Say what you will about Jose Solorio, but he knows the score. As the Democratic Party’s sole candidate in the race to replace Lou Correa in the 34th State Senate District, Solorio is quite aware that he must pull out all the stops in order to beat the leading Republican candidate, and Queen of corruption, Janet Nguyen, in what is a very purple district. Continue reading
Tom Daly and Francisco Barragan
When SAUSD School Board Member Cecilia Iglesias ran for Congress back in 2010, she gathered over 10,000 signatures so that she could qualify for the ballot as an independent candidate. While she did not prevail in the election she showed us all that she was a viable candidate in Santa Ana, in a race that featured the powerhouse that is Democratic U.S. Representative Loretta Sanchez and a former State Assemblyman, Van Tran, who was at the time still a dominant player in central Orange County.
Iglesias confirmed this when she ran for the SAUSD School Board in 2012, this time as Republican. While at the time I was unsure that she would do well in our city as a member of the GOP, she proved me wrong by becoming the top vote-getter in that election – she garnered more votes than two incumbents, Rob Richardson and Jose Alfredo Hernandez. That surely was a wake-up call for them as well.
Now Iglesias is challenging a Democrat, Tom Daly, who was elected to the 69th Assembly District in 2012 when three Latino Democrats split the Hispanic vote in that year’s Open Primary. Those candidates included Santa Ana Councilwoman Michele Martinez; labor organizer Julio Perez and an accountant named Francisco Barragan. While Martinez is still in power and Perez recently got appointed to a top labor post, Barragan has resorted to stalking candidates he doesn’t like, on their Facebook pages. Continue reading
Angelica Amezcua, courtesy of the OC Register
The year 2012 was a great year for news in Santa Ana. I have reviewed all of our readership data and come up with our top ten stories in Santa Ana this year. Here they are:
It turns out that Santa Ana Council Member Carlos Bustamante’s last hurrah was the 2nd Annual Santa Ana Independence Day event at Centennial Park, which was held last Sunday. He was arrested the very next day, after parking his car in a parking structure at City Hall, on charges of sex crimes and public theft.
One of the things that always bothered me about Bustamante was his overstated patriotism and gung ho attitude towards public safety. It always felt fake to me. He once compared himself to movie character Forrest Gump, a pretty dumb guy who made out over time by being in the right place at the right time. That is the story of Bustamante’s life. Continue reading
Chris Nguyen, over at the Republican OC Political blog, spent a lot of time breaking down the vote in the 69th Assembly District, in the June 5 primary. It turns out that corporate Democrat Tom Daly won in Anaheim and in Santa Ana, which is no surprise as he spent a fortune and his friends in Sacramento and Anaheim spent even more.
Daly also benefited from being the only white candidate in a pool of Latino candidates. But the other story of note is that liberal union hack Julio Perez, who grew up in Anaheim, completely failed in that city. Republican candidate Jose Moreno, who barely ran a campaign, totally whacked Perez in Anaheim. Continue reading
When Francisco Barragan got only 605 votes, as a Democratic candidate in the Open Primary election for the 69th Assembly District, this year, according to Smart Voter, he may well have set a record for futility in Assembly races. I spent a few hours searching for any comparable results and found none. Barragan appears to be the most unpopular candidate for the California State Assembly in the history of our state.
Barragan is by no means the first Orange County Democrat to utterly fail on Election Day. When Liberal OC blogger Chris Prevatt ran for the Garden Grove City Council, way back in 2002, he came in dead last in a field of five candidates, according to Smart Voter – but even with that stinky effort he got over 3,000 votes. Barragan only got 605 votes. Continue reading
The Orange County Voter Registrar finally closed the ballot counting from the June 5 Open Primary, yesterday. Ultra liberal 69th Assembly District candidate Julio Perez lost by 242 votes to Republican Jose “Joe” Moreno, who will now face off against top vote-getter Tom Daly, a corporate Democrat, in the November General Election.
Perez and his union allies spent a small fortune and all they got out of it was third place. I have argued in a previous post that Perez and fellow Democrat Michele Martinez both erred by not attacking Daly, but there might be more to this story. Continue reading
It looks like Santa Ana Council Member Michele Martinez won’t be advancing in the race to replace Jose Solorio in the 69th Assembly District. So far the top two in that race are Tom Daly, a Democrat, and Jose Moreno, a Republican. Martinez is in fourth and the candidate that Orange County labor backed, Julio Perez, is in third. If you are not in the top two, it is game over!
Had labor backed Martinez she might well have made the top two. Instead Democrats are now stuck with Daly, who has a distinctly anti-Latino record as the former Mayor of /Anaheim. Moreno also is from Anaheim, which means that Santa Ana no longer has a horse in this race, thanks to labor and Perez, not to mention that other foolish Democrat, Francisco Barragan, who hardly got any votes at all.
I will be backing Moreno in November. We have several months to let Daly have it. He has a terrible record of wasting taxpayer resources, as the Orange County Clerk-Recorder. We will be bringing all of that out for sure. Continue reading
Republican Robert Hammond, a resident of Santa Ana, has withdrawn from the race for the 69th Assembly District, according to the OC Political blog. There are now four Democrats vying in the open primary, but only two of them have a shot at winning in June.
Santa Ana Couincil Member Michele Martinez has 13% of the vote, according to a poll conducted by the other leading Democratic candidate, Tom Daly, who currently is the O.C. Clerk-Recorder. Daly has a quarter of the vote, according to his poll.
Continue reading
Ultra-liberal O.J. blogger Greg Diamond has publicly questioned the results of a poll recently conducted by Tom Daly’s campaign for the 69th Assembly District, in an Orange Juice blog post, and in comments he left over at the OC Political blog. Diamond was irked by the poll as it revealed that Diamond’s pick in that race, union hack Julio Perez, is the least popular of the five candidates who are running.
But now we have gotten a hold of the Daly poll press release. And guess what? Daly used a reputable pollster, David Binder Research, who has worked for some of the most liberal Democrats in California and elsewhere, including: Continue reading
A new phone poll of voters in the 69th Assembly District, conducted by Democratic candidate Tom Daly’s campaign, shows that newcomers Julio Perez and Francisco Barragan need to drop out now, or they are going to jeopardize the election of a Latino to represent this heavily Latino district, which is currently represented by Jose Solorio.
Here are the poll results (from the OC Political blog): Continue reading
The Santa Ana Coalition for Better Government, a Political Action Committee, finally posted the members of their Board of Directors tonight, on their website, after we prodded them to do so. Here they are:
CURRENT BOARD OF DIRECTORS
There you go. This organization appears to be a mixture of Republicans, malcontents, questionable politicians and litigious residents. I have yet to see any concrete good ideas from these folks, but predictably they are making Code Enforcement a focus, which comes as no surprise given the involvement of McEwen on their Board. Any organization that includes the likes of McEwen is not to be trusted by the people of Santa Ana, IMHO.
KOCE’s David Nazar has apparently bought into the unfounded allegations and slander that were pitched by the Los Amigos of Anaheim at their recent press conference, against the Santa Ana City Council and SAPD Chief Paul Walters.
Nazar’s report will air, according to the Santa Ana Coalition for Better Government, whose leaders don’t live in Santa Ana, this Thursday, at 5:30 pm and 11 pm, on Channel 8, in Santa Ana.
Nazar is the only minority employed by KOCE’s Real Orange. The rest of their news team is all-white. It is small wonder then that they are going after the all-Latino Santa Ana City Council and Mayor Miguel Pulido.
I already debunked the silly Los Amigos’ complaints in a previous post. And I wrote about their press conference at this link. Suffice to say that their spokesperson, Francisco Barragan, had no answers when I showed up and questioned his complaints.
Why did any media show up to this event, which was orchestrated by failed Santa Ana mayoral candidate Alfredo Amezcua? Simple. He hired former L.A. Times reporter Jennifer Delson to serve as his publicist. She was there at the press conference. I caught her whispering orders to the Los Amigos Chairman, Amin David, and to Barragan.
Check out the surprised look on Delson’s face, in the picture above. When I showed up to the press conference she panicked. She shut down the press conference when I asked one too many questions that Barragan simply could not handle.
As for Amezcua, he literally ran out of the room once I started asking questions. In fact David called out his name, wanting him to speak, but Amezcua had already flown the coop.
Why doesn’t Amezcua just accept that he lost? In fact he lost badly! I would prefer to see him offering solutions instead of his endless gripes. Too bad KOCE fell for this B.S.
I attended the Los Amigos press conference today, which was held in their usual meeting place – a German restaurant in Anaheim. As I expected, it was a giant waste of time. I wrote about their complaints yesterday. You can read that post by clicking here.
And I was not surprised to see that failed mayoral candidate Alfredo Amezcua was pulling all the strings. He and his assistant kept pulling the Chairman of Los Amigos, Amin David, aside, ostensibly to whisper directions to him.
The press conference was conducted by my friend Francisco Barragan, who did a good job with very weak material. Essentially he is asking the Orange County Grand Jury to investigate the Santa Ana City Council, but none of his charges are at all salient. They are all groundless.
I had the opportunity to ask questions and I took advantage of that. Amezcua, of course, got up and left the room as soon as I started asking questions.
I asked if Barragan was aware that Assemblyman Jose Solorio was on the Santa Ana City Council in 2002, when the severance package with now retired City Attorney Joe Fletcher was negotiated. He was not. I asked if he intended to investigate wht Solorio did on that Council. His reply was that Los Amigos was asking for everyone to be investigated – but he only called out Mayor Miguel Pulido and Mayor Pro Tem Claudia Alvarez by name.
Barragan also complained that SAPD Police Chief Paul Walters called voters, via a robo-call, during work hours. I then asked if Barragan was aware that robo calls are made by computers and that Chief Walters was not personally on the phone with the voters. He appeared to be flustered by that question.
He then played the audio of the robo call, wherein Walters asked why Amezcua was insisting that he was endorsed by Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, when she in fact endorsed Mayor Pulido. That is a legitimate good point. Sanchez did NOT endorse Amezcua. Barragan insisted that she “supported” Amezcua, but if you look up the word “endorse” in a dictionary, you will find it is synonymous with the word “support.” This complaint was just more splitting hairs by Los Amigos!
It should be noted that former LAPD Chief William Bratton publicly endorsed L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the last time he ran. So did L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca. Public safety officials often lend their support to politicians. Walters did nothing wrong and he did not deserve to be slandered by Los Amigos.
At one point, Voice of OC reporter Adam Elmahrek mentioned that Supervisor John Moorlach said that back-pay for public employees was illegal. Of course Barragan agreed.
I then asked Barragan if that means Los Amigos is against the back-pay pensions that the O.C. public employees received a few years ago – that of course is what Moorlach’s comment, which Elmahrek took out of context, was about.
And again Barragan was quite flustered by my question. I felt bad for him. He is a good man and deserves better than to be publicly used by the likes of Amezcua.
Finally, Barragan refused to take any more of my questions, so I left. I was courteous and professional but nevertheless one of those in attendance asked if I was there as a reporter or as an activist. I said both. I was there as a reporter and as a twenty year resident of Santa Ana.
The people of Santa Ana voted in November to keep Mayor Pulido in office. It is sad to see the Los Amigos bunch wasting our time with a public display of sour grapes. Even O.C. Register reporter Doug Irving noticed that. He asked Barragan if Los Amigos would still be holding this press conference if Amezcua won. Barragan said yes, but we all knew right away that this was all about Amezcua spending a quarter million and still getting rejected by the voters.