Spare a tear for Will O’Neill, and also one for Fred Whitaker from whom Will inherited the thankless job of presiding over the slow painful death of the once-mighty Republican Party of Orange County, California. It’s not just the voter registration numbers (Dems now outnumbering Reps by over 55,000). More than that, the Party can’t find any viable candidates, especially in Congressional races. And so we see the OC Register, long derided as a Republican organ, now driven to endorse Democrat after Democrat.

To be fair though, the Register editorial board (which includes my pal Greenhut) hasn’t really been predictably partisan as long as I recall; they do have a list of values they cling to, which made them favor Republicans in the past. They are generally hostile to unions, especially public employee unions. They’re uncritically supportive of charter schools aka “choice,” which still causes them to pick shitty school board candidates. Government is too big, taxes are too high, they still believe and it’s hard to argue with that, in general.

But they have long been strong against corruption and crony capitalism, big on transparency, and they’ve staunchly opposed too many of Trump’s abuses to name – especially the ICE raids, tariffs, and needless wars. The more the GOP devolves into the Party of Trump, the more the Register begins to sound like a Democrat broadsheet!

In their Robert Garcia endorsement, dismissing the Republican challenger, they crack, “the Orange County Republican Party certainly aren’t sending their best.” That’s charitable of them. I question that. Maybe the OC GOP IS sending its best. Maybe this is all they have left. Maybe the OC GOP is dead. Behold:

The Register Endorses Robert Garcia!

Aren’t you glad you lived long enough to see the Orange County Register urge Huntington Beach, Newport & Costa Mesa to elect a gay, progressive Democrat whose ascension to lead the Oversight Committee will be Trump’s worst nightmare? Yeah me too. After dismissing this Brian Burley character, they laud Robert for being “a consistent voice against corruption in the federal government, from the questionable uses of the presidential pardon power to the great enrichment of the Trump family and others in the administration...”

“…As any right-minded lawmaker from a port city would, Garcia has also been a critic of the president’s self-destructive tariff policies both for their illegality and their harmful impact on consumers and businesses. ‘Donald Trump has caused chaos globally with his reckless tariff policies that have raised prices and impacted America’s ports,’ he said in February. ‘The Supreme Court has made it clear that these tariffs are illegal and harming consumers. It’s time to move forward and bring costs down for families.‘

“Garcia has also been a vocal critic of the president’s legally questionable and morally questionable meddling around the world, from the Caribbean boat bombings to the Iran war. He has also been critical of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies, advocating for a balanced approach that recognizes the positive contribution of immigrants to our country…This is an easy choice. Robert Garcia has our endorsement/”

WORD, Register. Ours too.

The Register Endorses Derek Tran!

“How things change!” marvels the Register as they launch into their Derek rave. That’s for sure. Last time they endorsed Michelle Steel over Derek Tran! I don’t even want to go back and look at their reasons for backing that brain-dead MAGA racist. Probably residual loyalty to her husband Shawn. But the odious Steels are 20th-century news.

Apparently the Register is surprised that Derek turned out to be a QUICK STUDY. Well, I’m not. This time they “found him thoughtful, focused and conversant in the key issues. He spoke out forcefully about matters that concern us, including ICE’s abusive practices. He also blasted Congress’ unsustainable deficit spending, the administration’s incoherent foreign policy, the foolhardy nature of Trump’s tariff policies, and the president’s costly war of choice in Iran.”

“When we talked about the debt and the state of entitlements, he didn’t take the “let’s just cut waste” dodge. He recognized the depth of the problem and called for a commission to propose solutions to Social Security’s potential insolvency. We appreciated his poise, knowledge and forthrightness. We were left thinking: Is this the same Derek Tran we previously interviewed?”

Yeah. Yeah he is. And after several paragraphs of being underwhelmed by Derek’s opponent Chuong Vo (who isn’t even sure if he supports the Iran War), our monopoly daily concludes, “All things considered, Tran has earned another term, especially at a time when the Trump administration’s policies are disrupting the economy, dragging the United States into endless conflicts and wrecking the constitutional order.”

The Register Endorses Katrina Foley!

It is sure a new Orange County when still-red South County elects a Democrat as Supervisor, and 4 years later The Register is saying, “Hey, re-elect that lady!” And Katrina’s opponent is not some unknown unproven Republican, it’s Newport’s Diane Dixon who left the Assembly to challenge her for the seat! On the other hand, have you heard a weaker response from a politician than Diane’s explanation of why she caved on a pension reform bill: “I could take a stand for the right thing, but they [the unions] are really powerful.” No matter what your position on the issue, that is the textbook definition of CRAVEN.

Well, the Register is convinced:

“…We offer our hearty endorsement to Foley. We’ve had a chance to watch her for five years and she has acted exactly as she’s described herself: an anti-tax-increase Democrat with a mastery of the details and a penchant for transparency… 

“One of the core underappreciated aspects of board governance is transparency, especially after a COVID bribery scandal last year sent former board member Andrew Do to prison. The transparency issue also became important after the board embarrassed itself by quietly boosting board members’ pay by 25% — with Foley being the only member opposed. Foley has been the one board member who has forthrightly stood up for oversight and accountability on every key issue. She almost always is the board’s designated adult— a thankless but critical role…

“[Katrina Foley] always defends the public’s right to know, and knows the details of county governance. That matters.”

We can’t put it better.

Three Mid-Piece Ruminations

Could Dave Min and Mike Levin be next? When do the Min and Levin shoes drop, next week? I can’t think of anything those two have done to disqualify them from Register endorsements, or anything that makes the two ding-dongs running against them (Mike “Big Oil” Gunderson and Jenny Rae Le Roux) any better than the other OCGOP sacrificial lambs. I see though, amusingly, that Jenny Rae proclaims that “Californians are tired of one-party rule,” and so they should vote for her. Does Jenny Rae (left, Min’s opponent) realize she’s running for Congress? Where, duh, the one-party rule is Republican?

Which brings up, I’m sure this is in the back of the editors’ minds, and I bet they’d agree – beyond the quality of one candidate over another, it’s essential that Democrats take the majority this year. More than ever. Really. Seriously. This COULD be the last stand for our democracy.

On the other hand, I never wanted to live in a one-party state or country, and even though I spend most of my time trying to help good Democrats beat bad Democrats, we also need some decent Republicans, ones that represent the best of the Grand Old Party’s past as well as (one could hope) its future. And the Register DID find one such Republican, running against Avelino for State Senate, they found her in Placentia…

The Register Endorses Rhonda Shader!

I remember Ryan Cantor telling us we should back this lady over Umberg four years ago, and I met her at this year’s Black History Parade, she did seem really nice and reasonable for a Republican, I thought it was a trick! But apparently not. The Register has no big criticisms of Avelino but they are very impressed with Rhonda, saying, AND I QUOTE:

“She reminds us of an old-school Republican – of the sort we miss, actually – as she talked about Sacramento’s “death by 1,000 cuts” approach to business regulation and emphasized a market-oriented affordability approach. She understands the need to reduce construction-stifling building regulations. And she understands that Sacramento’s endless catering to special interests leaves California government overextended and reliant on new taxes to sustain itself. With Democratic supermajorities in Sacramento, Shader would offer needed balance.

“But our biggest reason for endorsing Shader is the courage she showed in standing up to the public-employee unions in her own city. As we noted in our 2022 endorsement of her, ‘she endured union wrath for creating a new fire department (and exiting an overpriced county contract) that saves the city $28 million over a decade.’…

“Shader is facing long odds, but we believe she’s the right choice for the district. She would bring a common sense, back-to-basics agenda to Sacramento. As she proved in Placentia, she is willing to buck powerful interests in defense of taxpayers. Considering most Republicans in the Legislature at this point are also as beholden to public employee unions as the Democrats, she’d be one of the only true fiscal conservatives in Sacramento. She has our endorsement.”. 

So there you go. The OC Republican Party is only MOSTLY dead. If the GOP ever recovers from its Trump era, it’ll be with folks like Rhonda Shader. And I think we agree with all the Register’s endorsements so far. That we know of.

Let’s make this an open thread.

GO!!!