NO, Lou. Loretta has NOT endorsed you. So stop suggesting that.

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lou-distance-loretta

You know how they say, even though nobody knows who first said it, that “a lie can travel halfway around the globe while the truth is still getting its boots on“?  And that it’s very true, and it’s especially true when the excuse for the lie begins, “Well, I didn’t EXACTLY say that.  [Just strongly and unmistakably implied it?]”

And look, I am still lacing up my boots.  Story of my life, in the 46th Congressional District.

lacing up boots

There have been a lot of lies spread in the race to take possession of Loretta’s well-worn Congressional seat, none of them from the Joe Dunn side, and very soon – this week – I’ll be debunking a boatload of ’em.  But one of those lies cries out to be dispatched right now:  Loretta has not endorsed any of the contenders for the Anaheim-Santa Ana seat, and will NOT do so until after the June 7 primary.  I already knew this to be a fact;  then double-checked with her campaign office, and then triple-checked with the queen bee herself, who is kind enough to take my cell phone calls.

But anyone visited by Lou’s youthful campaign workers in recent days is nearly certain to have the impression that Loretta DID endorse Lou, going by the package they are handing out or leaving on your door.  All stapled together, first you see a Lou Correa mailer (with a cute little handwritten “Sorry I missed you,” if you were out shopping or hiding in the kitchen) :

lou mailer 3

Open that mailer up, and the next thing you see inside is a Loretta Sanchez for Senate mailer:

lou mailer 1

And, stapled in between the Lou mailer and the Loretta mailer like a sort of connective tissue, a yellow sheet of paper urging you, in both English and Spanish, to “Vote for OUR friend, Senator Lou Correa.”

lou mailer 2

I’ve shown this package to several people now, people who are not at all dumb, and they all took away the impression that Lou is Loretta’s choice, that they are running as sort of a ticket.  Which is obviously what Lou intends – the endorsement of the very popular ten-term Congresswoman would be golden to any of the contenders.  Loretta really should ask Lou to stop implying he’s got it.

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dunn-lorettaIt’s hell-of interesting to speculate on which candidate, assuming Lou and Joe are the two to make it through June 7, Loretta will choose to endorse – and it could be what makes or breaks the race.  I can’t pretend to guess – maybe there will be some personal, pragmatic, racial, or otherwise lame-ass reason she chooses Lou.  But as I’ve written before, Loretta at her best has been a bold progressive populist, and that record of hers would be continued by Joe much more surely than Lou.  Consider…

In the realm of health care reform, Loretta tried hard to get a strong public option included in Obamacare, to give the private insurance companies more competition and hopefully lead to a single-payer system.  Joe has always been a champion of single-payer, while Lou, heavily funded by insurance, has pretty much fought any meaningful health care reform throughout his career.  Conclusion – Loretta should endorse Joe.

On trade and the overwhelming power of corporations:  Loretta opposed NAFTA and TPP, and most of the less-notorious but equally bad trade deals that give corporations more power than elected governments, even our own.  On the state legislatures, Joe always opposed resolutions backing these deals, Lou always backed them.  Conclusion – Loretta should endorse Joe.

Two of the Loretta’s bravest and wisest votes that we loved the most were against the invasion of Iraq, and against the PATRIOT Act.  We know that Joe would have been on the same page against both of those atrocities, he said so at the time.  It’s impossible to say for sure after the fact where Lou would have come down, but given that his positions on law enforcement and the War on Drugs are rooted in the Politics of Fear, I’m pretty sure he would, like Hillary, have SUPPORTED the disastrous war as well as the liberty-decimating (but “keep-us-safing”) PATRIOT Act.  Conclusion – Loretta should endorse Joe.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

FOR NOW.  For now.


About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist/composer in Orange County, and official political troubadour of Anaheim and most other OC towns. Regularly makes solo performances, sometimes with his savage-jazz band The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.