Posted by Newsletter Reprint on March 16, 2012
This just came across the wire from the Leslie Daigle for Assemby campaign:
Leslie Daigle Earns Support FromNumerous
Top Education Officials
Mansoor Lacks Single Education Endorsement
Newport Beach – Education leaders in the Newport Mesa Unified School District, which over sees educaiton in both Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, have come out in overwhelming support of Newport Beach Councilwoman Leslie Daigle’s candidacy for the 74th Assembly District. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in 74th Assembly District | Tagged: Allan Mansoor, Leslie Daigle | 1 Comment »
Posted by Newsletter Reprint on March 16, 2012
This just came across the wire from the office of Assemblywoman Diane Harkey:
SACRAMENTO – Joining with the Orange County Board of Supervisors and other local jurisdictions, the Orange City Council has voted unanimously to support AB 1455, the High Speed Rail Lemon Law, authored by Assemblywoman Diane Harkey (R-Dana Point) to repeal $9 billion in available Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in 73rd Assembly District | Tagged: Diane Harkey | 1 Comment »
Posted by Chris Nguyen on March 16, 2012
Yesterday afternoon, the newest winners of the California lottery were announced: Businessman John Webb, Businessman Pat Garcia, Businessman Ron Varaseth, Senator Mimi Walters, Assemblyman Chris Norby, Perennial candidate Christina Avalos, Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly, Businessman Travis Allen, Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, Newport Beach Councilwoman Leslie Daigle, Supervisor Janet Nguyen, former Supervisor/Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, Businesswoman Karla Downing, Central Committee Member Baron Night, Orange Councilman Jon Dumitru, Central Committee Member Gwen Dyrud, Central Committee Member Steve Nagel, San Clemente Planning Commissioner Nesa Anderson, and Office Clerk Jon Aiken.
No, these 19 people are not splitting a $200,000,000 jackpot. They won the Secretary of State’s candidate order lottery.
What’s the candidate order lottery, you ask?
Well, California law requires a lottery to determine the order of candidates on the ballot. Why does this law exist? Studies of the primacy effect showed the candidate at the top of the ballot gains as much as a 5% increase in votes. Consequently, in 1975, California legislators adopted a law mandating an end to the alphabetical listing of candidates (likely to the chagrin of Sam Aanestad and Dick Ackerman but the joy of Mary Young and Ed Zschau) and requiring a lottery before each election.
The Secretary of State’s candidate order lottery has determined the alphabet for the June primary to be UNADIVXWQGOZLTRKSJHMCBFPYE.
This applies to most races on the ballot, excluding races that cross county lines (for OC, these would be CD-38, CD-39, CD-47, CD-49, SD-29, and AD-55).
The primacy effect is weaker when there are fewer candidates on the ballot, and when there are higher-profile campaigns. Being at the top of the ballot is most valuable for low-profile campaigns with large numbers of candidates. That means that of the 19 people I listed above, the biggest winners in this lottery are the Central Committee candidates, so the biggest congratulations goes to the following Republican Central Committee Candidates for their 5% vote bonus:
For the races that cross county lines, each county does its own lottery, so here are the OC Registrar’s lottery results: DMNESVTUHKWGXFCIQYAORZPLJB.
Congratulations to these candidates who won the Registrar’s lottery and will appear at the top of the ballot in the Orange County portions of their districts:
You would think that with electronic voting now, the names could be randomized for every poll voter (obviously, we’d still need the lottery for absentee voters).
(In the interest of full disclosure, my day job is working for Assemblyman Chris Norby, one of the lottery winners, as the letter N came in second in the alphabet behind U, though no one with a last name starting with U is running in all of Orange County.)
Posted in 29th Senate District, 38th Congressional District, 39th Congressional District, 47th Congressional District, 49th Congressional District, 55th Assembly District, Republican Central Committee | Tagged: Albin Novinec, Baron Night, Chris Norby, Christina Avalos, Curt Hagman, D'Marie Mulattieri, Diane Harkey, Gary DeLong, Greg Diamond, Gwen Dyrud, Janet Nguyen, John Webb, Jon Aiken, Jon Dumitru, Karla Downing, Leslie Daigle, Linda Sanchez, Mimi Walters, Nesa Anderson, Pat Garcia, Ron Varaseth, Steve Nagel, Todd Spitzer, Tom Daly, Travis Allen | 6 Comments »
Posted by Former Blogger Chris Emami on March 15, 2012
I am getting sick of all the junk mail being sent to my mailbox this early in campaign season. OCEA has yet again put out a hit piece on Anaheim Councilmembers Harry Sidhu, Kris Murray, and Gail Eastman. Needless to say this is getting really old , really fast. Here is a copy of the mailer that arrived in my mailbox yesterday:
The strategy just simply does not make sense to me. They are obviously looking to win 2 seats in the November election with what appears to be the slate of John Leos and Jose Moreno (not the same one trying to run for Assembly.
I guarantee you that they will beat Sidhu who is not on the ballot due to term limits, but good luck beating Murray or Eastman when they won’t even be on the ballot until 2014
Posted in Anaheim, Mail | Tagged: Dr. Jose Moreno, Gail Eastman, Harry Sidhu, John Leos, Kris Murray | 3 Comments »
Posted by Former Blogger Chris Emami on March 15, 2012
Despite being sick yesterday and having to cancel most of my meetings I was stuck going to the Orange County Registrar of Voters to assist a client with filing his paperwork. As many of our readers may already know, yesterday was the close of the filing period for races that went into extension. It turns out that we had another game of “Beat The Clock” on our hands.
Republican candidate for AD 69 Jose Moreno got in the door at 4:54 PM and told the person helping him file his paperwork that he only had 20 signatures and had an associate that was bringing more signatures.
Sure enough at just a few seconds before 4:58 PM Central Committee Member Tim Whitacre ran in the door with 22 more signatures. This however left them with just 42 signatures and this is before the validation process began.
After the doors were already locked it appears that Lupe Moreno arrived and I believe she had some more signatures in her hand but I cannot be certain.
Getting 40 out of 42 signatures proven to be valid is not an easy thing to do, so it is very possible that Moreno will not actually qualify for the ballot.
With no Republican in the race it would not be a bad thing for the party as it forces a lot of Democratic Party money to be squandered in this race (Kindee Durkee would be proud). If a Republican jumps in the Democrats will not spend anything leading up to November and will focus on supporting Quirk-Silva in AD 65 and possibly even Daigle in AD 74.
We should have an answer by later today.
Posted in 69th Assembly District, 74th Assembly District | Tagged: Jose Moreno, Leslie Daigle, Sharon Quirk-Silva | 8 Comments »
Posted by Newsletter Reprint on March 15, 2012
This just came across the wire from a member of the Fountain Valley CRA, announcing the upcoming meeting that they have:
Just a reminder that we will be meeting tomorrow night tonight, our usual place,
Carrow’s restaurant, Magnolia just south of the 405.
Guest speaker, Supervisor Janet Nguyen
Lots of other items on the agenda: Election of Delegates to County and California CRA Convention, report from nominating committee and more
Hope you can make it.
Dinner 6:30, Meeting at 7
Posted in Fountain Valley | Tagged: Janet Nguyen | 1 Comment »
Posted by Scott Carpenter on March 15, 2012
In a decision that can only be described as absurd, the Newport Beach City Council has unanimously decided to remove decades old fire pits from the beach. Citing complaints from residents, environmental hazards and health risks a collection of Nanny State Republicans have decided to ruin a unique recreational area of the beach.
For those readers unfamiliar with the Newport fire pits, they are located in a remote southern section away from the larger more populated main beach area. No reasonable argument can really be made for this decision other than pure government control on a local level. The fact that residents “complained” about the fire pits is even more absurd of an excuse being cited. The resident complaint excuse is not even worthy of being described by the term NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) at least traditional NIMBYs are complaining about something that will be built, not something that was constructed decades ago.
Though this decision is outrageous and I could rant for pages about reasons these fire pits should remain, there is a silver lining. As I previously mentioned, the vote was of this ban was unanimous. That means that Councilwoman Leslie Daigle gave Assemblyman Allen Mansoor further evidence why she is unfit to carry the GOP banner in the State Assembly. Daigle has earned a reputation of a big government RINO and an opportunist during her stint as an elected official, and over the course of the last few months her actions have proven that. This most recent decision is typical of the Nanny State attitudes Daigle has favored though. This leaves me grateful that Assemblyman Mansoor remains the OC GOP’s choice to represent AD 74.
Final note on this topic: While attending Concordia University in Irvine the Newport Fire Pits were a regular destination for myself and fellow Concordia (and UCI) students. While in college my LA County based friends from High School and I had an ongoing debate over what was a “cooler place” for a beach bonfire: Huntington Beach or Newport Beach. I always advocated for Newport Beach. But thanks to this recent decision I have to finally concede that Huntington is now the “cooler place”
H/T to Jack Wu for background on this piece.
Posted in 74th Assembly District | Tagged: Allan Mansoor, Leslie Daigle | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Former Blogger Chris Emami on March 14, 2012
At the time it did not seem like a lot of fun but looking back on it I can honestly say that it was probably one of the wildest things that I have ever seen during a filing period. Much like Travis Allen who I blogged about yesterday Long Pham ran into the Orange County Registrar of Voters at what I believe was around 4:55 PM although it might have been a couple of minutes earlier than that.
What ensued after this could only be described as unbelievable. Other people were at the office to witness this so this story can be corroborated. Cue the Benny Hill theme music as we begin.
Long Pham walks in at approximately 4:55 in the evening and ends up pulling a number from the dispenser I think he was #99 and at that time #94 was being served.
At about 5:10 he was called up to the counter and then proceeded to finalize his paperwork for the 72nd Assembly District. This came as no surprise to anybody as it was the move that he was expected to make. It took a while for him to finish his paperwork which is customary on the last day of filing. As he finished around 5:35 PM he walked over to grab another number and then proceeded to sit down.
When he pulled the number I figured that he had decided to run for County Board of Education. However, it turns out that he was simply helping his wife with her paperwork for Republican Party of Orange County Central Committee. This took about another 30 minutes and they both finished this up around 6:10 PM. Right after he finished, he walked over, grabbed another number, and sat down.
Sure enough the third time that he went up to the counter it was to finish up his paperwork for Orange County Board of Education. I thought it was a big mistake since running for 2 offices would have hurt his chances for both. He was given the oath of office around 7:15 PM which took a while because I believe that a ruling was being waited on as to whether or not he could legally run for both offices. He no sooner took the oath of office for Assembly than he decided to go back up to the counter for another request (very few people were left which made it unnecessary to pull more numbers.
Apparently he had a very quick change of mind because at 7:20 he decided that he no longer wanted to run for Orange County Board of Education. The question then ensued as to whether or not he could withdraw from the race, but finally at 8:15 PM it was decided that he could withdraw. Once he pulled out of the race.
In all honesty though Dr. Long Pham seems like a really nice guy and his wife also seems extremely nice. This post is not intended to make him look bad in any way shape or form. As a matter of fact he gave me a great story to tell.
Posted in Orange County Board of Education | Tagged: Long Pham, Travis Allen | 5 Comments »
Posted by Former Blogger Chris Emami on March 14, 2012
Reposted From Monday: This is the last day to enter the contest, It’s free and you can win a $40 gift card.
It is not a secret that I as well as the other two bloggers who are admins here are all a part of “Custom Campaigns” a local Orange County political consulting firm. It is that time of year again with “March Madness” upon us.
Since an office pool with three people would be no fun for anybody involved, we thought that it would be interesting to put together an office pool that includes the readers as well.
Did I mention that we are offering a $40 gift card for the winner of the pool, and it costs nothing to enter (technically I guess that makes it a contest and not a pool).
In order to receive the password to enter the pool you must leave a comment here with your real first and last name. Include your e-mail address as well (this is visible only to us), so that we can send you the password to be able to enter the pool.
Good luck and we look forward to having a great turnout for this so please feel free to invite others.
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »
OC Political 