Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido is facing the toughtest political battle of his life next year, as he will be facing off against well-known Latino activist and former Rancho Santiago Community College District Trustee Alfredo Amezcua. Now questions are being raised about Pulido’s campaign consultant, Dennis De Snoo.
De Snoo hired failed Republican Assembly candidate Ryan Gene Trabuco, who was formerly known as Ryan Gene Williams, to design and manage Pulido’s campaign website last year. In fact, Williams owns Pulido’s URL, www.miguelpulido.com, via a proxy in Pennsylvania called Ice Flare. That same company also owns www.ryantrabuco.com.
Why does any of this matter? Well, Trabuco was caught this week selling a client’s URL to a political enemy of that client. No bueno for Trabuco! Who would want to hire a webmaster who sells off his client’s URLs once he is done with them?
How did DeSnoo end up hiring a washed up Republican candidate to work on his clients’ websites? Local Democratic gadfly Phil Bacerra personally recommended Trabuco to DeSnoo last year. And both Bacerra and Trabuco are allied with Republican Supervisor Janet Nguyen.
Dennis DeSnoo hired this clown to build and manage his clients’ campaign websites
In fact Trabuco also purchased a number of URLs of political opponents of Supervisor Nguyen. And now it gets interesting. Trabuco is a County of Orange employee, working for Supervisor Nguyen. Apparently her County employee is engaging in nefarious political hits on her opponents – which is not something County workers are allowed to do.
Trabuco also has donated hundreds of dollars to Nguyen’s campaigns and to the campaign of her Chief of Staff, Andrew Do, when he ran as a carpetbagger for the Garden Grove City Council last year. How does a broke college student find the money to make such contributions? Or did Nguyen funnel money from other maxed out contributors to Trabuco?
Trabuco is clearly done as a campaign webmaster, in the wake of his recent activities. And he may well be done as a County of Orange employee. But how will all of this affect DeSnoo? And can DeSnoo handle the tough campaign that Pulido is facing against Amezcua? DeSnoo is known for his cookie-cutter campaigns. He wins because he manages campaigns for well-heeled incumbents. Can he win a closely contested race between candidates who both have name I.D. and money?
Can Pulido ultimately trust DeSnoo and Trabuco? Both are known for playing both sides of the political fence. DeSnoo gave $2,300 to Republican John McCain in 2007, then he turned around and gave an Orange County Democratic Party Federal PAC $1,500, according to the Huffington Post.
Trabuco also pals around with members of both political parties. In fact he sold one of his clients’ URLs to Dan Chmielewski, the editor of the failing Liberal OC blog. The move backfired though when Trabuco’s jilted client ended up buying ryangenetrabuco.com, liberalocblog.com, theliberalocblog.com, and madisonalexandrpublicrelations.com. Chmielewski owns Madison Alexander Public Relations, but he no longer owns the URL by that name! The same jilted client also bought supervisorjanetnguyen.com, councilmanandrewdo.com, leessandwichesstanton.com, claudiogallegos.com, and chrisleahprevatt.com.
As for DeSnoo, will he be able to pry Pulido’s URL back from Trabuco, or will Trabuco want a lot of money for it? Or will Trabuco try to sell it to Amezcua? And if so, for how much?
Orange County’s Internet political war has started – and Desnoo and his clients are right smack in the middle of the fracas…
Great Post Art! Didn’t DeSnoo also handle Amezqua’s campaigns in the past?
Perhaps he will work for Al.
Has Pulido said for sure that he will run for re-election? Will 8th Floor Boss Jill Arthur allow Pulido to step down if her position as an “at-will” employee depends on Pulido being mayor?
Are you supporting Amezqua Art?
Who else might run? What about Pat McGuigen?