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I haven’t yet written much — at least not nearly as much as I plan to — about the SD-29 State Senate race between Ling-Ling Chang, Sukhee Kang, and Josh Newman. Chang is the incumbent Assemblywoman from AD-55, which along with AD-65 makes up almost all of the district. Kang is the former Mayor of the City of Irvine, who moved to become part of Fullerton’s flourishing Korean community after the 2014 elections. Newman was a high-tech executive who cashed out owns and now runs a non-profit that helps U.S. veterans (a group to which he belongs) find employment.
This piece is prompted by an eye-popping piece by Dan Chmielewski — Chumley is a candidate for elected office now, so I’m going to use his real name through June — purchaser and now almost sole willing-to-own-up-to-it writer on The Liberal OC — entitled “SD-29 Survey; Close Between Chang and Kang’ Newman is a non-factor.” (I presume that it’s supposed to be punctuated as “SD-29 Survey: Close Between Chang and Kang; Newman is a non-factor” — colon then semicolon rather than semicolon then comma — but I print it as published to avoid accusations of twisting his meaning.)
I want you to take a moment and mull over what you think that that headline suggests. And then — especially if you are involved in politics and don’t necessarily do so automatically — I want you to engage your sense of moral judgment as you read the rest of this piece.
Before we get to the key question, let’s notice some key things about Chmielewski’s story — which appears in full at the bottom of this piece. I’m color-coding some of its text to match comments here, to make it easier to find the original references.
.1) First, let’s note what’s NOT there. Despite its reading like a press release, there is no indication that this is one, either from the Kang campaign or from Public Policy Polling (PPP). In fact — unlike some of PPP’s most solid and respected commissioned polls, such as those that it has done for the Daily Kos website, there’s no link to the poll and no more discussion of its methodology beyond its date and number of respondents. Nevertheless, we can infer some aspects of its methodology from some very unusual results. LibOC has published press releases, but usually identifies them as such. This is, on its face, Chmielewski’s own reporting of the findings.
2) Second, note that a major thrust of the story is that Newman is not attracting support and should get out of the race. This is made explicit in a characteristic comment from an anonymous guest of the site — here named “bluebelly” — saying what would seem to be safely said under one’s own name:
“bluebelly, March 24, 2016 at 6:18 pm: Non-factor Newman indeed. It’s time Josh Newman join his own California Democratic Party in its endorsement of Kang.”
Now I’m going to suggest that you have probably made an important assumption in reading that paragraph, because an honest account would HAVE TO include it:
You have assumed that the poll asked voters opinions about Newman.
You have assumed, moreover, that Newman was treated the same way in the poll as the other two candidates. One could get away with not asking questions about Newman if one also didn’t ask questions about the other candidates: if, for example, one asked voters to name the candidates in the race and then asked only about those candidates, that would be fine. But, as I think is beyond reasonable doubt, that didn’t happen.
You have assumed that no one who cared about your judgment of their honesty would try to deceive you about something so basic. I can’t say that this isn’t true — because I don’t know that Chmielewski actually cares whether you think that he is lying, so long as he gets away with it.
You have assumed that, when the story says that there are only two “major candidates,” that assertion comes from some reliable poll, or something like that, rather than just being an opinion. Well, hang on to your hats.
A personal note: I was so irked at the apparent dishonesty of this piece — much of which you’ll find in the next section — that in light of this story I did something that I don’t usually do as a blogger: I did some actual reporting. I called PPP and received a call back from Jim Williams, who I believe is #2 in the organization after the extremely quotable Tom Jensen. (Jensen is often quoted on bizarre polling reports PPP tosses in on questions like whether Trump voters think that Barack Obama is an extraterrestrial or something. Good stuff! “Party regulars” often hate it –because polling may be a good place for distortion, but not for levity!)
I asked Williams whether, as with the Daily Kos polls, they would be publishing the “internals” that would normally include question wording — and would answer my questions above. He said that that decision is up to client. He didn’t know whether there had been a press release or whether there was plans to release them. (He’ll get back to me if he finds out that there were.) He said one other pertinent thing to me, but I’m not going to publish it unless Chmielewski or the Kang campaign (which I suppose are technically separate entities) first deny it. (Sukhee’s far too smart to do so. Chmielewski — well, we’ll see.)
3) Third, the poll pretty clearly didn’t ask about anyone except Chang and Kang. This is clear because, in the two instances where one would expect at least some subset of the voters to favor Newman. none did. Before giving more information about the candidates: the 100% of the sample pool is entirely accounted for: 32% Chang, 28% Kang, and 40% undecided. (Well, “almost” 40% — but with only 591 respondents, any more than two or three supporting Newman would have rounded “under 40” to 39% instead. As 32+28+40=100, that leaves no room in this poll for anyone to have supported Newman. After having learned information about the candidates — more on that topic later on — the numbers are 33+31+36=100, with once again no room for Newman.
I can’t overemphasize how unlikely this is. It’s not like the third candidate being asked about in the poll was named “Syphilitic Child Molester” or even “Dan Chmielewski.” Even if it were, one could insert a name like “Chmielewski” as a third option in such a poll with 40% undecided and it would still probably pull pull 3-5%. Any honest political consultant would tell you: put a “safe, strong, American-sounding name” like “Josh Newman” put up against the foreign-sounding names of two Asian woman* in a district that is only about a third Asian, would surely pull more than that.
*Yes, I know that Kang is male. Voters probably don’t. I’ve been present at the moments when large numbers of people previously unfamiliar with Kang found out that “Sukhee” was a man’s name, and they were almost uniformly surprised. I say this not to make fun of his name, but to point out a basic fact of politics: just as two East Asians (or Mexicans, or Jews, or Poles) will tend to split the vote in an election against one candidate who isn’t from that ethnic group, two Asian women will be even more likely to do so — and I would bet heavily that voters will presume that Sukhee is female. That’s one reason — albeit one of the worse ones — that Newman has a decent chance of making the runoff. The better reasons have to do with character, ideology, biography, competence, and a Bernie Sanders-like party-outsider’s perspective on politics.
That’s WHY Kang wants Newman out of the race — and wants you to think that he has no chance. If this reminds you of the situation between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, you’re pretty much right — except that in this situation there’s no 300-pledged-delegate lead for Newman to overcome: just smothering party-insider support for Kang and dishonest commissioned polls like the one that Chmielewski was “somehow” able to find.
Here’s some good news for Newman in the poll:
- Chang is not well-known in the district
- 40% of voters are undecided prior to the “persuasive polling” information. (This is technically not a push poll because its main intent was to produce bogus stories like Chmielewski’s rather than to influence the individual voters on the other end of the automated “conversation.”
- Even after receiving three nasty bits of information about Chang — about her seeming lies about her academic record (the most conclusive information of which was first reported here on OJB), about her voting to allow guns on school campuses, and about potentially supporting anti-Latino and anti-Chinese racist GOP Presidential candidate Trump — only about a dozen of the 600 respondents moved towards Kang.
- Chang IS vulnerable on the honesty issue — which either Newman or Kang will be able to use in November.
4) Finally: As readers know, I sometimes like to give background political figures little nicknames to make them more memorable to voters who might otherwise tend to ignore them and their crimes against decency. I’ve already used up two excellent such nicknames beginning with “D” — for consultants “Dishonest Dave” Gilliard and “Despicable Dave” Ellis. (I also used up “Desperate” for Ed Royce in 2012 — when he most certainly was.) Now that I’ve decided to refer by Chmielewski by name for the next few months, I really need a moniker other than Chumley to do him justice. Readers, I need your help! Should it be “Deceptive Dan”? “Deceiving Dan”? “Distorting Dan”? “Demeaning Dan”? “De-meaning Dan”? “Dissembling Dan”? I think that you can figure out the theme that I’m shooting for her; your suggestions (or votes — under your own names or identities, please, and just one to a customer!) would be more than welcome!
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Below you’ll find Original Lib OC story in full; font sizes shrunk to be less obnoxious and passages are color-coded (with bold font added) for reasons discussed above:
SD-29 Survey; Close Between Chang and Kang’ Newman is a non-factor
by Dan Chmielewski • • 1 Comment
A new Public Policy Polling survey finds that the race in the open, GOP-held 29th Senate District is shaping up to be very a competitive contest in the fall. The two major candidates, Assemblywoman Ling Ling Chang, a Republican, and Democrat Sukhee Kang, former mayor of Irvine, are nearly tied among likely general-election voters in the first ask, with Chang being favored by 32% and Kang by 28%. Nearly 40% are undecided at this early point.
After a description of both candidates and their backgrounds, the race remains essentially tied, with Chang at 33% and Kang at 31%. A large number of voters, 36%, remain undecided, even after learning more about the candidates. Although she currently represents Assembly District 55, which encompasses nearly half of the Senate seat, Chang has been in office only a little more than year, and is not well-known in the Senate district. Among those voters who could rate her performance, slightly more disapproved than approved, 29%-23%.
The survey also found that several issues could negatively impact Chang in a general-election campaign:
- In her 2014 Assembly campaign, Chang was discovered by several newspapers to have made inaccurate claims about her college attendance record. The poll found that a whopping 69% of respondents would be less likely to vote for a candidate that had made false statements about their background, including claiming they had a college degree when they in fact had none. Even among Republicans, 67% indicated they would frown on a candidate who made such claims.
- Respondents were also very strong in their desire to have a candidate who supported tougher gun laws, with 57% saying that was an important attribute in a Senate candidate. Among minority voters in this minority-majority (68%) district, even larger majorities said a candidate’s stand on gun control was important – a huge 76% among Asians, and 65% among Latinos. When told Chang was a member of the NRA, and had voted to allow guns on school campuses, 53% of voters said they would be less likely to vote for such a candidate. An even higher 63% of Asian voters in this district said they would be less likely to vote for such a candidate
- If Donald Trump were to be the Republican nominee for president in the fall, that development could also put Chang in a bind. If Chang were to support Trump, 41% of voters would be less likely to support her. Among the two major ethnic groups in the district, voters were even more emphatic: 50% of Latinos would be less likely to vote for her, and 46% of Asians said the same.
The survey findings appear to reinforce independent characterizations of the competitiveness of this Senate seat since it was reconfigured by the Citizens Redistricting Commission in 2011. The reliable, non-partisan California Targetbook, which analyzes legislative races, has said, “Demographic shifts make this district less reliably Republican than in the past and a very competitive race can be expected.” The Orange County Register wrote that the race “is expected to be a tougher battle against Democrats and has a larger Asian constituency…Kang is expected to mount a strong campaign in a district where Republicans have a shrinking advantage of 3 percentage points.”
PPP surveyed 591 general-election voters in the 29th Senate District from March 21-22, 2016. The margin of error is +/-4.0%. This poll was conducted by automated telephone interviews, including cell phones.
I did a scientific poll on my street. Not a single person EVER heard of Sukhee Kang. She is a non-factor.
This is more deeply disturbing than most mentions of me on Chmielewski’s site. It appeared prior to the posting of this item shortly before noon today (although after I had spoken to Jim Williams from PPP, who was going to contact Sukhee’s campaign for more information, at 9:35 a.m. I presume that Williams did so and that the campaign would likely have contacted Chmielewski:
My feelings, believe it or not, are not really hurt by someone who won’t even use his own name — apparently ever — claiming to be me and that I am crazy. That’s just how people without scruples AND without a decent sense of humor play politics. That’s the way Chmielewski likes to run his blog — much like the way his pal Cunningham likes to run his own — and I just wish that more Democrats had the gumption to stand up against those tactics. I think that it’s unfortunate when people makes fun of this sort of schizophrenia, but there’s no way to retaliate against someone anonymous (when the blog owner allows such comments) and getting past Chmielewski’s psychological defenses is impossible. His defenses have their own defenses.
And that takes me to Chmielewski’s own comment, which I suspect what prompts Chmielewski to write something so strange. That comment is what prompts mine.
One of the most storied psychodynamic defense mechanisms is “projection,” where one perceives and/or depicts others as having the thoughts, motives, emotions, values, and behaviors that one recognizes (and perhaps fears) within oneself. In three lines, conveying three propositions, Chmielewski offers a classic of the kind.
I’m really not motivated by people “giving me the time of day.” For what it’s worth, once Brett Murdock (who I’d known from Brea politics) dropped out of the race, my recollection is that I reached out to Newman (whom I did not then know) first, but it didn’t lead to a contact, and then it was months later before we made contact and I am pretty sure that (having done a little reading and heard a little info about him) I offered my support for him without his having to ask for it. This was not because I was going to somehow benefit from it, but because I had judged him to be a smart, good, and honest person. That’s what I want for those who would represent my party.
If it was the time of day I wanted, I could have gotten it from Sukhee. I lost track of how many times Sukhee called me seeking my vote for him as a State Central Committee delegate. I heard from others about the early and hard press that Sukhee had put on them. He’s listed in my phone, so I knew not to answer his calls, and I ignored (but kept) his phone messages. I heard from others that Sukhee essentially took a month off from work to seek delegates for the nomination — although people do not seem sure how much he works to begin with. (I’m not one to criticize; I took almost a half year off to help manage Occupy OC. But that wasn’t out of self-interest.)
It didn’t work because fawning contact from people in or trying to attains power is not and never has been the way to get my support. BEING THE BEST FOR THE POSITION and not being the sort of person whose advancement in the party one needs to fear are the ways to get my support. Why — other than inattentiveness — does Chmielewski think I’d be otherwise?
I suppose that that’s because he thinks that other people are like him. Deeply insecure, to the point of having to brag pointlessly about wealth and status — . Deeply fearful of looking stupid, rather than taking setbacks and minor embarrassments like an adult. Deeply fearful of looking weak, precluding incorporation of self-effacement and absurdity into one’s interpersonal repertoire, and leading one to try to dominate others (including the small female interns who came to DPOC to promote Kamala Harris months ago) physically.
And also: for sale very cheaply — in his case, for the “respect” of being on the team that protects the Hillary Clintons of the world from the Bernie Sanderses (or as close as OC comes to them) of the world, to the point where he takes Fredo impersonators like the DPOC Chair and Frau Blucher impersonators like the Regional Director for Central OC seriously. For someone who seems terrified that people are laughing at him behind his back — it hadn’t really occurred to me until now that that is the gist of most of the insults he has leveled at me, that “people don’t like you” even though for the most part it doesn’t bother me — he’s choosing some great allies there.
Even for all that, I would probably not have written this — I feel sorry for the guy, and would mostly leave him alone if he’s just stop hurting people — but for that last line, that “all the reasons Greg provides for a loss by Sukhee Kang also apply to Newman.”
What? WHAT?
Here’s why I think that Sukhee will lose in the primary, and if not then in the general.
1) His main strength is with party insiders, whom he has curried incessantly (although not enough to avoid a reputation of not really giving a damn about anyone else while he was in Irvine politics prior to bailing out at the perfect time.)
Not true of Newman. His main strength is with average people he meets — especially veterans.
2) The DPOC learned the wrong lesson from 2014 + 1 month, believing that Asian candidates (Chang, Kim, Steel, Nguyen, Do, and to a lesser extent Bartlett) were some kind of magic and that all Democrats needed was more Asians instead of so many Latinos. The problem is that it’s just that the candidates were either weak (Solorio, Correa, Jim Moreno, Fritchle) or lacked the advantages present in 2012 (Quirk-Silva), some of which will return in 2016.
But, the notion wasn’t totally crazy. Against Tim Shaw or someone like him, Kang’s carpetbagging into Fullerton might have worked!
That’s why CalGOP Chair Jim Brulte’s countermeasure was so devastating: moving Chang to the Senate race where she could campaign with, rather than next to, Young Kim in the Korean community. Boom: there went Kang’s tactical advantage.
Fortunately for Democrats, it left open an alternative path: focus on the 2/3 of the district that is white and Latino. But for that, you might need someone who is white or Latino. and maybe a veteran….
That reason for Kang losing? Not true of Newman.
I could go on, but that should be enough. Two refutations of “all of the reasons apply” is one more than is necessary. What sort of dolt makes that sort of statement?
Oh come on, Greg. Let’s give Dan a little credit.
He did, after all, inform the world of this little website’s existence: http://www.sukheewatch.com
Sharing is caring!
Huh. I barely remember the place from when I checked it out before. I’ll be right back.
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oh dear
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oh my
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Well, there’s yet another reason why Sukhee will lose that does not apply to Newman.
He informed his tiny little corner of the world. And by tiny I mean really, really miniscule.
More important than a blog are the robo-calls and signs that may well be on the way.
Please tell us that none of them will say “Bad Kang”….
I don’t know but, it’s more likely going to be some thing like: No Kang/Irvine Carpetbagger. But that’s just a wild guess.
I would be really surprised if robo-calls didn’t make mention of the Great Pork disaster.
Well, let us know if you ever get any inside information….
I really can’t say much on the subject – other than common sense conjecture – however If I were to place a bet, I’d bet that the first wave will come ashore pretty soon.
The fact of the matter is that the troll in irvine is the New Art Pedroza complete with the same scaramouche(s) pulling his strings from the safety of the stage wings.
Scaramouche? Scaramouche?
To be fair, today I conducted another scientific poll on the other side of the street.
I asked them if they would vote for the Democrat Josh Newman or the Republican Ling-Ling Chang. 30% said Newman, 30% said Chang and 40% said no opinion.
Sukhee Kang is a non-factor.
Put out any fires and save some neighbors while you were out?
If so, make sure you call one of us and 911 immediately.
Not necessarily in that order.
Lil’ Clumski and I were conducting the pol. Pinky was our wing man.
We noticed smoke coming out of a big black box on legs in somebody’s backyard and turned a hose on it. The people screamed and said something about how we ruined their ham, or lamb, or something like that.
Then we went to boot camp and took turns pushing around that little dude in the wheelchair.
I got the poll last night. They included Newman, but not in measuring negatives.
I got it a few days ago. I don’t think that this was exactly the same poll. It did consistently ask about the likelihood of voting for Newman; it just didn’t provide negatives for him and ask how they affected that vote. I honestly couldn’t tell whether it was for Chang or Kang. (I have confirmed that it was not for Newman.)
I brought Josh to Los Amigos this morning, and got a video of him giving a real good talk and answering people’s questions. Everyone was impressed with him. I wish it had been packed like the previous week but it was only half full. I’ll have a piece up later or tomorrow featuring that video and my interview with him.
Have you seen his signs? They are, hands down, the best signs I’ve seen this year. If anyone is sure that it’s going to be an X-ang runoff, I would happily take the bet with favorable odds. (And I’d want odds just because I think I can get them, not because I think that I’d need them.)
Not to mention THE BLIMP, and the COASTERS. (will have pics)
I’ve got some shots of the blimp from a few months ago.
I disagree. Cute campaign signs don’t work.
What is an “X-ang runoff?”
Kang-Chang. Come up with a better term than I did and I’ll use it.
“Bad Chi” was cute. It worked. Anyway, if that’s true, then it’s only a subset of “Signs Don’t Work.”
I heard an effective anti-Kang robocall went out last night to Democrats in Fullerton. Any truth to this?
No idea. I’d have to ask some other people I know, by whom I don’t mean Newman. Anyone record it?
“Bad Chi” was cute.
No, “Bad Chi” was far from cute. Bad Chi was pure, unadorned and internationally understood smack down. It was genius, and I’m not saying that just because I know who designed it.
However, as a rule I would say that signs plastered along the highways are an almost complete waste of money. Signs in the yard are way different as they represent a real person’s endorsement.
Bad Chi was cute and vicious at the same time, like a cat killing a rodent.
Your intuition about signs reaches a conclusion exactly opposite to what empirical researchers have found. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong, but….
Speaking of signs, I noticed Sukhee Kang has a sign with a bear on it. To those who know, there is a bear on the California state flag, but Sukhee’s bear is marching in the opposite direction. How many people would even get the connection in this primary? We already know who’s being targeted.
Does the bear have another meaning? Is it a special, subliminal symbol?
That’s weird. Cuz one of the things Josh has been doing, for a while now, is dressing up in a bear costume on street corners and waving his campaign signs.
I’m not getting the bear thing. Yeah, it’s the official state mammal, but how many people even know that?
Perhaps, unbeknownst to us, the ursine is also the official hirsute omnivore of the 29th state senate district?
Don’t know about that, Vern. I believe, though, that I am the official hirsute vegetarian of the 29th State Senate District!
I trust that this photo of another of his signs will answer your “what is the bear for?” question, Zenger: It is there to cradle us in its arms and lovingly protect us.
I know that it’s not to everyone’s taste, but I love this — partly because it cracks me up.
So . . . no discussion that the bear is extinct?
Ryan, that was my point. I do have to admit I love the bear clutching California but i really wonder if anybody will get it. Maybe they will just like the picture: ursus super omnis.
Point granted, Ryan. But there are other bears in the world, so it’s not an entirely foreign concept.
My sense is that I’ve rarely seen a race where one candidate has stood out so starkly from the similar-looking others (at least where signage is concerned.) That’s one reason I’d take Newman and the odds.
Hey, I like it, but I think he’d do better holding up a giant piece of shag carpet in his left arm and a giant NO in his right.
But I do think it’s cute and different.
I’m trying to get Brian Chuchua to do this, but he keeps ending up looking like a cuddly koala bear.
“Your intuition about signs reaches a conclusion exactly opposite to what empirical researchers have found. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong, but….”
I’ll say this: having signs plastered over the urbanscape is better than not having them; and attention-grabbing (not cute) signs are better than crappy signs. But is it remotely the best way to reach voters? The “sea turtle” principle works (very marginally) for sea turtles but does making 10,000 signs at several bucks a pop constitute the a good investment compared to, say, auto-calls at $.04 a contact?
For a State Senate race, an area far too big to walk, I think that it may make more sense. Nothing is as good as knocking on doors. Signs are generally considered inferior to mailers. Robocalls are generally considered almost worthless … but I’ll admit that they may be worth something in the hands of vicious and clever people making independent expenditures, which just popped into my mind for no discernible reason.
Robo calls are generally bad because they are often of poor audio quality, too long and recorded by the wrong person.
In the right hands they can be quite effective.
Direct mail is still best because you have a physical thing in someone’s hands, and at the very least somebody has to take it from the mailbox to the garbage can. But clumsy, poorly designed pieces (the majority) are also just a waste of money. And the bad ones cost just as much as the few good ones. And the “consultant” gets paid for the bad right along with the good.
The other drawback with mail (and one the consultants are too damn stupid to figure out, I don’t know why) is that it often lands on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, notorious junk mail days when boxes are stuffed with crap. Why they aren’t all mailed to land on Fridays, Saturdays or Mondays I’ll don’t know.
All this points to a little army campaign parasites ripping off candidates. Which is okay by me except that some of them actually get elected despite their campaign consultants and then owe favors – most obnoxious of which is the endorsement swap.
A commenter who will rename “nameless” (and is now blocked) had this to say:
Huh. “Yellowstone.” See how he works in the racist bits? It’s one way that I know that he’s the one writing these. Just wanted to remind people of why we keep some things out.
If he’s telling the truth about the weekend poll, then it fits with what you seen in the text of this post. This sort of stunt is only going to fool the “experts,” not the actual voters, Can we get Vegas to post odds on this one so some of us could make money?
I would vote for a guy in a bear costume before I ever voted for the corrupt carpetbagger Sukhee Kang or a resume liar Ling Ling Chang.
In fact, I would vote for a real bear first. Or a cocker spaniel, or a grey squirrel etc. In fact i have a grey squirrel in my back yard who gives every indication of being more competent than Sukhee Kang.
I think I know that squirrel~
Yes, he’s quite a precocious little chap. I think I may sign him up to run against Kringle for the 4th District seat.
To the best of my knowledge, he rarely wears the bear costume — except when trying to drum up support on the highways and byways. And maybe at home. I don’t know and I don’t want to know.
He sure does love flying his blimp, though — and no that is not a euphemism.
I’ve noticed that there are two completely different Kang signs. Whatever one’s opinion of street signs, this doubling up is a bad strategy and/or a bad omen for the candidate.
The later-arriving ones are the ones that have a bear on them. I presume that that must be what it’s about, even though it is nuts. (That or one of them is an IE — I haven’t gotten close enough to read their fine print.)
Anyway: HE’S TRYING TO STEAL JOSH NEWMAN’S BEAR!
None of this will matter unless Kang himself gets into a bear suit, which would be worth seeing. Or he and Ling-Ling could jointly wear a horse costume.
When new campaign signs appear it means that the candidate thinks he is in trouble.
It could be an IE, but confusing signs is a real bad strategy. And why would anybody spend money at this juncture unless they were afraid Sukhee’s going to screw the pooch?
Hmm.
BTW, I have it on good authority that Sukhee is so clueless that he is actually BRAGGING to people about being a carpetbagger. It seems he thinks of it as some sort of honor because the Sacramento crowd has “selected” him.
To the best of my knowledge, Zenger the Sacramento crowd had not “selected” him. Initially, people were pretty much fine with Brett Murdock in the race. Then Sukhee showed up out of nowhere — people didn’t even know that he had moved. He worked the insider crowd very well — it’s what he does. Newman then got into the race as well — so we were going to have three decent candidates for State Senate and none against Royce. Murdock was then recruited into taking on Royce.
If Sukhee really wants to say that Dems in Sacremento recruited him, I hope that he’ll release the earliest emails making that clear — because no one in the county but (presumably) his inner circle seemed to have any idea of it at the time. You can tell by the absence of advance chatter on Glib Oc.
So what are the policy differences between Khang and Newman? My reading of the post does not tell me what they are.
Ill be writing that post over the weekend.
Kang doesn’t have any personal positions – other than what he is told to say. That’s why they permitted him to move to Fullerton to run for yet another office.
That I disagree with. What I heard at the time suggested it was his own overweening ambitious initiative. “There are Koreans there! How can I lose?”
Newman’s for Sanders. Kang is for whomever the person that he’s talking to likes.
(Go ahead and deny it, Sukhee.)
Suhkhee’s a standard corporate Democrat. Newman’s a progressive. It’s sort of a photocopy of Clinton vs. Sanders.
Or Dunn vs. Correa.
Correa bullshits better than Hillary. Half of the problem with her speaking is what she says; the other half is that she’s so BAD at it!
That I disagree with. What I heard at the time suggested it was his own overweening ambitious initiative. “There are Koreans there! How can I lose?”
I don’t doubt he has an insatiable appetite for political aggrandizement -After all he was suckled at Boss Agran’s teat. But i find it real hard to believe that Kang would buy a house in Fullerton without the prior go ahead from Kevin DeLeon and the Sacramento bag men.
Of course it’s possible that even Sukhee realized he had zero future in central and south OC and sold the bosses on the move post facto.
In any case it’s hard to believe they would have blessed Sukhee without his having to pay some sort of monetary tribute.
“Or he and Ling-Ling could jointly wear a horse costume.”
The devil is in the details.
With any luck this will go down to Newman-Chang and we can have a battle of the Ivy Leagues.
Ha! Yale vs Harvard… extension was it?
In a sense it was, but not in the sense that she could have qualified for the program that she said she was in without a Bachelor’s degree.
I can post the link (or you can) if need be.
Harvard? What is that, a street in Diamond Bar?
“The devil is in the details.”
Yes, he is. But in this case Sukhee is a born horse’s ass.
I had a good talk last night with Josh Newman at the annual All The Arts for All The Kids function in Fullerton. Sukhee Kang was a no-show, of course, most likely because he wouldn’t have known a soul there, or what to say to them.
I guess he could have tried to defend his horrible record. Horrible Irvine record that is. Apparently he’s been going around bragging to people about his $16 per ride i-Shuttle in Irvine.
Tell us more, did you agree on many things?
It was a non-political environment.