Watching the AD 73 race just keeps getting better and better!
Moderate Democrat Wendy Gabriella has shown the upside of running a candidate even in what may seem like an impossible district: you never know when the other side is going to implode. Or, better, EXplode! She’s run a low-budget race thus far, while building an impressive ground game and a thriving volunteer force. She seems to be a cinch to win the top spot in Tuesday’s primary. At one time, that looked like a “sacrificial lamb” position — but no more!
As with AD-65 in 2012, when people finally figured out that that district was competitive (something that OJB readers already knew), look for donors — including Republican-oriented ones — to start donating to Gabriella regardless of which of the two co-favorites for the other slot, Jesse Petrilla and Anna Bryson, is chosen to run against her in November. (Disclosure warning: Gabriella and I have become friends and I’ve offered her unpaid campaign advice. One of my daughters is her campaign treasurer — and stonily denies me any and all financial information about the Gabriella campaign until it’s public. Apparently, she has somehow learned that I blog.)
Petrilla, if he wins, is expected to take over Gubernatorial candidate Tim Donnelly‘s firebrand role in the State Assembly — although without Donnelly’s (relative to Petrilla, at least) gravitas and charm. As with the Governor’s race, where Neel Kashkari seems poised to go down to defeat despite a huge financial advantage, the traditional “Big Money” Republican faction of the party has been disorganized and weak. Bryson won the “Munger Primary,” meaning a half million or so independent expenditures helping her out. Unfortunately for Bryson, as with Charles Munger’s donations to Leslie Daigle in the AD-74 race (where he tried to knock off Allan Mansoor), the Munger money has come in late — and loud, so loud as to be a turn-off to many voters and a thumb-in-the-eye provocation to Petrilla’s highly engaged supporters.
Of the other two candidates, Bill Brough is the Chief of Staff to the district’s incumbent, ethically challenged Assemblywoman Diana Harkey, who seems to have the inside track in the Board of Equalization race. You would think that this would be enough to keep one’s head above the water against a School Board member and a violent videogame publisher, but apparently not: Brough has not been showing up at the sorts of obvious events one would expect. Despite fervent supports on the blogs, he no longer looks like a likely choice for the runoff — that’s what happens when you lose the Munger Primary.
In fact, it would not entirely surprise me to see Brough give into what I presume is enormous pressure to drop out of the race this weekend on Monday, humiliating and seemingly career-wrecking move (good luck with getting volunteers and donations and endorsements next time, Chief!) that it would seem to be — because even that may be viewed as better than being seen as they guy who let Petrilla win that second slot. (And, of course, if he does drops out, the rabid Petrilla supporters will hate him forever and ever and ever.)
The wisest course of action may simply for Brough to do what he’s been doing: to slow down a bit — stumble, but don’t actually withdraw. But the latter has become conceivable now — because here at the next to last minute that’s just what the fourth Republican candidate, Laguna Niguel’s Paul Glaab, has done.
This was released Friday afternoon, traditional dumping ground of news one wants to just get out of the way:
Local Community Leader and Former Laguna Niguel Mayor Paul Glaab Withdraws from 73rd Assembly Race
Endorses Anna Bryson and Encourages Supporters to Vote for Her on June 3rd
(Laguna Niguel, CA) Candidate for Assembly District 73 and former Laguna Niguel Mayor Paul Glaab releases the following statement regarding withdrawing from the 73rd Assembly District race:
After much consideration and discussion with my family, and due to recent health issues, I have decided to suspend my campaign for the 73rd Assembly District. I recently had a serious fall that caused a head injury, and will require an extended recovery that has been making it difficult to run a campaign. At this time I cannot continue to put the effort in to the race that will make my campaign successful. Therefore, I have decided to suspend my campaign.
I’ve spent over 30 years working for the people of Laguna Niguel and Orange County. But at this time, I have decided it is best to dedicate more time to my recovery – and when my health returns, to my family and to helping our local communities.
After deciding to withdraw, it was clear who to support—Anna Bryson. Anna has done so much for this community as an education reformer and leader. She will make a great Assemblymember. I would like to thank so many people who have worked and supported me during this campaign. I strongly encourage them to support Anna Bryson and keep this seat in GOP hands in November.
Paul was elected to the Laguna Niguel City Council in 2004, serving as the city’s Mayor in 2008 and in 2012. In December of 2006, Paul joined the Orange County Transportation Authority Board of Directors where he represented South Orange County’s Fifth District and was a member of the Regional Planning and Highways Committee. He served as Chairman of the Board in 2012.
Currently, Paul and his wife, Janice, own their own small business, Glaab and Associates, a public affairs firm in Orange County which Paul founded in 1999. He and Janice reside in Laguna Niguel where they are raising their daughter, Molly, who attends St. Anne School in Laguna Niguel.
I don’t like printing contact information for the people who put out press releases, because there are crazies out there, but Pedroza already has, so maybe someone can identify the people involved. (Glaab’s own people? Bryson’s? Munger’s?) Other than the last two paragraphs of boilerplate, this does not seem like something that Glaab produced himself; rather, it seems to have been pulled with a pair of tongs out of a steaming vat marked “Ready-Made excuses.” (I have no reason to think that Glaab didn’t experience a fall, for which he has OJB’s sympathy; I just think that if he had won the Munger Primary, he would not be dropping out. So his real reason for doing so is likely more like: “I’m not going to win and I’m getting a whole lot of pressure to fall in line and endorse Not-Petrilla.”)
Perhaps too late, though! Glaab had already bought up lots of slate mailers — they don’t come with erasers — and presumably already sucked up a lot of the early vote from OC’s only non-English-surnamed Laguna. And many more of those votes probably came from Bryson than Petrilla. Glaab may have withdrawn from the race, but the race has not withdrawn from Glaab!
Which leaves us, over the next three days before polls open, with one very OC question: “What now, Brough?”
Ha ha, Paul Glaab. How come you didn’t use the traditional picture of the beloved former Laguna mayor and OCTA Board Chairman?
I guess it’s not the end of the world if Petrilla or any of these other clowns won in November, but it WOULD be really cool if Wendy did. And I see how a Petrilla-Gabriella general election makes that likeliest. So I’m rootin for crazy gunslinging Jesse right now!
Oh, I think that with an election coming up and his claiming to be sidelined by health problems, your question answers itself.
As for the election: the Republicans are in trouble either way.
For one thing, though Gabriella is a political novice outside of academic politics (where she’s been head of the Irvine Valley College Academic Senate during some straining times), she has turned out to be a very good candidate. She’s knocked on an amazing number of doors while amassing the either most or second-most nomination signatures — in the state’s most Republican district. She has united Democrats, has great inroads into NPPs (having been one herself for a long time prior to the election), and (partly due to her role at IVC) has great inroads into the establishment Republican community, which is comfortable with her. So, yes, if Petrilla wins, she has a decent chance.
On the other hand, imagine what happens if Bryson gets the second spot — especially if (as likely) Donnelly goes up against Brown. With the three-way split vote between Bryson, Brough, and Glaab, Petrilla was well-positioned to win this thing. I won’t say that he’s done a GOOD job, as it hasn’t been to my taste, but it has been an EFFECTIVE one. If Bryson beats him, it will be primarily due to the fact that anti-Tea Party Charles Munger came down and anointed her with huge amounts of cash.
So: Pat Bates is settling in for what will likely be 12 years in the State Senate. Darrell Issa’s not going anywhere — and Rohrabacher’s seat would go to a bigger fish than Petrilla. So for Petrilla, for the next dozen years, it’s the Assembly or nothing. How do you think that he and his supporters will respond to “Contemptuous Charlie” Munger Munging them? Will they sit quiet and be good Republicans? Or will they realize that while Petrilla could beat Gabriella in 2016, he won’t be able to beat an incumbent Bryson — so it’s best to suffer through two years of Gabriella, smack Munger hard for meddling, and get ready to run in 2016?
Let’s just say that if Bryson goes up against Gabriella, and if we could look at ballots after the November election, I think that we’d find a whole lot of them marked for both Donnelly and Gabriella — because what they really care about, more than having a moderate Republican rather than a moderate Democrat in the Legislature, is sending a strong and clear message to Charlie Munger.
greg,
give me some of what you are smokin”
bryson next week
bryson in november
Bryson does have entertainment value. Have you ever heard her speak? The amateur thespian is perpetually Lady Macbeth reciting pentameter with a pained and fevered air and eccentric choice of words … and she’s not even old enough to be senile yet!
Damn… all those old CAPO recall videos have been taken down, or I’d show you.
This seems to give a small taste of how she … SPEAKS:
What do you think: Piper Laurie or Louise Fletcher?
There was better stuff out there before. I liked the one where she fretted about all the special interests out there “lurking in the shadows like … gorillas in the mist!” or something like that.
I’m nowhere near the district, so I don’t know either one, but after watching the video, I wonder if that old saying “If you can’t say anything nice about someone…” will get its ending changed to “…then it can’t be used against you in a later campaign!”
Brave words, anonymous commenter! We’ll see. Given how alienated people seem to be by the transparent election purchase, I’m not even sure that she makes the Top Two. Remember Leslie Daigle, the previous “beneficiary” of late Munger Money?
Anyway: I don’t smoke, unless I’m wearing something loose and I sit too close to the heater.
here is the deal,,,,,if anna does not make the top two, i will shed my annominity
Nice, but … I picture you as being like a Russian nesting doll, where underneath the anonymity you shed are several more layers of anonymity. But OK, you’re on. And if she does make the top two I’ll … congratulate the Chuckmunger!