As you can see from the post written by my esteemed colleague Chris Nguyen, in a major surprise Congressman John Campbell failed to get the endorsement of the OC GOP.

I along with many others in attendance last night was shocked by the results of the vote, with John Campbell falling just 1 vote short of the endorsement. John Webb who is also running for this seat in the 45th Congressional District was also present in an effort to try to block the endorsement.

This particular endorsement began with John Campbell giving a speech on why he deserved the endorsement of the OC GOP. He pointed out that he had been a vocal member of the Republican Party for conservative causes in D.C. After he finished John Webb went up to speak and gave his reasons as to what he offered as a candidate for the seat.

Both men did a solid job in their opening statements and came across as intelligent advocates of conservative principles. Where things started to unravel a bit for Campbell was during the portion where members got to ask questions of the candidates. He was attacked for his positions on Cash For Clunkers, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and TARP.

I have a great deal of respect for Congressman Campbell for coming into a hostile environment and defending his position he took on these specific bills. I absolutely disagree with his position on TARP, but I respect the fact that he stands by the vote and gives his reasons for it.

One important note is that despite John Campbell having some solid supporters in his corner to speak up for him both Congressman Ed Royce and Congressman Dana Rohrabacher who were in attendance, yet failed to chime in on supporting him for the endorsement.

Nobody in Congress is perfect and overall John Campbell has been a solid conservative vote. I would have liked to have seen him get the endorsement of the OC GOP mainly because the last thing we need is for us to get stuck with Sukhee Kang in Congress.

John Webb seems like a really nice guy and a true conservative but I am behind John Campbell in this race and I hope that he can hold onto the seat. I recognize that we have a couple of Central Committee members as bloggers with us who likely differ with my opinion on this and I would like to encourage them to also post on this issue to give a different side of what went down last night.