Quirk-Silva Campaigns In Santa Ana Which Doesn’t Even Border AD-65
Posted by Former Blogger Chris Emami on August 30, 2012
AD-65 candidate Sharon Quirk-Silva is campaigning in Santa Ana today: she’s holding a meet and greet at the Martinez Book Store at 216 N. Broadway at 5 PM.
Why?
AD-65 is Anaheim, Buena Park, Cypress, Fullerton, La Palma and Stanton. None of those cities even border Santa Ana.
Credit goes to Meridian Pacific for posting these maps on their website.
Maybe she’s in Santa Ana because she wants to be Loretta Sanchez’s successor. That would make sense since Santa Ana is completely in CD-46. She’s sharing campaign offices with Sanchez, too. Maybe that’s what this AD-65 campaign really is about. She’s trying to raise her profile to run for CD-46. CD-46 doesn’t include Buena Park, Cypress, Fullerton, La Palma, or Stanton, by the way.
Maybe Quirk-Silva’s campaigning in Santa Ana because they’ll be friendlier to her pro-tax message there than they will be in AD-65. She must be supporting Governor Jerry Brown’s Prop 30 sales tax and income tax hike. Prop 30 will probably fail miserably in AD-65 but pass in Santa Ana. As Steve Sarkis pointed out in the OC Register, Quirk-Silva’s entire “ending partisan gridlock” argument is just code for increasing taxes. See Steve’s letter (third one down): http://letters.ocregister.com/2012/05/26/primary-distinctions-between-candidates/
Maybe Quirk-Silva’s campaigning in Santa Ana because she has as many Santa Ana City Councilmembers endorsing her as she does in all of AD-65. She has four Santa Ana Councilmembers endorsing her (David Benavides, Michele Martinez, Sal Tinajero, and Vince Sarmiento). Of the four AD-65 Councilmembers endorsing Quirk-Silva (Anaheim’s Lorri Galloway, Fullerton’s Doug Chaffee, and tiny La Palma’s Ralph Rodriguez and Steve Shanahan), Galloway can’t even vote for her since she lives in AD-68 (Anaheim is split into AD-65, AD-68, and AD-69). By the way, Norby has 21 endorsements from AD-65 City Councilmembers.
Maybe Quirk-Silva’s campaigning in Santa Ana because she’ll hope it’ll get the Assembly Dem leadership’s attention by pretending to run in a Dem city like Santa Ana. I wrote a couple weeks ago in my post “Leading Assembly Democrat Headlines Norby Fundraiser” that “She isn’t endorsed by the Speaker or the Assembly Majority Leader either. It looks like the Democrat leadership is abandoning Quirk-Silva.”
It looks like the Democrat leadership is abandoning Quirk-Silva. On Monday, the Assembly’s top Democrat, Speaker John Perez, announced the Dems’ November target list: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/08/assembly-democrats-target-four-races-for-november-election.html
Quirk-Silva wasn’t on it.
Has Quirk-Silva given up on even campaigning in AD-65?
OC Political 
Greg Diamond said
Oh, Chris — you are (presumably) better than this. Please, don’t play the fool.
Wow, candidates campaigning outside of their district — to people from whom they might be able to raise funds to campaign in their districts. “Inconceivable!” is, I think, the way Wallace Shawn put it in The Princess Bride.
Come on, Chris. Jay Chen has been doing east coast and Northern California fundraising. I’ll be doing a fundraiser in Silicon Valley next month. My opponent Bob Huff is raising lots of money from outside interests way, way out of the region. You understand that this is how politics works. (Or, if you don’t — good!)
For what it’s worth, I’ll address some of your misconceptions.
Sharon is sharing a campaign office with Loretta in west Anaheim, where their districts (and mine, it so happens) overlap. She’s also sharing an office with Jay Chen and me (she and I both subletting from the Democrats of North Orange County club) in Fullerton. Nothing sinister there.
The Democratic Leadership is not “abandoning Quirk-Silva,” much as it may please you to spread that rumor. The four Assembly races that they identified are, if memory serves, the four closest in the state. It’s no surprise that they choose them first. But (as you know, and as you would presumably like people to know that you know, making me wonder why you’re pretending otherwise) the parties monitor elections well past Labor Day and are prepared to dump in a ton of money when a goos opportunity arises. Sharon’s race (and Norby’s, um, stability) will be under constant scrutiny from here on out.
Aside from the odd speculation about her running in a district where she doesn’t live (and where those four Council members who endorsed her, all potential candidates, do) based on a fundraising trip down there, your insinuation that she may have stopped campaigning in AD-65 is laughable. (Huh?) Save us all some trouble and just admit that, please, so that I don’t have to come back here with proof.
I know that Sharon has also been campaigning hard in Buena Park, Fullerton, and I think it was La Palma; I’m sure that Cypress and Stanton are on her list as well. And, you’re right — none of them are in CD-46 — which is just more evidence that the premise of this post is bogus.
I know that having the ability to block an Assembly supermajority hanging by the hairs on Chris Norby’s head must be uncomfortable for the state’s Republican Party (to the extent that it still exists), so I fully understand why you would want to wish Sharon’s challenge to Norby away. Sadly for you, it’s not going to happen. She’s a great candidate — and with the more Democratic Presidential electorate, she has a serious chance. Hanging out with a Sanchez sister (or two) to raise money is only going to help. Too bad that the Republicans in the area are at each others’ throats, isn’t it?
SONGS REFUGEE said
I read this and saw that there was only “1” comment, I bet my secretary it was by a guy named Greg Diamond, Democratic Defender extraordinaire.
Maybe the reason Sharon is campaigning in Santa Ana is because they know her record (or lack thereof) in North OC. Other than suggesting that homeless people need socks, I can’t think of a single noteworthy thing she’s done or said. I know she thinks it’s “OUR” responsibility to feed children of school age breakfast and lunch, year-round, but I have yet to see her articulate anything she stands for.
As for the Santa Ana city council who supported her, she should be running as fast as she can from at least one of them, as he is following the footsteps of his colleague Carlos Bustamante, in a scandal to be reckoned with.
Greg Diamond said
You probably intended to insult me, but I’m sort of flattered that you predicted that it was me setting the record straight.
According to this article, Sharon campaigned in Santa Ana — once. Apparently, to raise money. That is OK, right?
She’s doing by far — BYYYYYY FAAAAAARRRRR — most of her campaigning in North OC. From what I hear, her people are working like hell and she’s getting a great response.
Now why isn’t Norby out in West Anaheim explaining to voters why they shouldn’t receive government services?
As I just noted in FFFF, one thing that she stands for — and that Norby went out his way to disparage — is defending Title IX and its effects on girls’ and women’s athletics.
I love how charges like those in the last paragraph are so often made anonymously.