Having sized up the people elected, I believe that a repeat of Chicago 1968 Democratic Convention is unlikely.
I’m not sure how Republicans choose their delegates to their State Party Conventions — and I’m not even sure whether Libertarian, Green, American Independent, Peace and Freedom do it — but in the Democratic Party we have elections in January of odd-numbered years and they just took place. Here, for the benefit of anyone who might eventually be looking for them, are the seven women and seven men (unless not enough of one gender was running) representing each of the seven Congressional Districts located wholly or (in the case of AD-55) partly in Orange County, with one from each district going to the state party’s Executive Board.
I won’t characterize those elected (except to say that they vary in quality and to express pride in the group from my own AD-55 and admiration for those from AD-74). One thing that does strike me is that in all six of the Districts wholly within Orange County, a male was elected to the State Party E-Board seat. About 60% of the names of those elected from the six wholly OC districts are ones that I recognize as having been involved in DPOC or clubs or campaigns. So whoever organized the other 40% to win their elections did so well.
55th Assembly District — La Habra, Brea, Yorba Linda and Placentia (shared with eastern San Gabriel Valley in LA County and Chino Hills in San Bernardino County):
| Name | Gender | |||
| Brandy Carter | Female | |||
| Sanobar Baig | Female | |||
| Carole Levers | Female | Eboard Rep. | ||
| Ida MacMurray | Female | |||
| Ellen Spicer | Female | |||
| Glenda Bartell | Female | |||
| Dena Anderson-Peoples | Female | |||
| Steve Koffroth | Male | |||
| James Gallagher | Male | |||
| Douglas A Doner | Male | |||
| Calvin Sung | Male | |||
| William J Toensing | Male | |||
| Donald Craig | Male | |||
| Joe Bartell | Male |
65th Assembly District — Fullerton, Buena Park, La Palma, Cypress, Stanton, Western Anaheim (mostly S of I-5):
| Name | Gender | |||
| John Vassiliades | Male | |||
| Gregory Ferguson | Male | |||
| Aaron Wodka | Male | |||
| Josh Newman | Male | |||
| Charles Loren Doll | Male | |||
| Christopher Sanchez | Male | |||
| Stephen Weissbart | Male | |||
| Connor Traut | Male | Eboard Rep. | ||
| Arnel Dino | Male | |||
| Rashad Al-Dabbagh | Male | |||
| Jacqueline Mahrley | Female | |||
| Claudia Perez | Female | |||
| Mirvette Judeh | Female | |||
| Pamela Thakur | Female |
68th Assembly District — Orange, Villa Park, Anaheim Hills, Tustin, North Tustin, Lake Forest, Northern Irvine, Northern Canyons:
| Name | Gender | |||
| Dan Chmielewski | Male | |||
| Gabriel Orea | Male | |||
| David Sonneborn | Male | |||
| Ted Perle | Male | |||
| Michael Fox | Male | Eboard Rep. | ||
| Richard R. Licerio | Male | |||
| Oscar Reyes | Male | |||
| Edward Garza | Male | |||
| Ken Wyant | Male | |||
| Melahat Rafiei | Female | |||
| Melissa Fox | Female | |||
| Christina Avalos | Female | |||
| Diane Singer | Female | |||
| Samila Amamgraoupoor | Female |
69th Assembly District — Santa Ana, Central and Southern Anaheim, Eastern Garden Grove:
| Name | Gender | |||
| Valeria Amezcua | Female | |||
| Sherry Caldwell | Female | |||
| Norma Kurtz | Female | |||
| Gail Anderson | Female | |||
| Janelle McLoughlin | Female | |||
| Teri Vaughn | Female | |||
| Nelida Mendoza-Yanez | Female | |||
| Mitchell Caldwell | Male | |||
| Mark McLoughlin | Male | |||
| Claudio Gallegos | Male | |||
| Eric Anderson | Male | |||
| Jason Mills | Male | |||
| David Robert “D.R.” Heywood | Male | Eboard Rep. | ||
| Frank Barbaro | Male |
72nd Assembly District — Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Westminster, Western Garden Grove, Fountain Valley, Northern Huntington Beach:
| Name | Gender | |||
| Raymond Cordova | Male | |||
| Trung Ta | Male | EBoard Rep. | ||
| Philip Silverthorn | Male | |||
| Javid Huseynov | Male | |||
| Jamison Power | Male | |||
| Bao Nguyen | Male | |||
| Mark Sheldon | Male | |||
| Jennifer Siegert | Female | |||
| Michele Newman | Female | |||
| Marti Sheldon | Female | |||
| Karen Hinks | Female | |||
| Lan Pham | Female | |||
| Robyn Marcario | Female | |||
| Michelle “Shelly” Haggerty | Female |
73rd Assembly District — South County from Southern Canyons, RSM, Mission Viejo, Laguna Hills, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Hills, Dana Point, and Southeast:
| Name | Gender | |||
| Steve Nelson | Male | |||
| Ezequiel Barragan | Male | |||
| Michael Getto | Male | |||
| Steve Stewart | Male | |||
| Michael Stone | Male | |||
| Michael Weinell | Male | EBoard Rep. | ||
| John Weinell | Male | |||
| Deborah Cunningham-Skurnik | Female | |||
| Linda May | Female | |||
| Minea Gracia | Female | |||
| Rosemarie Allaire-Bosson | Female | |||
| Debra Resnick | Female | |||
| Carol Weinell | Female | |||
| Fran Sdao | Female |
74th Assembly District — Southeastern Huntington Beach, Southern Irvine,Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Laguna Woods, Laguna Beach:
| Name | Gender | |||
| Craig Beauchamp | Female | |||
| Heide Krueger | Female | |||
| Lizabeth McNabb | Female | |||
| Jean Ardell | Female | |||
| Farrah N. Khan | Female | |||
| Kendall Vaught | Female | |||
| Carolyn Inmon | Female | |||
| Richard Armendariz | Male | |||
| Peter (Kenneth) Kaltreider | Male | |||
| Eric Bornstein | Male | |||
| Ron Varasteh | Male | |||
| Iyad Afalqa | Male | EBoard Rep. | ||
| Luis Aleman | Male | |||
| Gary Bennett | Male |
Congratulations to the deserving winners!
*Dr. D., a serious question….really: Your name is not on the list. Why? Also, we cannot imagine why you can not prostylize some electable Republicans to run as Democrats behind the Orange Curtain. Give you a couple of names: Al Murray…..is a great guy…
why not run Al for a State slot. What about Van Tran? Young, motivated…a little dirt on him but very articulate. We cannot believe that in every election cycle the Dems have to start from zero and then wind up running the same lost leaders like Steve Young. Young is the equivalent of Bill Jones…….can they ever be elected again? What about extreme edges like our love Deb Pauly? Isn’t the Democratic tent big enough to allow a right wing looney? It should be. You guys keep shooting yourselves in the foot by picking fruit flies when you need dragon flies. Look, Gavin Newsome will be our next Governor after Downtown Jerry Brown unless something dreadful happens. Kamala Harris will replace Barbara Boxer and do a wonderful job. But everything else looks pretty weird. You really need some electric personalities….and so far ….you are the Great White Hope for Dems in the OC. Meanwhile, we will continue to vote Republican and support Lucille Kring, John Moorlach and others that answer our e-mails.
I’m an ex officio delegate due to my being the most recent Democratic top-vote-getter (once it would have been “nominee”) in SD-29, so I had no reason to run (unless I wanted to be on the State E-Board, which I did not.)
I think that Steve Young has run for office twice, which hardly puts him in “lost leader” territory. (Hell, I’ve run three times, although each time it’s been against someone who didn’t deserve to walk to re-election without a challenge.) I wish that he’d run in this SD-37 special election, actually — he’d be a good State Senator — but I don’t think that he will.
There are some Republicans in OC who I think could fit reasonably well into the Democratic tent, although I won’t hobble their careers by naming them. Pauly is not one of them. We’re not big on “red meat” bigotry — even though I realize that she may simply be saying out loud what many other Republicans (and some Democrats) quietly think. She’s a decent Moorlach-style skeptic on some financial issues — meaning that while I may not agree with her I think that her perspective has a place in the discussion — but Moorlach is also not someone who could run as a Democrat. That’s fine; some “popular fronts” ought to be bipartisan.
I think of OC as pretty much Ground Zero for Democrats who want Newsom to be Governor, which should perhaps give you pause. I am not among them. If the last straw hadn’t been placed a long time ago, his fawning reaction to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s trying to steal our bidness would have broken the camel’s back. Give me a John Chiang, Dave Jones, or Betty Yee type any day of the week!
*Dr. D., good insight. Thanks for the tail of the tape took inside. We guess what we are saying is that “Image is reality”. If you can’t get a reliable Democratic Actor that people have seen on TV or in the Movies…..then you need someone else who has “the cash chops” not to worry about running after cash when they should be doing stand up messaging in every Club, Hotel Auditorium or small Home Setting…getting the message and the differences across. Both parties are vying for the partisan cash. The difference today is that a good “Image is reality candidate” can get cash from all over the country if they have a good enough digital footprint campaign. The Press chases the money folks and those event leaders first. Steve Young could run a 100 times. He is one heck of a nice guy…..we have met him several times……but totally “message light”. On the other hand Dr. D., you have the “dedicated gene”……which shines through and is always appreciated by all…..even though they may want to argue several of your points or arguments. Veracity, Ethics and Pride in Communication are a strong campaign statement. You just need a great “Democratic Bag Man”, like the Republicans have in Dave Ellis. Anyway, Moorlach has long leg Republican roots, as does Dana….so you need to look perhaps out of the box for some new blood. Lou is a standout Democrat that you have to support, much as you do the Sanchez sisters. No one beats them when the race is fully on the up and up. Our buddy Wagner is being pushed around a little too much from the top to become someone the likes of Tom McClintock who has walked through the raindrops, but has been around long enough to claim and maintain “the Reaganesqe cache”. Tom is very smart however and finds endless ways of bypassing the the contentious arguments and deflecting serious controversy. It is starting to wear thin and we predict Tom may be leaving after Hillary gets elected. The same goes for Darrell Issa….he has far too much money to put up with another four or eight year stage play….that is running off Broadway and nobody is listening or showing up for performances except Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. Final advice: Go get a great Sports figure, Movie Actor or Celebrity to run on your ticket….break the mold. Thanks again for your great stuff….it is appreciated.
So Greg, or anyone else who’s still involved in DPOC internal politics here, what do you think of the results? I also recognize some names here, but not all. So which faction performed best?
Henry’s side out-organized the side that has been squeezed out. When you’re focusing your efforts on intramural warfare rather than policy issues, that’s easy to do.
[Vern, this is “carpetbagger” again. Go check out his comment on the OC Weekly post on the Dana Point high school teacher accused of sex with minors. He always gives himself away.]
It’s not “carpetbagger”. Just was researching the story and this website came up… and posted a comment about the story here in reference to the election. Though I did notice someone by that name post in other site in which I posted a reference to this site.
I notice my original post has been changed.
Is the fact not relevant to this article with respect to “Ezequiel Barragan”?
You can write me directly if you wish.
You’re not going to get to make serious accusations of that sort here anonymously before we can check them out — and yesterday was too busy for me to do so.
I’ll accept the Weekly’s report that such an accusation has been made against someone of that name. I am not going to jump to the conclusion, without verification, that the person accused is the same person whose name appears in that story. If you want to come out and make that accusation yourself, under your own name, with you being the one to accept any liability for defamation, then you are welcome to do so. But I’ve been mixed up with enough other guys named “Greg Diamond” not to assume automatically that even a not-that-common name means it’s the same guy. If you want to investigate it and prove it, you’re welcome to — but meanwhile the world will just have to do without that assertion here on this blog. You can go make it at some site that cares less.
I’m not out to prove anything really. Just in researching the story under searching “Barragan” this site came up. The story is all over the place and, in fact, was under the “Navel Gazing” when I originally came to this site. In fact, the updated link is under that same set of links as I type this:
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2015/05/ezequiel_barragan_lewd_male_juvenile_child_porn.php
It seems they have now picked up this link as well and mentioned he was elected. It’s not hard to google… your reference to Barragan in this blog entry comes right up. Looks like OCWeekly even found Barragan’s personal blog.
If they want to say that it’s the same guy, fine. I’m not going to spend time investigating it. You’ve provided the link for those who want to follow it.