Anaheim is about to have a big election year. You guys are looking at:
- Charter Revisions
- District Elections
- Angel Lease Negotiations
- Two Council positions
- And a heated three-way race for Mayor
These are all important issues with multiple themes intersecting through billions of tax dollars, debt, pensions, and a vision for Anaheim’s future. The task for candidates attempting to address the electorate on any of the big ticket issues in Anaheim will take months and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on glossy mailers and full page ads in the Register. Factor in a run at potentially breaking the Democrat’s super-majority in the state legislature and you’ve got yourself a 1000-layer political cake complete with cherry chip frosting.
One could host a forum a day covering a unique issue affecting an Anaheim voter without ever discussing anything without a potential impact spanning more than five years, having a cost lower than $1,000,000, or actually dealing with life and death issues impacting the community.
That is, unless you’re Dan Chmielewski of the Liberal OC.
Dan has posted two Anaheim blog posts in four days. He also broke the news of Lori Galloway’s official campaign opening on Tuesday.
He had four whole days plus a weekend to prepare the stage for Galloway’s grand arrival. With the hundreds of issues that could potentially resonate with an Anaheim voter – pension reform, districts, city-wide equality, city-wide unity, parks and recreation, libraries, police oversight, free speech rights at council meetings, civility, Anaheim Stadium lease, the role of local government in the economy . . . what does he pick?
0.01% of a contract deal for a hotel in Garden Grove and what happened to 0.0001% of the General Fund in 2013.
Really heavy stuff.
I hope Lorri Galloway is paying attention. Not only did Chmielewski squander a golden opportunity to set the tone for the entire first half of the campaign season, but he managed to do such a poor job defending his own fascination with microscopic issues through blatant distortion that he managed to detract actual real attention away from Galloway’s announcement. Total comments on her campaign announcement on the site breaking the story: Z-E-R-O. Comments on the other two stories he published? Rollin’ up on 100. Good job, Dan-o.
There’s only one explanation for this: The Chmielewski Effect. It’s only known to occur in a dark corner of Larry Agran’s basement, but it is quite debilitating: You see, somebody who is suffering from the Chmielewski Effect loses the ability to distinguish what pieces of reality are relevant, has an uncontrollable desire to regurgitate the semantic, and will be so desperate to win an argument that he or she may actually challenge someone to “whip out” something, anything, to see whose is larger during a comment exchange.
Let’s all hope that Dan gets the care he needs to become an active and responsible contributor to society. In the meantime, here’s what he should have done. (Not the photo, but the analysis beneath it.)
In happier times — judging from the face at the bottom it was around 1989 — Lorri Galloway sits on some sort of sleigh in front of Anaheim Stadium. Standing next to her in this faked photo (adapted from one from her new website): her competition for Mayor, Tom Tait and Lucille Kring.
Anaheim’s mayoral race breaks down to one thing: Leadership. Simply put, who can string together THREE VOTES on Anaheim’s city council in 2015.
Tom Tait: Popular Republican incumbent, but politically isolated on the council. Mayor Tait needs to demonstrate not just the superiority of his positions, but that he can actually bring two votes with him in 2015.
That’s it. No more, no less. To demonstrate leadership, the mayor needs to find two more votes on the council– either through reconciliation or by bringing two council candidates with him on a ticket. He gets those and he’s in. He doesn’t and he’s probably out.
Lucille Kring: Well-funded Republican, but deficient in trust and vision. Kring finds herself in the awkward position of having to defend votes she cast that contradict the promises she made to get elected. Furthermore, voters know exactly what they’re going to get with Kring: her accomplishments while on council might as well be a list of new ways she’s found to spend taxpayer money. It’ll be more of the same as she represents the sitting majority who have made their intentions quite clear: public tax dollars to the well-connected using the premise of an economic impact study to justify the expense. We’ve seen it before . . . we’ll see it again.
To demonstrate leadership, Kring needs to find a way to convince voters that she’ll actually follow through on her promises this time around and while not being an unenthusiastic representation of 20th century Anaheim. Voters won’t pick a leader they can’t trust and who has no original thought. That’s a tough problem to fix – but she’ll have the money to make an attempt and lying isn’t necessarily a death sentence for a politician in America, let alone Anaheim.
Lorri Galloway: Populist Democrat, but ALSO hampered by political isolation . . . Galloway wants voters to believe that she represents a fresh start, an opportunity to recapture some civility lost in the last two years. Considering she’s taken similar if not identical positions to the mayor regarding the city’s most contentious issues (Gardenwalk Giveway, districts, Angels negotiations) it’s impossible to believe that anything would actually change if she were mayor. In fact, the same majority that opposes Mayor Tait stripped Galloway of her Mayor Pro Tem title as a consequence of supporting the Mayor on a contentious issue.
To demonstrate leadership, the ex-Mayor Pro Tem needs to, like Mayor Tait, find two more votes on the council. However, unlike Mayor Tait, Galloway also has to convince whoever she allies with that she won’t stab them in the back when it becomes politically expedient to do so.
*****
Galloway took the first shot at demonstrating leadership with the roll out of her campaign platform today. (www.lorrigalloway.com and associated social media feeds.) Her platform is sweet (Create, Commit, Collaborate,) and she’s making it clear that she’s making it a priority to demonstrate a connection with real people who have real problems in Anaheim. She wants to run a campaign for Anaheim in 2025, one that makes the mayor personal, not political, for everyone in Anaheim.
I think it works. She’s going to attack the populist vote while attempting to retain as many Brandman-brand Democrats as possible. Can she ride this type of strategy to the mayor’s seat on the dais? Yeah, it’s possible.
Can she do anything after she gets there? Nope. Not with this.
If I’m a voter in Anaheim, and I’m not, this is all very pretty and inspirational – there’s plenty of what Galloway wants to do and why she wants to do it. But, there is absolutely nothing on how she’s going to get anything done or what she’s done in the last year to prevent some pretty awful council decisions from occurring. Zip.
Nothing on what she’s doing RIGHT NOW to make changes to the city’s Charter to help business grow.
Nothing on what she’s doing RIGHT NOW to prevent giving away the city block’s worth of land around Anaheim’s biggest public asset and source of pride — Angel Stadium — for one dollar a year.
Nothing on what she’s doing RIGHT NOW to make the case for single member districts so residents can make a choice that suits them and their neighbors best.
Nothing on who she’s bringing with her RIGHT NOW on the (de facto) Democratic ticket to break up the existing majority.
Nothing on what she’s been doing ALL OF LAST YEAR to prevent an abusive council majority from stripping Anaheim taxpayers dry.
Nothing on why she left Anaheim’s mayor hanging out to dry to defend the city’s best interests for ALL OF LAST YEAR.
Nothing . . . not one word on where she’s been the year Anaheim needed her most.
BUT, and it’s a big but– it’s not even February. Lorri Galloway has nine months to explain where she’s been the last twelve. It better be good, but it would be better if she had started explaining her case . . . right now.
*****
Dan– you should have spent your four days talking about what Lorri Galloway is doing RIGHT NOW to make Anaheim better. Instead, you let the Chmielewski Effect get the better of you.
Too bad. Maybe next time you’ll just whip it out instead of talking about the little things.
Is she’s smart she won’t put her dog Bella’s private parts on display.
http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2010/poor-bella/
Nice article Ryan!
Rising above partisanship yet acknowledging its saturation of that city in particular. I wish reform could unite these candidates to measurable improvements for the community.
And yeah, Chmielewski is the best PR the blogosphere in OC can provide? Not great.
PR is a joke. Substanceless spin and bullshit by smart alecky nimrods.
Heres an ide if a product (politician, food stuff, public project) is worth its salt why would you need to spin it with PR? Especially one run out of a garage in an Irvine subdivsion.
Heres an idea: be honest! No dogs, props or silly promises. Guess what? You’ll win.
Dan C. is a bully, plain and simple.
He has removed contributors from theLiberalOC for daring to write critically of candidates he supports with those “big checks” he brings up regularly.
He promises campaigns positive coverage in return for “exclusives” from them, in hopes that early information will drive up his all important readership numbers at the blog.
He banned me for using the word “penis”.
Clearly, I touched on a sensitive issue.
Bad, bad boy.
But really, that poor schmoe is such a loser he’s really no worth bothering with.
I do find it amusing that Pringle’s allegedly conservative crew are feeding anti-Tait material to this drone to publish on his “liberal” blog, only to be regurgitated by Cunningham – the guy who most likely gave it to him in the first place.
Oops. I mean “Anaheim Insider,” heh heh.
Clearly someone who could feed 450 hungry children with his dining room furniture, and is a progressive democrat gives THOUSANDS of dollars to charity?
WTF?? if this guy steps on his dick any more he will become Matt Cunningham.
* Note to the guardian of all that is good, honest and fair on the internet, Greg Diamond. My handle is a joke, in jest an attempt at humor. It is not some diabolical scheme to undermine society using a phony name, like Joe Hill or “Editorial Staff” . Please permit this exception.
Would last nights Council Meeting become another MIA report for the list above? If not at least being able to advise fellow Dem Jordan Brandman about the sense and courtesy of staying home when he’s sick, would Galloway at least have offered support for his effort at nailing the party plank of support for the um, undocumented? Now, we’ll never know, and neither is the “Issues” page of the shiny new website any help. Darn.
Oh, I’ll be getting to that one, BB.
Poor Dan C. has reached a critical TRIPLE DERANGEMENT POINT, because three of his most sacred cows have simultaneously come under attack:
— Matthew Cunningham — brother ‘wordsmiths’ have to stick together, irrespective of party or credo. An attack on one is an attack on all!
— Angels Baseball — how dare the people of Anaheim seek to deviate the city from its highest and best purpose, which is providing a large flat expanse for the Los Angeles Angels to make sport?
— Lorri Galloway — when will the people of Anaheim (again with those ungrateful bastards!) finally realize that Lorri Galloway is one of the most gifted and emphatic politicians of our generation, and provide her with the career springboard that she needs in order to become the next Loretta Sanchez or Hillary Clinton?
Think about how you would feel if day after day brought harsh attacks against everything that you believe in and hold dear, and realize that Dan C. deserves only our pity, not scorn and mockery.
I don’t think that Galloway is one of his sacred cows. (Jordan Brandman, yes — and that may be what drives the other two.) But you’ve left out his most sacred cow of all — Irvine’s Great Park and (more to the point) the “PR Professionals” behind it. Luckily, at least that’s not under attack, so far as I can recall … hmm, maybe I’d better check my notes. … Oof.
He’s MADE her one of his sacred cows more recently, in his passion to prove himself a “better Democrat” than you.
“Greg, if you don’t agree with me, you should just resign. Huff huff huff, I blow your house down now.”
No, it’s if I don’t agree with *Jordan*.
And stop saying “Huff” to me, Ryan. 😉
If he’s just doing it in order to weaken Tait so as to bolster Jordan (and the “Business Democrats” more broadly), then she’s less a “sacred cow” to him than a “useful tool.”
So far as I know, he secretly (or maybe not so secretly) wants Kring to win. That would explain him focusing fire on Tait, in a way that makes Galloway look bad (or at least receive blame for his numbskullery), while he leaves Kring out of the fracas. It would be uncharacteristically clever of him.
Why would he want Galloway to win? She opposes every major deal he supports.
So, either Dan is stabbing his party in the back by getting Kring elected . . .
OR
He’s negating every major position he’s taken a public stance on in Anaheim to support an official simply based on party ID.
Super.
Anyway, we’ll need to wait and see who she brings on a ticket with her. She already blew a huge opportunity to align with Tait to break the current majority . . . she had better have the political clout to rectify that error or we’re going to make her look really, really silly.
But hey, if she brings the heat . . . maybe we’ll have ourselves a race where people debate real issues and propose inspired solutions. Sure beats debunking the latest product of the Chmielewski Effect.
OR — he thinks that Disney and the Angels can convince her to switch positions once elected, i.e., to “pull a Kring.” That’s one of the ways I think he’s damaging her with his warm, enveloping, crushing embrace — it leads people to wonder why he DOES prefer her to Kring.
And, let’s be fair — she’s good on districting and she’s very good on police misconduct. Surely Dan doesn’t disagree with those. Right?
“We” making her silly doesn’t include me. I’m not going to go after Galloway, though I know that others around here can and will. I have more than enough to keep me busy this year going after Kring and Murray. (And Eastman, but I don’t think I’d mind her quite so much in the minority on the Council.)
Fair point. I should have been clear that “we” does not include you, and probably doesn’t include Vern either.
Nonetheless, if Galloway doesn’t bring some friends to the party, it’s going to look sad.
You should mind Eastman just as much.
I will not lie, cheat, or steal, and I will not tolerate those who do.
She tolerates it.
Nahh — if the other four people in the City Council were voting the other way, she’d do the same. Has she ever been a minority of one on anything? A minority of two, even? Longtime Council watchers — weigh in!
Oh, Dan C. luuuuuuurves him some Lorri Galloway — so much so that if I were Mrs. Dan C., I’d be embarrassed. And he’s felt this way for quite some time; if you go back into the LibOC archives (not that I recommend that, for health reasons), you can find examples of the tonguebaths that he was giving her five years ago as she was gearing up to run for the Board of Supervisors. The prospect of Galloway running for something is one of the very few things that can make Dan acknowledge Anaheim’s existence.
As for Galloway standing in the way of an Angels deal were she to become Mayor, I predict that her principled opposition would last for exactly as long as it would take the kleptocracy to find a shiny object to distract her. (“Look, Lorri! The Stadium Towers project will have five hundred luxury fieldview skyboxes — and five market-rate affordable units! And in the basement, they’ve earmarked a space for a computer center for at-risk youth!”) Then having wrangled these Important Concessions on behalf of The People, she can declare victory and the Angels deal will pass on a 5-0 vote, replacing the bitter divisions of the Tait Era with a Kumbayah spirit of unanimity. Win-win!
(“Why isn’t the computer lab in the plans anymore? Sorry, the mechanical room for the car elevators needed a little extra space …”)
Biff, I do believe you are correct. I seem to remember him falling all over himself trying to “prove” that she actually lived in that little place in Five Points (after she obviously faked two other addresses over on Lincoln). He wanted us to believe that the thrift store furniture and family pictures proved something. Too bad he didn’t check out the empty medicine cabinet. Well, maybe he did.
But Bella knows the truth!
http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2010/poor-bella/
One hopes that the first thing that Galloway’s new $4K political consultant did was break her video camera.
(For her sake, at least. For our sake — and Anaheim’s — I hope not.)
All right, I admit it — I laughed out loud.
I should say … in the last, or maybe next-to-last, friendly conversation I had with LoGal, I said something like, “Ha, too bad that ridiculous jackass Dan Chmielewski is cheerleading so much for you, that must be embarrassing eh?” And there was a silence on the other end. And I said, “Oh, is he your friend?” And LoGal said, “Yes, he is.”
And then it was MY turn to be silently confused, as my mind slowly went through all the things she’s opposed that he’s cheered for, including Jordan Brandman.
I wonder if she’ll ever distance himself from ANY of his ridiculousness. I’m starting to doubt it.
Her urge to act and appear teenagish is troublesome. There is certainly an underlying ambition, but that goes for all politicians. But the shallowness? That observation is not anti-female it’s just being honest.
This woman is 60 years old.
So what? Look, no offense intended, but you don’t get it. You’re not going to get it, and so be it, but don’t pretend that there could not possibly be something there to get. Some coquettery in a good cause — so long as there are brains and steel behind it — is perfectly fine. It’s not troublesome, it’s just not to your taste.
Knowing Sharon pretty well and knowing Loretta passably well, your notion that they (and Galloway) are shallow, let alone pea-brained, is laughable. Seriously. If I put on my partisan hat, then I suppose that I can be happy that men in the political opposition don’t see it, but at some point I’d just want to shake you hard enough to wake you up. “Feminine” and “girly” — regardless of age — does not in the least equal “dumb” or “dismissable.” If you don’t want to believe it, that’s your business, but I’m doing you a favor by saying it to you. It’s not, as I suppose you imagine, because I want it to be that way (though I do); it’s because, like it or not, it is that way.
Dan is exactly what many politicians think that a political blogger should be: a PR professional interested only in selling and willing to bend the truth into 17-dimensional space in order to do so, but whose audience is essentially made of politicians and their sycophants, and who doesn’t have an iota of the spirit of a social critic. It’s about as anti-populist a view as can be.
I do like and respect Lorri — and maybe she’ll win. (I suppose that the plan is to do so by scaring Tait out of the race with the zippy website (and who knows, maybe that will work.) But listening to PR-minded sychophants is not going to help her much.
Dan’s cri de couer — which will forever be able to be found on this website by searching for the word “caramba” — should serve as a lesson to all OC politicians about what the PR-minded set think:
I know that some around here don’t like Larry Agran, but I do, and I truly wish that he had gotten a look at that spine-chilling paragraph before he’d allowed the first Great Park contract to be signed with Forde & Mollrich, because it is a downright manifesto for the PR industry declaring its middle-man status to be truly indispensable — and I wish that he had treated the arrogant and avaricious public manipulation industry with the caution that one should always reserve for rabid dogs and vampires. Same advice gies to Lorri. Use them — but then don’t forget to abuse them.
Ryan: “…if Galloway doesn’t bring some friends to the party, it’s going to look sad.”
Do Bella, Mr. Bonkers and Glenda the Giraffe count?
http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2010/poor-bella/
I suspect that Galloway is happy to see you posting those links, David. If she’s looking for the women’s vote there’s little more likely to turn it out than some vintage FFFF tom-cattiness.
You won’t believe me, of course, so this is just a marker for my prediction. You’ll be sorry with how that gambit plays out.
Hmm. I wonder. I think for pure teenage-worthy silliness that video borders on the sublime.
I’m not talking about the video. I tremble before its mighty power. I’m taking about the comments. For those not among the snarlocenti, they are offputting. This is something, I realize, where you and I are speaking different languages (with different alphabets), so you’ll just have to take my word on the sincerity of my opinion and wait for Cynthia or some other woman to check in and decide who’s right.
Now how come you always start this “sexist” talk when the discussion centers on pea-brained lady Democrats (Quirk, Sanchez, Galloway, etc.) but never when you (or I) are ragging on pea-brained Republican women (Eastman, Murray, Harkey, Pauly, etc.)?
It is dismaying. Who are the women politicians with bigger-than-pea brains? There must be some.
In fact, Sanchez and Galloway like to come off all cute and cuddly, but they can both get down into real details and nitty-gritty when it’s time to.
This here is why I think that Sarah Palin is such a political litmus test. She really is incapable of that sort of real analysis (and of the will to engage in it.) Loretta, Sharon, Lorri — Hillary — are not like that at all.
I don’t know why Republicans keep wanting to hand us that major political advantage of having smart (even if girly) women in our political leadership, Vern, but if they serve that hysterical blindness up to us on a platter it’s fair that we nibble on it to our hearts’ content.
I missed the challenge at the end, so let me take that on. I don’t know Harkey or Pauly well, but I don’t think that Eastman, Murray, or Kring are “pea-brained.”
Murray, at her best, can apparently talk serious policy — which is one reason why it is so troublesome that, much of the time, she is knowingly trying to bullshit her audience. She’s just over her head when being asked to shoulder the field commander responsibility for the Pringle Ring, which is why she so often comes off as robotically programmed.
Kring is not dumb at all, but her ambition gets the better of her. Consider this, though — if not for the historical accident of (1) Tait turning out to have principles and (2) this suddenly activated peanut gallery of ours getting more and more attention, she probably WOULD be getting away with what she’s been doing. She just hasn’t adapted to the reality of being under the microscope.
As for Eastman, I seem to have one of the more positive estimates of her around here. She’s a good natural politician from the dais (which, for example, Murray is not) and while she may not be very deep she’s also navigating the waves pretty well. With a different Council, she could probably be a pretty decent contributor — a Wendy Leece type — but standing up to the Pringle Ring (even as it apparently dismisses her) is pretty daunting and she doesn’t seem to be up to it. But that’s different from being pea-brained.
Pauley isn’t pea-brained either, so far as I can tell — she just made the mistake of speaking out loud what a lot of people in her circle think publicly, and thus gave her enemies within the GOP a good reason to jettison her.
Meanwhile, I find some Republican electeds (or recent officeholders) to be pretty impressive thinkers. Having watched Pat Bates and Carolyn Cavecche on the OCTA Board, they seemed to have a better grasp of what was going on than most of the men. But I am proud that, on our blue team, we have the likes of Diana Carey — who may like a girly dress but when it comes to policy has a mind like a Swiss watch with machetes for hands.
Diana Carey, Sandy Genis, Debbie Cook, Connie Boardman, Jill Hardy … all smarter than 90% of men in politics.
Bates in not an impressive thinker. Actually not impressive in any way I have discerned.
I don’t think Eastman or Murray have a clue beyond whatever nonsensical pseudo-technical jargon is put in front of them to repeat.
But to the point: please go back and review some of your past comments about Republicans.
The “girly” thing is sexist. For those who do it and for those who tolerate it.
I don’t discern between R or D, M or F when it comes to really understanding what’s going on.
Feminine dress is … sexist? Acting in a way that is appealing to others is … sexist? I think that you’re speaking from a privilege position there.
My opinion of Bates derives from watching her take part in the discussion of the toll roads, where she (more than many others) seemed to know what was going on and have good, and apparently not scripted-in-advance, questions to ask. So I was duly impressed. That’s a limited sample of her thinking, admittedly.
I think that Murray knows what’s going on — which is why she’s fairly adept (in content if not presentation) at lying about it.
To me. ME. This is an interesting thread. I openly BASHED SQS for her communication skills during her campaign. Greg argued, I insisted that this women could not string two sentences together.
As it turns out I was wrong. once she excreted herself from the classroom and the CRAZY, CRAZY world that is the elementary school environment in California she began to make sense, more and more over the months.
Not immune to political mistakes (POSIEDEN) and the occasional slight to her constituents, she has drunk the fluid well and is doing what is expected. Surprising even me.
Loretta Sanchez on the other hand……..I have sat next to, near and with the Congresswoman more than a few times on trans continental flights. Even went to a “Dead” show where here and Linda were. I have conversed with her frequently as a neighbor, a constituent and supporter. But, I would NEVER include her communication abilities among her strong suit.
I wish I had the gumption to tell her that she is an embarrassment to young Latina women on this front. I will admit, that public speaking is no longer getting elected. Just like policy, race or experience.
BUT, GOOD TIT’S HELP!
Say what you will, gormless, but I’ve heard her speak plenty of times and she’s good at it. If you or other men can’t get past the bodice and the skirts, underestimate her as much as you want. She won’t care; to her, you’re nameless.
“Feminine dress is … sexist? Acting in a way that is appealing to others is … sexist?”
That’s not what I said.
Doing the “I’m just a girl” routine is what I’m talking about. Mr. Bonkers and Glenda the Giraffe know what I’m talking about: I’m afraid that in Galloway’s case it’s not an act.
Maybe we’re just not going to be able to communicate here, but my problem with your comment (leaving aside the truth of what you assert) is that what you see as age-inappropriate girlish behavior can be termed “sexist,” rather than, I don’t know, something like “playing into a sexist stereotype.”
Maybe an analogy will help: if an African-American woman chose to show up wearing a boubou made of kente cloth and sporting newly cornrowed hair — you’re entitled to your own disdainful opinion of her appearance, if you must, although you might have to expect some negative feedback if you expressed it openly.
But I just don’t see how you’d be entitled to say that her dressing that way is “racist.” That just seems weirdly misplaced.
Back to Lorri: not many women in their 60s can get away with wearing what you may consider age-inappropriate fashion. I think that she’s among the lucky exceptions. That may make you cringe, perhaps — but is it even possibly “sexist”? I just don’t see how.