“(Bilod)Eauver There, Eauver There”: If you weren’t in THOSE trenches, then you weren’t in ANY trenches!
From Chris Nguyen’s latest (but not necessarily final) report on the OCGOP endorsements, all eyes turn to Fullerton:
Mark McCurdy speaks about Sean Paden’s city service and conservative principles.
Fred Whitaker states that the Endorsements Committee made a decision to not recommend Sean Paden or Larry Bennett since there are more Republicans than seats.
Thomas Gordon says the Republican team of Bruce Whitaker and Greg Sebourn have endorsed Sean Paden and that the Republican Party needs to send Whitaker and Sebourn a teammate in Paden.
Shawn Nelson says he agrees with Fred Whitaker. He says he has not endorsed either candidate. He says neither have been in the trenches.
TJ Fuentes moves and John W. Briscoe seconds to endorse no one (other than Greg Sebourn who was endorsed on the consent calendar).
NO SECOND ENDORSEMENT FOR FULLERTON CITY COUNCIL.
(Emphasis and double-emphasis mine.) The discussion area is now open. FFFF alumni, take it away!
About Greg Diamond
Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that.
Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too.
He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.)
His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)
Good for McCurdy and Gordon. How can these “there are 3 Republicans” guys even think of Bennett as a Republican? He is a Police Union guy, and he was instrumental last election in getting Jan Flory in. Weak…. sorry Paden.
Funny. I don’t recall seeing Mr. Nelson in a trench recently in Fullerton.
It’d be the least he could do. After all, we’re still cleaning up the mess from problems created on his watch.
But perhaps I’m mistaken.
Oh good first I thought you meant me, but you’re right about Shawn.
From what I can tell he’s been in “trenches” with Curt Pringle, Kris Murray, and Denis Bilodeau.
But perhaps I’m mistaken. Could be the trenchmouth.
(Yes, Shawn Nelson, not Vern Nelson, sorry.)
But hey, I get every candidate makes compromises. Really.
I guess I just expected Mr. Nelson’s wouldn’t be so obvious.
So may I presume from the Supe’s resounding putdown that Paden is not campaigning, i.e., “in the trenches”? Or did you mean “oblivious” instead of (as well as?) obvious.
By rule, until and unless I am purged from the DPOC Central Committee, I can only support Doug Chaffee (which I’m happy to do), although various kind comments I’ve made about Jane Rands remain on the record. My concerns about Paden continue to be what my concerns were about Kiger (and which led me to support Flory at the cost of most of my metaphorical teeth): that he’d be too happy to lead Fullerton down the path of Costa Mesa. To the extent he wouldn’t, I am less afraid of his serving.
But I’ll tell you one thing: I would rather have that fight against a Whitaker, Sebourn, and Paden majority, long-lasting and unpleasant as it would be, than to see Fullerton go back to the days of the Three Old Men.
And I’ll tell you another thing: if a Fitzgerald, Bennett, and (perhaps on police conduct issues) Chaffee majority does end up holding office next year, I predict that you will be happily surprised by Jan Flory’s refusal to go along with any proposed excesses. I disagree with her about her thinking that a Citizen’s Commission with teeth is disallowed, although it’s not an absurd position — but she’s smart, strong, and not evil. (And at least she’d have Chaffee’s ear when Fitzgerald and Bennett try to declare martial law or whatever the police might desire.)
You may not presume. Sean Paden is most certainly campaigning.
Ryan’s sentence “I guess I just expected Mr. Nelson’s wouldn’t be so obvious” seemed to be in reference to Shawn’s apparent shifting of alliances from GOP rebel-types to the klepto-insiders, to which I referred. Nothing to do with Paden.
Gee, I sure am glad that rule wasn’t available (or just wasn’t used) when Shawn Nelson and Harry Sidhu were both vying for the GOP endorsement as long standing Repubs for the 4th District Supe Seat. That debate between the two went down in history as some of the best Central Committee soap opera around, at least until January’s legendary “I didn’t put it in my campaign materials” and of course capped by last month when Scott Baugh kicked Lucille Kring to the curb. But back to 2010, can you imagine anyone back then saying that we would not endorse because there are two “good Republicans” in the race? (Good Republican clearly now defined not by small government policies, morally upright leadership and public votes based on some conservative standard, but “Good Republican” now defined by how well one toes the line at the orders of GOP leadership and how much money has been raised for the “anointed ones,” http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2010/05/sidhu-on-defined-benefits/
Someday, I will MAYBE be able to discuss just how badly the GOP leadership slapped across the face every God-fearing, Ronald Reagan-loving TRUE conservative last night, so that the special few who make their living feeding at the Curt Pringle filled trough didn’t have to be put in the uncomfortable position of having to endorse against incumbents whose liberal-enabling policies, elevating crony capitalism to an art form, could not EVER allow them to be endorsed and still leave the endorsement meaning anything in the future! But-but-but If I don’t back that blonde harpy, what happens to my next big CONTRACT?! Uh…how about you bid for it in a fair market like the rest of the world? Just a thought…
So here is Anaheim, much like Fullerton, a city under attack by raiders as intent on robbing the Treasury as the Vikings ever were, our little village desperately holding out until reinforcements arrive, and when the fresh troops get here, ready for battle, I have some middle aged white guys out in front of the gates, saying, “Ya know, it is just too uncomfortable for us to open the gatehouse and drop the drawbridge, sorry…”
Since I suspect the same jerks who whored out my Party last night ( What? You have a better word to use?) threw both Anaheim and Fullerton to the forces of evil, every contract that even remotely appears connected to the Masters of the Universe will now get all new scrutiny, LOTS and LOTS of it. I have a whole new full time occupation, and these days it is not working for money. In the hurry-up-and-wait world of litigation, I do a lot of sitting around (like yesterday being stuck through a jury trial because the Rutan and Tucker guy was 10 minutes late so the Judge moved on, sticking us behind the next item) so from now on the “downtime” i am spending waiting in the halls of “the tower” will be spent with a whole new passion for research.
Enough. Enough. Enough. No, GOP connected business owners may NOT continue padding their bottom lines at the expense of the public their bought and paid for leaders are supposed to be serving. No. Hell no. Enough. Being Republican used to mean something, and it should again someday. Today it means subjugated to the puppet-master. No more.
It’s not my business, of course — Go, [Dr.] Jose [F.] Moreno [1], and Donna too! — but I still don’t understand what they were afraid of when it came to endorsing the only two Republican candidates who hadn’t been ruled ineligible for the OCGOP endorsement.
I’d have lots of disagreements with Vanderbilt, I’m sure — but I feel that I could debate with him to good ends and bargain with him in good faith. (That was supposed to how Tip O’Neill felt about Reagan, by the way.) Same with Pettibone, except that as a gifted commercial attorney he’d probably bring even more relevant experience to the table. Win or lose, on my part, I would expect the public’s interests to be protected. If Pettibone, for example, said that he thought that the Stadium was a good idea, I would have to take another close look at my own figures that had led me to believe otherwise.
That’s supposed to be the best of the Republican Party — the “green eyeshades, know when we have to say no” people. I will never accept the description of Murray and Kring as “liberal,” but I know why you’re calling her that. It’s actually a position totally off of the political chart: simply self-serving.
The Republican Party decided that it couldn’t choose between it’s Reagan faction and its Flim-Flam faction. OK — that’s good for my party, I suppose — but it was not good for the public. Oh well — plenty of time to make y’all pay for it!
P.S. I’m slightly hurt by the implication that spending an hour in the hallway with me waiting out a trial without so much as a deck of cards was not brrels of fun — but then again by that time I was not in the best mood.
Greg, next time I pack a monopoly board in the briefcase. Next time we have a 5 minute ex parte I will BRING a briefcase just in case….