Rocco plots a comeback!

Let’s start ‘way back in 2022, when the unholy, nationwide alliance of Culture Warriors and Charter School Profiteers – for this story, we’ll call that alliance the Education Reactionaries – managed to briefly take over the Orange Unified School District. And just barely too, by a margin of only 111 votes, the margin by which Madcap Madison Miner, backed by Chino Hills Megachurch Pastor Jack Hibbs, won that election.

And what a PRIZE that was, to the Education Reactionary movement nationwide – with Temecula, Placentia/Yorba Linda, and now Orange under their belt – they felt they were on a roll! They immediately got to work at OUSD… well, mostly making chaos and wasting millions. They fired very popular and successful Superintendent Dr. Gunn Marie Hansen for no apparent or stated reason, leaving the district leaderless for much of a year. They cracked down on libraries, used facility repair funds for personal projects, sold out needed school sites on the cheap to religious charters, and discriminated against LGBTQ and special needs kids, leading to mass exodi of teachers, principals and staff, as well as inevitable costly lawsuits. And they got lots of headlines and interviews, and were pretty damn proud of themselves!

But the Education Reactionaries were not counting on the people, parents and teachers of the Orange USD! In the most impressive OC political phenomenon of this year so far, a citizen-driven grassroots movement, hell-of well-organized, rose up and successfully recalled the two worst reactionaries on the Board – Madison and Rick Ledesma – by 7-point margins in the March ’24 primary, obviously with broad bipartisan support, and restored the Board to its original competence and sanity.

And then our plucky rebels waited. Waited for November, with trepidation and fortitude. Slept with one eye open. Surely the reaction, the coming storm, would be furious and overwhelming. Charter school contributions quadrupling, Megapastor eyes bulging, folksy yet canny candidates, glossy yet terrifying mailers? And the rebels waited, prepared for the worst…

Except, not so much.

Turns out it all ended with a whimper, as the reactionaries seem to have “taken their ball and gone home.” Or rather, their two balls, as the two reactionaries remaining on the Board have decided not to run for re-election, and their erstwhile movement hasn’t put forward any candidates in the other three races. THIS IS WHAT VANQUISHED LOOKS LIKE. Or, as the August 20 OUSD “Moving Forward Together” newsletter puts it:

“They seem to have decided to take their funding and back candidates in other places where voters are less informed and engaged than our community.”

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Oh but there ARE the OTHER three races in which parent-teacher-backed candidates are being challenged… however those challengers fall on varying degrees of the spectrum between the unserious and the laughable. Mira nomas:

In District 3, incumbent and Governing Trustee Ana Page is being challenged by a “businessman” named Dzung “Dan” Nguyen, who’s filed no candidate statement and I can’t find any picture of – but we do know one thing: He’s the dad of rightwing scribbler Chris Nguyen. We know Chris! (Right) He used to run a dull, moribund Republican blog named OCPolitical – that is, until the Anaheim kleptocracy became aware of his talents and hired him to write their mendacious statements (and even made him a commissioner!) Thus, when I tried to recall Harry Sidhu, and later Jordan Brandman, my statements were responded to by identical, identically dishonest statements by Chris Nguyen. Shame, Chris – you can’t even write a statement for your Dad?

It gets better though. In District 4 (the Villa Park area), parent-teacher-backed incumbent Sara Pelly, who was appointed to take the place of recalled, crazed Madison Miner, is being challenged by one of those perennial candidates who runs for everything – one Armando “Mando” Perez-Serrato. He’s got no campaign statement either, but at least we have a picture of him (left.) Remember when Republicans tried to recall Gavin Newsom? Mando was one of the dozens of hopefuls vying to take his place. And this year he’s not only running for OUSD, and a water board, he’s even running for President of the USA, and it’s said that he still believes he can win that one!

But it gets even better – the race in District 7 will be between 25-year educator / CSULB professor Dr. Stephen Glass (who was appointed to take the place of recalled bump-on-a-log Rick Ledesma) and STEVE ROCCO:

Or, if you prefer Matt Cunningham’s SCARY version:

Enough ink has been spilled on this obviously mentally ill perennial candidate Rocco – suffice it to say that when Lou Correa wants to insult ME, he (reportedly) calls me “the new Rocco.” This guy actually did “serve” on the OUSD board twenty years ago, more on that later. Rocco also doesn’t have a candidate statement, but when I was at the Supervisors’ meeting this week (singing “Rhiannon Do“) Steve Rocco was bouncing around the aisles telling everyone about his latest OUSD campaign.

But here’s what’s hilarious: Matt Cunningham (at OC Independent) obviously worked SO LONG AND HARD on his lengthy hit piece on Dr. Glass, before realizing that the ONLY OPTION IN THAT RACE WAS ROCCO. As usual, Matt’s hard work consisted mainly of poring through years of his target’s social media posts, locating the bits that might be most frightening to uptight social “conservatives” like himself (who he still seems to think are the majority in the OC), and working hard to make them seem even more frightening. [OMG, this black professor sympathizes with Black Lives Matter! And DEI!]

But Matt’s realization of the uselessness of his piece (Glass vs. Rocco) drives him to a tormented sort of poetry of despair. “Drinks Deeply of the George Floyd Anti-Police Movement.” “Glass has thoroughly imbibed the spirit of hostility to law enforcement at the core of the Georg [sic] Floyd zeitgeist.” “Glass’ link takes one to a cornucopia of literature suffused with (Marxist) Critical Theory ideology and its offshoots like the Black Lives Matter movement…” Yet still, alas, pity “the unenviable position in which OUSD voters find themselves: to choose between a known kook and a career education bureaucrat with a radical progressive ideology that it [sic] out of step with most voters. It’s unfortunate OUSD voters have not been given a better choice in Trustee Area 7.”

But I still haven’t told you the funniest part. And Matt won’t either, but some of us here have “institutional memory.” Rocco won his term on this board 20 years ago with the full-throated support of Matt Cunningham (who had that kind of sway back in 2004 when he ran the “Red County” blog and was a mover and shaker.) I remember hearing Gustavo Arellano ribbing Matt over that on NPR that year, and Matt admitting that he hadn’t done his homework and just automatically backed anyone who wasn’t connected with the Teachers Union.

Ah, the mishegas! Ah, the desmadre. Dr Glass sounds great. And so does the restored OUSD Board. And the LATEST missive from what was the Recall movement has to give you a warm fuzzy feeling – it is a call to action to restore Crossing Guards in Orange. That’s what a Return To Normal looks like. And my widely-read 2023 piece remains on-target and prophetic:

From Temecula to Orange, the Normal People Rise Up!

Vern out.