Weekend Open Thread: Pringly Wordsmith Displays “Trump vs. RNC” Style Panic Over Kring in Anaheim District 4

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Lucille Kring is the OCGOP’s version of what Donald Trump is for the RNC: Republicans can’t stand them, but they don’t want to admit it, so they have to support them.  But at what a lasting cost!

For what she would probably claim to have been a good week, Lucille Kring has actually had a pretty terrible one.

Kring at this point has about the same relationship to the OCGOP as Donald Trump has to the Republican National Committee: they pretty much can’t stand her, but they see no alternative to endorsing her due to the shame of not putting up at least the appearance of a fight.  (The smart move, by the way, might have been for them to instead endorse Jose/Joe “JoJo” Moreno — the shapeshifter who tries to get people to think that he is Dr. Jose Moreno every two years — and hope to glean the benefit of confusion with the good doctor.  But it’s too late for that!  Now that Lushy Lucy is their candidate, they’re committed to a program of support for STRs and for the giveaways and subsidies to the hotel industry, especially to the 800-pound gorilla of the Disney Corporation.

This is not a popular position in Anaheim these days — there’s room for the donkeys and there’s room for the elephants, but there’s not a lot of room for the ravenous pigs — but its their problem that they’ve tarnished their brand by adopting it.  (To be fair, we Democrats have the same problem in having adopted Leonard Lahtinen in District 1, but the chance remains that — especially after being rejected by SOAR in favor of rapacious weasel Steve “Chavez” Lodge — he will reconsider the wisdom of joining the looting party.  Kring’s record, by contrast, is well-established and beyond redemption.)

One man — one (we presume) reasonably well-compensated man — will actually go out there and make the argument for Kring on the merits these days.  That man is Matt “Jubal the Teddy Bear Murderer” Cunningham over at Anaheim Blog (as well as what seems to be the largely unread countywide blog sponsored by “Dishonest Dave” Gilliard, the name of which escapes me.  “Irvine News and Views,” maybe.)  And man, is that man seeming desperate these days.

Let’s hork over a bunch of his recent post pleading for support of Kring, along with some comments (including one towering homer by our own Mr. Vern), so you can enjoy Cunningham’s flop sweat from a safe distance.

We’ll skip the predictable story itself — in which he as paid author has some professional stake (to live down) as he celebrates all debased things Lucille — and go to the comments, which are amusing.

First, there’s this from walking campaign issue Amanda Edinger — still hanging around Kring’s and Jordan Brandman’s necks for having (1) been their appointment to an important City Commission and (2) neglecting to purge her Facebook page of all sorts of horribly racist anti-immigrant posts while doing so — writing as “Sick of Politics”:

Nothing but disappointment in the OC GOP these days. They seem intent on destroying the party. They refuse to give up an allegiance to Tait who had a major hand in district elections. And Tait supports two very left wing candidates who have nothing in common with conservative principles. Add that to his support of Denise Barnes who can barely muster a coherent sentence among tears when she speaks!

Yes, Amanda, Yessssss … keep on attacking the most popular person in Anaheim politics!  Faster, Disneycat, Kill, Kill!   But, seriously, we have to give the OCGOP some credit: they didn’t support “Chavez” Lodge, and did support Mark Lopez over Steve Faessel in District 5, so if they’re trying to destroy the party they’re doing a really half-assed job of it.  Some speculate that it was my own throaty and partisan endorsement of Arturo Ferraras in District 4 that led the OCGOP to endorse Kring — after the ideologically stolid California Republican Assembly literally endorsed “DO NOT vote for Kring” — and I promise my friends in the OCGOP that I did not set that up as a clever trap, even though if I had wanted to do so I could hardly have planned it better.  But, really — I didn’t.

But then it gets fuhhh-reaky!

A profile in courage wrote:

She’s a good Republican.

The GOP should absolutely endorse her.

and, once again, I promise you that this was not me being impish.  You can’t rule it out, though, because this brave position was put forward by someone using the name “Publish This You Conservative” — implying some expectation that Matt might be somewhat reluctant of grab on to anything that floats, as he struggled to keep his head above water after the Kring shipwreck, which was completely misplaced.

It led to a boomer of a comment by someone named “Bob Garcia” — and if that’s a fake name, then he’s striving for the position of the Anti-particle to Lib Oc’s “David Vasquez”:

Let’s go point by point:

1. [Kring] is a lifelong Republican. So what. Many kkk members are life long republicans. That doesn’t mean the party should endorse them.

2. She has been anti tax anti regulation pro business vote… Good for district 6 not good for district 4. She actually has said she for some sort of regulation to the wealthy owners of the strs can keep making money at the expense of the people that live in the district.

3. She lied and changed her positions so the party withdrew its support

4. She has done everything in her power to keep the power in the hands of the wealthy… I agree with this point. But i also believe that if Republican would listen and engage with us we would vote Republican. Like me… I always vote for [Tait] because he cares and listens

5. School of choice is a crock. As it stands now charter schools are unregulated profit centers for out of town corporations. If she would just look into it she would see that simply approving and supporting charters only [siphons] off more money from the kids that need it most.

6. Gate tax ban. Complete sell out to Disney. Took our ability vote away.

7. Champion of property rights of the people who don’t live in the area. What about the property rights of those us that live here? The Oc juice blog exposed a recent fundraiser that called Lucy the strs owners best friend in the council. Exactly why district 4 wants her out

And that’s not even the really great part!  The great part was Matt’s feeble retort:

Keep going, Bob. The more you comment, the more ridiculous you sound.

OH NO HE DOESN’T, JERBIL!  That was a hoss-whuppin’, and if your check is going to cash you’ll have to try harder than that!  My own reply, currently on moderation because all of mine are — was:

Keep slacking, Matt. You’re usually more adept at arguing than that, but this one is clearly a hard row to hoe.

But really, if an animated GIF of an applauding audience would show up there, I would have preferred it.

Then Chairman Vern got into the show.  He’s already published this elsewhere, but it belongs in an actual story:

Whoops. Sounds like you got a problem – Republicans with a conscience.

Sounds like there’s some Republicans who don’t want to associate with crony capitalism, with giving away $700 million plus to a few huge well-connected corporations to build 4-star hotels that either would have gotten built anyway or weren’t needed.

Sounds like there’s some Republicans who also didn’t like the idea of giving away the Angels Stadium parking lot to Arte Moreno for a dollar a year for 66 years.

Maybe these Republicans also didn’t appreciate how Lucille first promised at least five of us including Mayor Tait that she would support settling the districting suit if elected, immediately broke that promise (and several other promises) and joined her colleagues in continuing the suit for a taxpayer cost of $3 million, and then last winter joined Brandman in trying again to thwart the intent of districting by postponing the most Latino district’s vote for two more years, the whole while lecturing us DISTRICTING SUPPORTERS on the spirit and purpose of districting.

Or maybe these Republicans were nonplussed by her justifying her broken campaign promises to Scott Baugh and the rest of the OC GOP: “It wasn’t in my campaign literature!”

Maybe these Republicans are fans of the Constitution and foes of summary execution who took exception to her joking about the shooting of Robert Moreno, “Saved us the cost of a trial!”

Perhaps these Republicans didn’t cotton to her standing next to Tony Rackauckas during her disastrous Mayoral run as the useless DA called Mayor Tait a gang lover.

It’s quite possible that these Republicans with a conscience didn’t appreciate Lucille’s backing of a tax increase masquerading as something else – 2014’s Measure N, which it took WILLIAM DENIS FITZGERALD to defeat.

Or – it just struck me – could the Republicans’ problem with Lucille be her trying to have it both ways on Short-Term Rentals, telling the anti-STR activists she opposes them, while secretly (but we caught her!) enjoying a STR-owner fundraiser?

Or it could be any number of other things, I’m running out of time and energy here. Republicans with a conscience – what a concept, and what a problem!

This led Cunningham to a frothy boil in two parts:

Your are full of it on so many levels, Vern. But for starters, just stop with your “Republicans with a conscience” BS. It’s just like when you use your term “honest conservatives.” Those are your concocted euphemisms for GOP dupes who go along with YOUR political agenda.

Of course you like Republicans who help progressives and Democrats achieve their political goals.

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And you basing this reality-challenged screed on comments from one person who may are may not be a GOPer named “Bob Garcia”

Last question first: no, Matt.  No, he is not.  He’s basing it on having paid attention for over five years now.  If by “it” you meant “accurate information about Anaheim’s contemporary political history, it is true that apparently Vern’s cup runneth over.  But … you didn’t!

Matt’s response to the phrase “Republicans with a conscience” — which he correctly identifies with “honest conservatives” — is deliciously telling.  No, Vern does not intend “Republicans with a conscience” to mean “ones who support the Democrats”: the greatest boon to the California Democratic Party in that past quarter century has been Pete Wilson’s support of Prop 187, and he didn’t do that to help Democrats, Matt (although it did turn out that way.)  Tait and his Republican allies supported districting because it was the right thing to do, and the Republican Party will be better positioned to compete for Latino votes in the future than it would have been without Tom Tait.  Democrats, who have done much of the heavy lifting, will likewise face the burden of having had Jordan Brandman and the Building Trades (neither of whom are  particularly “Democratic” at this point) as prominent figures weighing in on the wrong side of the issue, which we should have owned.  Unless you want to say that the OCGOP — which endorsed Kring only very grudgingly and didn’t endorse Lodge or Faessel at all! — is on the side of the Democrats (hint: it isn’t, trust me on this), then your position is spit-up pabulum mixed with gibberish.  The lesson for the GOP after this year will be DON’T LET DISNEY AND THE BUILDING TRADES PICK YOUR CANDIDATES.  (And by that, of course, I mean you padron Curt Pringle.)  Looting time is ending, Mr. Cunningham — time to move on to less-depleted pastures!

Bob Garcia then shows up for a closing riposte, at least as of this hour:

What does it say when pretty much the only people and use that term loosely to support her are you and jrr [referring there to proud Mexi-hater James Robert Reade]?

Come on, Mr. Garcia — you seem like an intelligent man.  It means that at this point it’s hard to tell the different between the commend of a wordsmith for hire, currently leased by Curt Pringle and Dave Gilliard, and an actual unreconstructed anti-Latino bigot.  But I’m guessing that you knew that.

I look forward to Cunningham and Reade putting out their joint endorsement list for Anaheim — or perhaps their separate ones that will just happen to be identical.  Please, Matt — don’t deny me that pleasure!

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If, like me, you’ve been teaching your young resident grammar-school lad or miss the days of the week in English, don’t make the mistake that I did: falsely recalling that that information was set to music as part of the Bay City Rollers‘ “Saturday Night.”  (I-I-I-I just can’t wait … for you to go to YouTube and checking it out again.  No, I won’t link to it here; we have some standards!)  Of course, the song listing the ordered days of the week that I meant to play — which sent said grandchild screaming from the room, then back to my bedroom door demanding that I STO-O-O-O-O-P IT, but hopefully with the days of the week already embedded firmly in his limbic system — is The Clash’s “Police on My Back” … and, seriously, could there be a better song for a story about Lucille King than this?  (In fact, let’s make that a reader contest: submit your entries for her ideal campaign theme song in comments.  I defy you to beat my choice!)

Now that you know the days of the week, know also that this is your (belated, as is our recent practice) Weekend Open Thread.  Talk about that, or whatever else strikes your fancy, within reasonable bounds of decency and decorum.  (And discretion.  And dignity.)