OK, Irvine residents — can you check in and tell me if this was really the sort of madness that it seems?
[NOTE: See corrections in red.]
Here’s what I can piece together so far:
(1) A debate for the candidates for Irvine Mayor was apparently scheduled for Wednesday night from 5:30-7:00 p.m. — and, to some extent, happened.
(2) Republican Steven Choi was to have debated Democrat Larry Agran and seeming also-ran Katherine Daigle for this non-partisan seat. As promised in this campaign press release from the previous day, however …
(3) … Choi did not show — saying that he had never agreed to the debate. That’s not even the weirdest part. His reason was that he didn’t think that the moderator, conservative pollster Adam Probolsky, would be fair to him. (Probolsky is the highly Republican guy whose hair clippings I am still offering to eat if his maniacal poll on the CA-47 race, refrying his already published data to show Sen. Alan Lowenthal losing by __ points, comes true. He is also, as Choi says, deeply involved in Irvine politics.)
(4) Probolsky gets off the tweet of the night: “Here is the Steven Choi press release–he didn’t have a problem with me when I dropped off the checks for his campaign.” Probolsky, as Dan C. of the Lib OC points out, was also once a City Commissioner appointed by Choi.
(5) Larry Agran, at the debate, gets off the one-liner of the night by stealing from one of the best, Woody Allen, in saying “80% of success is showing up.”
Have I got that about right?
Look, I don’t know what’s going on between Choi and Probolsky (except for, apparently, a campaign contribution that Probolsky might reasonably want back), but this is ridiculous. If you’re scheduled for a debate, especially with a moderator from your own party, you show up. If you feel like you’ve been trapped into it, then you show up anyway, even under protest, and calmly explain to the audience how you were jobbed. Not showing up at all (and letting the other two candidates have the stage) just looks weak. At this point in the campaign, one should be able to show up and make one’s case in a debate like this even without much preparation. If need be, one can always just avoid the moderator’s question and go into a tangentially related set piece. Even that’s better than not showing up.
Rather than fixing this next part in line, I’m just rewriting it in red.
A weird thing about the Council race is that the winner of the race (and I’m just going to presume that it will be Agran or Choi until some qualified pollster — not you, Probolsky! — says that Daigle has a chance) becomes Mayor and the losers … stays on Council for another two years of their term. That lowers the stakes a bit. But the importance of the Mayor’s race is not so much who wins — Agran is favored — as that to have a working majority Agran needs to be accompanied by the other two members of his slate: Democrat Beth Krom and No Party Preference candidate P.K. Wong. Election of all three would lead to an Agran, Krom, Wong majority while Choi and Lalloway would remain in the minority. Krom is expected to win. If Agran wins, Republicans need only one of the other two Council seats — the leading candidates being former Council Member Christine Shea and Tea Partier Lynn Schott — to join Choi and Lalloway in the majority.
So the Mayor’s race is important more as “leader of the ticket” than in its own right. Democrats want voters to learn the name “P.K. Wong” to keep their majority; Republicans want them to remember the names of former candidates Schott and Shea. If Wong beats them both, Democrats retain control; if not, Republicans take over the “Safest City” for the first time in 12 years.
I’m just going to presume that the winner of the Mayoral will be Agran or Choi until some qualified pollster — not you, Probolsky! — says that Daigle has a chance. Here’s what’s tricky. Choi is out if he loses, and most people seem to think that he will be replaced on Council by Christine Shea, a former Council figure with good name recognition, who is running on Choi’s slate. (Tea Parties Lynn Schott is also on the same slate.) Krom is expected to win re-election to her own seat. So the real battle is for the fifth and deciding seat on Council.
If Choi wins, Agran remains on Council for two more years. If Agran wins, his Council seat is vacated — and the third highest vote-getter gets his place. This mean that if Choi wins, he will have his Republican majority unless somehow Shea and Schott both lose. If Agran wins (as expected), though, he could become a minority Mayor unless someone he likes finishes third in the election. To have a working majority, Agran needs to be accompanied by the other two members of his slate: Democrat Beth Krom and No Party Preference candidate P.K. Wong. (Conceivably, another Agran-amenable candidate such as Quimby’s pick Gavin Huntley-Fenner could win, but I don’t see it happening.) So, presuming an Agran victory and discounting GHF and others for a moment, we’d see either an Agran/Krom/Wong majority with Lalloway and probably Shea in the minority or a Lalloway/Shea/Schott majority with Agran and Krom in the minority.
So, with all due respect to Steven Choi’s personal ambitions, the Mayor’s race is important more as “leader of the slate” than in its own right. Democrats want voters to learn the name “P.K. Wong” to keep their majority; Republicans want them to remember the names of former candidates Schott and Shea. If Agran and Krom win and Wong beats out one of them, Democrats retain control; if not, Republicans take over “America’s Safest City” for the first time in 12 years.
The wealthy and hard-core conservative Lincoln Club (a group of Orange County Republicans united to defile the memory of the 16th President, although I understand that they perceive themselves otherwise) is supposedly poised to spend up to $1 million to capture Irvine, which saucily stares at them from the middle of the monied coastal area, taunting them with its Not Republican status.
Agran has had to raise money in a frenzy to defend against this expected onslaught. He’s evidently doing well, but his success as Mayor hinges on being able to get Irvine residents to vote all of the way down the ticket for the whole “Irvine 2012 Team” slate — including the name that they may not recognize: “P.K. Wong.”
Whoops! Big mistake in your post.
If Choi loses the Mayor’s race, he is termed out and gone, mumbling into the darkness of some village of Irvine.
If Agran loses the Mayor’s race, he still has two years remaining on his term on the City Council.
Here’s another twist. When Agran wins, the remaining two years of his term is filled by the next highest finisher.
And you are making a mistake by failing to factor in Gavin Huntley-Fenner, the highly respected Irvine School Board member who is not on any team, yet stands a very good chance of winning.
Sorry — my mistake on Choi (if Agran wins, the concern is that that would allow Schott to sneak onto Council along with Shea); I’ll correct it.
I like Gavin H-F. If he were running either as a Democrat or as part of the “Irvine 2012” slate, I think he’d be as well or better situated to win to beat Shea (whom I expect to outpoll Schott) than Wong is, due to his being on the School Board. But he’s not on that slate, for whatever reason, and I don’t think that that position will outweigh the advantages of being part of the slate.
Note corrections in red.
Let me fill in a few gaps in this story. Adam Probolsky was Steven Choi’s Planning Commissioner and was fired for a conflict of interest. In addition, Adam Probolsky engineered a hit mailer on Lynn Schott the last two weeks of the 2010 election costing her enough voters so that Larry Agran beat her by 2,500 votes. Probolsky is more self-serving than he is Republican and has been tight with Agran backer Tim Strader going way back. Probolsky is not trusted, even though the Republican Party has endorsed and is working on behalf of Choi, Shea and Schott. This is why it was a Team decision that Steven not appear at the Forum. Frankly, it was a waste of time anyway with the softball questions posed by Probolsky. The only worthwhile part were the lies by Daigle when she was asked about her being the Agran “stealth candidate,” plaed to draw votes from Steven Choi. She and Agran both denied it and little did they know that today the OC Weekly would blow the top off their conspiracy. For additional on that story see:
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2012/10/larry_agran_patrick_strader_ka.php
As far as Agran’s money raising ability, he has done the same with Measure BB as he did in past years. Put an Initiative on the ballot which he supports, start an Independent PAC and that is where his large contributions go to get around the Irvine contribution limits. Before this election is over Agran will have collected a million dollars from the Teachers , Police and Public Employee Unions. Also will be massive donations from his political cronies, the “No Bid” contract holders at the Great Park and the “Pay ot Play” people who must do business with the City of Irvine. Irvine voters have already received six or seven glossy color brochures in their mailboxes all paid for by Measure BB, with the Chairman being Larry Agran. This is Agran’s method of operation and how he has kept the machine in power all thse years. Only problem this time around is he is into the mentality that the is above the law, gotten sloppy and made some serious mistakes. These mistakes may well cost him the election and control of the Council.
Last point, Gavin H-F is a pretty good looking candidate for a Democrat. He whould have been a great addition to the Agran Slate but my guess is that H-F has integrity and ethisc and refused to swear his bloood oath to Larry. He will likely pull some Democrat votes from the Agranista Slate, but I don’t see many Republicans voting for him.
If Agran has done anything illegal — which is what I presume you are insinuating with “is into the mentality that the is above the law, gotten sloppy and made some serious mistakes,” although your individual statements don’t quite add up to any charge of illegality — then I presume that his enemies will pursue it vigorously. I’m betting that he hasn’t.
As to the question of whether he’s being unethical — well, can one do what he’s doing by law, or not? Is it misrepresenting facts? Is it misleading voters? Violating some contractual agreement or formal understanding? Surely the party of Mitt Romney is in no position to complain about someone pushing the law right up to its boundaries (although in Mitt’s case, he doesn’t stop there.)
I do want to compliment you at being good at expressing what you do here — better, in my opinion, than our Vile Enemy Dancy is on the other side. (Sorry, Dan. Just my opinion — and it’s a matter of taste.) But you do lapse a bit when addressing the main thrust of my argument in the piece, which is that there’s just no way that Choi shouldn’t have shown up. We politicians have to take our lumps. Choi should have gone in there and challenged the premise of Pro Bowl’s questions if he had to. And to blame the decision to run away not on Choi, but on his “Team” — you know that that makes him look weak and diffident, right? (That was the lapse.)
I’d rehash the eternal arguments about Agran here yet again, but I must go off to slay a dragon.
Weak and diffident as he did during his most famous moment: when he wandered about outside the
2008Truman Dinner proudly sporting a Pelosi-as-Stalin banner that someone had glued to his back.2009. Hat-tip Dan. Seems like 2008.
Vern, I thought the display on the “Wicked Witch of the West” was very good. Wish I had gotten one of the T-shirts and gone to the protest myself. At least Steven Choi has the balls to stand up, say what he thinks and let the chips fall where they may. What Choi and the other conservatives did at that protest was lawful and nonviolent. Compare that to the many protests you Democrats launched against George Bush, when he was in office. Need I remind you that many of them resulted in acts of vilence by your union thugs. Bottom line is that while you paint Steven Choi as the candidate who is weak and diffident, he is the also the only one running for Mayor who is honest, doesn’t lie and has integrity.
“Violence by union thugs” — yeah, maybe violence to your delicate sensibilities. Meanwhile, corporate forces are literally killing workers, literally poisoning our water, literally using legal tricks (and illegal legal tricks) to eviscerate the middle class — but they’re not doing it “thuggishly,” so I suppose that’s OK with you.
Greg, I know yo will be much happier living under Obama’s new Socialist Republic of America, if it ever comes about. Then those big bad Corporations will all be gone, so will the unions and the masses will be running everything. Doubt however that you will make it into the Socialist Party heirarchy and under that system all that is left is the masses. Welcome to the masses Greg and you better hope they dont follow the scenario from Shakespear’s Henry VI , “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” Be careful what you wish for, because you might actually get it?
Yeah, yeah, that big socialist Obama. It’s hard to picture a point of view so far right that Obama looks Socialist to you. But I realize you have a lot of company…
BTW, I think Ltpar knows this, but I hope everyone else does: Despite what a thousand t-shirts say, Shakespeare never said “Lets kill all the lawyers” – that was a CHARACTER of his, Jack Cabe, a caricature of a populist rabble rouser.
I’m sorry, you must have wanted to speak to Cartoon Greg. I’m Real Greg. Real Greg not trying to destroy corporations and put unions in charge of anything; that’s Cartoon Greg. Real Greg wants basic good citizenship rather than larcenous piggishness from the corporations doing business here and he recognizes that power can corrupt unions as well as corporations — but Real Greg that doesn’t happen to be the problem that we’re having at this historical moment. Real Greg wants a political system that isn’t corrupt; he considers this a moderate and, well, realistic goal. He hates being confused with Cartoon Greg by people who barely know him, but he’s gotten used to it as the standards of political discourse continue to slide.
Real Greg also wants you to know that it wasn’t “the masses” in Henry VI who spoke that immortal line. It was thieves and knaves with an eye on claiming power. Here’s the relevant dialogue from Jack Cade and his follower Dick the Butcher in King Henry VI, Part II, IV, ii:
So I ask you: who wants to set themselves up as royalty in our society? Do you hear the 99% arguing for a worker’s dictatorship — or simply for fair and humane treatment? Do you hear the 1% arguing for fair treatment — or for MORE THAN fair treatment, in which they are allowed to be “too big to fail,” where they are insulated from the consequences of even their illegal choices, where none of them actually goes to jail (unless they turn against their class, like Bernie Madoff), where the system is rigged to allow them to buy political power by making politicians dependent on rich people’s money?
Your comment is very revealing. Yeah, they want to get rid of all impediments to justice, including lawyers like me, whom they don’t control. And you’re perfectly happy with that because you consider it freedom. Don’t worry, man; when American Stalinists set up their their control in your fever dream, I’ll be shot like the rest of the decent Bukharinists. Or, if you prefer, when we have our version of the French Revolution from your fever dream, I’ll end up like Danton. You, presumably, will accommodate yourself to power however the need dictates.
Be careful what analogies you use; I may understand them.
Greg, for my reading of your rants, I doubt you understand much of anything, at least in the real world. The only diference between you and me is that when those Obama American Stalinists, as you refer to them set up their agenda, you will still be negotiating that you are one of them and I will be in the streets fighting them.
I don’t think that the “Obama American Stalinists” will do much of anything, being fictitious and all.
When need be, I fight people to my left (although I don’t consider Stalinism “left”) as well as on my right. I don’t get accused often these days of being afraid of being willing to speak truth to power. Go off and enjoy your “Red Dawn” fantasy. Wolverines!