2012 Election Day Live-Blog 2: Orange County Results!

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SOME LOCAL RACES WE’LL BE WATCHING LIKE HAWKS, starting around 9 or 10 tonight:

The Congressional race between Alan Lowenthal (our fave) and Gary DeLong, in the 47th district including Garden Grove, Westminster, Los Alamitos and thereabouts.

The Congressional race between Jay Chen (our fave) and racist incumbent Ed Royce, in the 39th district including Fullerton, Buena Park, La Habra, Brea, Placentia, and Yorba Linda.

The Assembly race between Sharon Quirk-Silva (our fave) and incumbent Chris Norby, up in the 65th district including Fullerton, Buena Park, some Anaheim, La Palma, Cypress and Stanton.

The Assembly race between the two Republicans Travis Allen (whom we’re secretly rooting for as the more honest underdog)  and Los Al Mayor Troy Edgar, in the 72nd District including northern HB, Fountain Valley, Westminster, Seal Beach, Garden Grove and Los Alamitos.

CITIES we’ll be watching like Falcons

COSTA MESA.  Will the residents of this troubled burgh accept or reject Riggy’s dictatorial new charter, with Measure V?  Will they choose a council of his “3M” allies, the anti-worker Monahan, Mensinger and McCarthy, or will they instead go with OUR moderate, pragmatist heroes, the TOP THREE NAMES ON THE BALLOT, Genis, Stephens and Weisburg?  This is Scott Baugh’s grand experiment in rightwing social engineering – will it continue with the imprimatur of Goat Hill’s people?

ANAHEIM.  Will Mayor Tait have a council majority to help him enact his essential reforms these next two years, or will he continue to be hamstrung by a council loyal to Curt Pringle, Disney, and the other local corporate interests?  IN OTHER WORDS, CAN JORDAN BRANDMAN BE KEPT DOWN TO THIRD PLACE – by Loes and Kring – or, less likely, Leos and Roberts or Kring and Roberts?  And how well WILL our blogger Duane Roberts do?  We are ALL OVER this one.

FULLERTON.  Me and Greg Diamond disagree on some things here.  We both want to see the defeat of Chevron’s Measure W.  We’d both like to see the extremist Bushala majority reduced to a minority, which in practice means that our dear webmaster Travis Kiger – a wonderful lovable guy but a bull in the council china shop – must be beat by three others.  But Greg thinks highly of Democratic candidate Jan Flory, and I most definitely do not.  I want to see the exemplary public servants Jane Rands and Barry Levinson get onto council, and see the defeat of Travis as desirable but not a life-and-death question as Greg does.  We’re watching this one hell of closely – keep your eyes here!

In HUNTINGTON BEACH we are watching and rooting for the DEFEAT OF MEASURE Z, Don Hansen’s parting drown-the-government-in-your-bathtub measure.  And we’re cheering for Council candidates Jill Hardy (who has recently been the subject of such hateful mailers) and Jim Katopodis.  Realistically – if Jill Hardy got in, and Dave Sullivan got back in, replacing Keith Bohr and Don Hansen, and Devin Dwyer managed to hang on, it wouldn’t be SUCH a bad council.  Jill would be a better Dem and environmentalist than Keith, and Dave would be more moderate than Don.  I could live with that.  But Dave’s a homophobe, I’m just saying.

In ORANGE we are rooting for the defeat of Matt Cunningham’s Measure FF which will allow his crooked developer friends to pave over a bunch of open space out there.

In the CAPISTRANO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT we are rooting for the Children First candidates that you can see off to your right – Hanacek, Alpay, McCormick and Pritchard.  And I’m especially rooting for the end of this election so I can take down all these damn ads.

And in SANTA ANA we’re vaguely rooting for this “revolution” and David Benavides, we’re so tired of Pulido running so many things in this county.  Is this even in the cards?  We don’t know…

Keep your eyes on the OJ for the latest on all of the above!  And let us know what you hear as well, ok?

UPDATES 11 pm!

With the small numbers of precincts reporting, the Orange Juice can confidently prognosticate that:

Costa Mesa has rejected the Riggy Charter (Measure V) – although their choice of Council candidates is a real mixed bag so far – with the great Sandy Penis Genis leading, followed by all the three M’s, and Stephnes nipping at their heels – he’ll have to leapfrog over both MCarthy and Monahan – but hey, they’re both midgety aren’t they?  So we’ll see.

In Huntington Beach – I’m really liking how the council race is turning out SO far with Jill Hardy leading despite all the nasty attacks on her, moderate Republican Dave Sullivan at #2, and OUR SECOND FAVORITE Mr. Katopodis at #3!  But the government-busting Measure Z is tight as a tick – we’re rooting for it to fail, and it’s a little ahead right now.

Happy to report that Fullerton is soundly rejecting Chevron’s Measure W!  Their council race is much less to my liking – in fact it’s turning out pretty much exactly as Diamond predicted – Whitaker on top, the pointless Fitzgerald #2, and Travis and Jan Flory battling it out for #3. MY favorite candidates are currently down at #6 and 8, despite the fact that they’re the anti-W candidates.   I REALLY don’t like Jan Flory.  But I suppose the SAFE thing sanity-wise is for her to beat the extremist Travis.  But that really means the end (temporarily anyway) of the Fullerton revolution.  Either way is very sad.

ORANGE is going well with the voters rejecting Cunningham’s FF development measure, and our recommended candidates ahead – Mayor Tita, and Councilmembers Murphy and Alvarez.  Now THAT all fits in together, unlike these other confusing towns.

WE CAN ALSO SAY with moderate confidence that Travis Allen has handed Troy Edgar’s ass to Troy Edgar, in the 72nd AD race.  Let me rephrase it – the OJ is calling that race for Travis – the feisty underdog that we backed!

The Chen-Royce race was no contest, despite Jay’s great campaign – in this case the money and the lies won, and Royce creamed his opponent as he always does.

We’re also gonna go ahead and call the 47th congressional race for Alan Lowenthal, as he leads his opponent by 5% with half the precincts reporting.  We’ll let you know if we have to change that.

CLOSE CLOSE CLOSE – In AD 65 Norby is ahead of Quirk-Silva by only 1%, with half the precincts reporting … we will keep our fingers crossed on that one.

ANAHEIM.  Ah, Anaheim. It’s looking like Kring and Brandman.  UGH.  How did Leos fall so far behind?  I had heard of polling that had him at #1.  But there are very few precincts left, for him to cover the missing 5000 plus he needs to beat Brandman.  Looks like another two years of frustration for OC’s biggest city and their reformist Mayor.  Congratulations to Lucille and Jordan, and I hope Jordan turns into a better councilman than many of us fear.  I mean, like, independent.  And at least keeps his promises to Los Amigos.

*******  half an hour later ********

FULLERTON – Travis has jumped past Flory – by 31 votes, but eleven precincts still out.  Greg must be having a stroke.  And I’m glad to see in Costa Mesa that John Stephens has now hopped over McCarthy and only needs to skip over the leprechaun Monahan to achieve a sane City Council.  He’s got a little over 300 votes to make up in the nine uncounted precincts, to pull that one off.

A mixed bag in SANTA ANA.  The Good Government initiative GG is totally kicking ass, as is new Councilman Roman Reyna.  Pulido is proving as unbeatable as ever though, boasting nearly twice the votes of reformist challenger Benavides.  Other councilpersons will be Angelica Amezcua and a returning Sarmiento.  This DOES mean Pulido no longer controls a majority, right?

What will I be checking obsessively now?  The HB candidates.  HB’s Measure Z.  The Costa Mesa race.  The “race within a race” between Flory and Kiger determining Fullerton’s future of madness or mediocrity.  The Norby – QuirkSilva race.

*******NEARLY MIDNITE**********

HOLD THE PHONES …. Quirk-Silva has just sprinted past Norby!  By only 400 votes, but Chris is running out of precincts to catch up!  WOW!!  Does this help us get the assembly or what?

All you Diamond-haters, he’s not doing quite as bad as you all thought, up at 42% with what he admits was not much of a campaign for himself.  He’s my buddy – I gotta look out for him…

GOOD WESTMINSTER NEWS JUST AFTER MIDNITE

I’d been ignoring Westminster because my favorite Diana Lee Carey (heroine of the 405) was trailing … but something happened when we weren’t looking, and now she’s at a strong #2, with fellow Dem Sergio Contreras on top.  And Tri Ta totally kicking ass as Mayor.  These three were current Mayor Margie Rice’s choice – and she’s been the best, most independent Republican you’ve ever met.  Hope Diana keeps up her lead over Tyler Diep…

FULLERTON is DONE.  Whitaker/Fitzgerald/Kiger, Kiger beating Flory by a mere 76 votes.  People are gonna be so mad at me… But still, I don’t think Travis is as terrible and dangerous as they do, and nor do I think at all highly of Flory.  Good luck to Fullerton, and congratulations on your rejection of Chevron.  Hey, what’s up with your frickin schizophrenia anyway, putting Chevron whores in the TOP FIVE SLOTS?

NOW SHARON HAS WON .. as Diamond announces in comments below.  This is big.  Worth thinking about, tomorrow.

COSTA MESA, 12;20.  SHIT.  That slithery leprechaun Monahan has just snuck past Stephens again.  Why is he even running, he’s so obviously .. not in physical or mental shape for it any more.  At least he won’t have a charter to help him screw up the city worse…. and let’s see…. still nine more precincts and he’s 300 votes ahead, could switch back…

You know, I’ve been ignoring Irvine… but this is big

Half-past-midnight – the Indestructible Larry Agran has been destroyed by mumbling Stephen Choi, who is now the new Irvine Mayor.  Everything’s topsy-turvy – remember how the Orange Juice Oracle warned us about Mercury in retrograde?  It’s possible that *Art Pedroza* was right when he warned that candidate Daigle was taking away more votes from Larry than from Dr. No.  Wow… what does this mean?  I haven’t been following Irvine.  And Dan C will e-mail me to say I’m a retard if I get anything wrong…. Krom, Shea, Schott on Council – that makes a Republican majority, doesn’t it?  I mean, I sort of don’t like that as a Democrat… but the town of Irvine IS mostly Republican, isn’t it?  And maybe Larry DOES need some time out of office for once in decades.  And if one of the Republicans is Lalloway … he was the quickest with the Sparkle Fingers when we did Occupy down there….

OK, I may be getting slap-happy at this late hour,  so many good things have happened … from Obama re-elected, Senators Warren, Sherrod Brown and Tammy Baldwin elected, Prop 32 defeated, Sharon QS in the assembly…. I should probably go to sleep but let me go see what more there is in HB and CM…

AND NOR Should I have gone to sleep, look at my Huntington Beach:

Z is now NO (by over 500 votes), and Katopodis has not only kept third place but leapt over Sullivan to 2nd.

SO!  A majority Democratic/environmentalist council in HB – I don’t think we even dreamed of that.  So now, whenever Sullivan, Harper and Carchio want to, they can just give in and get along with the great new majority of Joe Shaw, Connie Boardman, Jill Hardy and Jim Katopodis.  And Atlas PAC?  Fuck you very much.

About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist/composer in Orange County, and official political troubadour of Anaheim and most other OC towns. Regularly makes solo performances, sometimes with his savage-jazz band The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.