solorio Sucking Up to Republicans to Be Appointed the New Clerk-Recorder? (SEE CORRECTION!)

[Correction: Informed sources tell me that the October 10 fundraiser was in 2009.  And this wasn’t his October 21 – 22 2010 “overnight golf fundraiser” at the Pelican Hill Exclusive Golf Resort and Spa in Newport Coast, CA for $2,500 per Platinum Sponsor, $10,000 per silver sponsor, $5,000 per individual guest, either, though I’m sure that no Republicans would have attended that one, right?  The wild speculation below remains in force, however.]

I seem to remember joking to someone recently that the only way that Jose Solorio could come further out of the closet as a Republican would be to hold a joint fundraiser with Mimi Walters.  So someone tells me to check Capital Weekly’s Fundraising Calender and lo and behold (scroll down to October 10):

Come on, Jose, in the movie the kiss is supposed to be ACCIDENTAL!

October 10

Senator Mimi Walters & Assemblyman Jose Solorio
Fundraiser, Disneyland Tickets
Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa
Disneyland Theme Park
Times: Call for details
Cost: $1,500-up
Contact: 949-701-3118 (Walters)
916-442-0696 (Solorio)

In the words of one Democrat to whom I conveyed this information early today:  “Oh. My. God.”

At some point, fellow Democrats out there in the reading audience, this becomes no longer funny.  Solorio consorting with Trannies in Vietnamese media — oh well, he thinks he’s running for State Senate.  Solorio doing everything he can to block Dave Jones’s proposal to allow him to regulate health care premiums — not funny, but not entirely uncommon among Democrats.  Solorio conspiring to keep AD-69 out of Latino hands because he fears (with good reason) that that Latino will be his nemesis Julio Perez — sucks, but maybe he’s just being a conservative Democrat.

But fundraising with Mimi Walters, now running against Steve Young for the 37th District State Senate seat?  Sorry, but at some point you have to admit the truth — he has become a freaking Republican, presuming that in his heart he was ever anything else.

The question now is: why?

I spent the weekend locked in the Chamber of Insight and I have a hypothesis: he wants Tom Daly’s job.  Tom’s wife, after all, is already Jose’s Chief of Staff.  (You did not know that?  Now you know that.)  Daly is a lock to win the AD-69 seat over underfunded Republican Joe (“Not the Doctor”) Moreno; that leaves an important opening for which the scramble among Republicans has already begun.

I don’t know that my hypothesis is true, but it would explain the piece that has been missing from the puzzle of the AD-69 race until now.  I’ve presumed that Solorio got Daly (and poor, still-unsuspecting dupe Martinez) into the race in the — all together now !– most Latino legislative district in California out of some combination of spite and ideology and the fact that that’s just the kind of thing that vampire chipmunks like to do.  What was missing was self-interest.  What has also been missing is a paycheck for Solorio between December 2012 and December 2014.  Solorio moving on to become County Clerk/Recorder would be an elegant solution to a lot of people’s problems.

To be fair, we must admit that there is evidence, such as this photo from his website, that Solorio is NOT trying to make himself appealing to Republicans at all.

First, of course, it gives Solorio a platform from which to run for Senate District 32 in 2014.  (His ambition is not a secret; he already has a committee.)  Tom Daly has already shown that even while serving as Clerk one can run hard for another position — OK, actually Daly hasn’t shown that, but I’m pretty sure that it can be done — and Solorio would be just the right person to leave running the office in the hands of his assistants while he campaigns and collects a paycheck.  (His wife can tell him how the office works.)

Solorio runs for SD-32 against Janet Nguyen (hence his cozying up to Trannies), maybe Jim Silva, maybe Troy Edgar and/or Travis Allen, maybe Joe Dovinh — and why not Long Pham, too, just to complete the AD-72 reunion? — and another actual Democrat who will actually make the runoff.  (The success of my hypothesis depends in part on how much the other Supes are willing to piss off Nguyen.  Rumors I hear?  Quite willing.)

So, under this scenario, three of them — probably Moorlach, Bates, and Spitzer — get all bipartisan (and of course Spitzer’s already there) and install a Democrat as a two-year placeholder.  (How do they know that it’s a placeholder position?  Because Solorio is running for SD-32 — and if he reneges, he’d just be voted out in 2014 anyway.  How do they know he’s a Democrat?  It says so on his party registration, that’s the only reason, and he probably winks at them when he shows it to them.)  Then, in 2014, the seat is open for some Republican who’d like to run for it so they can keep their government paycheck.  And who’s termed out in 2014?  Hey, how about John Moorlach!  (You were wondering why none of the Republican might get appointed?  If Moorlach is interested, wouldn’t he prefer running for an open seat?)

Like I said, it’s good for pretty much all of the Republicans, except for those like Janet Nguyen who are running for SD-32, and as for Democrats?  Well, the Supes don’t care what we think anyway — any more than Solorio himself did when he scheduled a big-ticket fundraiser with one of the opposing party’s candidates for State Senate.

And do you want to know why Democrats will have a progressive candidate taking advantage of the split vote among Republicans to make it into the final two against some non-Solorio Republican?

Because we don’t want a Democratic State Senator who holds joint fundraisers with Mimi Walters — that’s one reason.