Thomas “Hoagy” Holguin invited me to a fundraising dinner last night, at Mr. Stox in Anaheim. The event was very well attended, by some of Anaheim’s major players. In fact I sat with Hoagie right across from State Senate candidate Lucille Kring and her husband.
Kring was a bit peeved at me initially, as my coverage of her campaign hasn’t been terribly kind. I explained that I am a supporter of Lou Correa, the incumbent in the 34th State Senate District, but I also pointed out that we posted her campaign office grand opening press release, and I invited her to appear on next week’s edition of Orange Juice Blog Radio. She agreed.
Then we had a great time. I had not seen Kring in many years. So of course we ended up talking about politics. Not really, we spent the evening talking about her chihuahua, “Bogart.”
Kring found him wandering the streets of Santa Ana, I believe this summer, and she spent an hour trying to corral him, as she was afraid he would get run over. Once she caught him she spent an hour visiting nearby apartments, in an attempt to find his owner, as he had a collar on. When she failed in that regard, she drove him to the County animal shelter. She was told that they would hold him for a time in the hopes that his owner would claim him.
Kring had the presence of mind to call them a week later, and he was scheduled to be put down. She would have none of that. Kring explained to me that she has always been a cat person, and had never owned a dog, but something about this little dog touched her and she could not stand the thought of having him put down.
So Kring adopted the dog, who was malnourished, flea-bitten, and had an ear infection. She spent a lot of money getting all that resolved, and brought him home to her husband, who named the dog “Bogart.” He also had to explain to Kring that it wasn’t a pit bull puppy, but was some sort of Chihuahua/Terrier mix.
Kring is such an animal lover that she prefers not to eat meat. She settled for the salmon last night. She is of course pro-life, but in her case that sentiment extends beyond human babies to all sorts of animals.
She also shared a very funny tale about how her cats one day brought a rat in the house – and of course Kring tried to nurse it back to health. Alas the poor at succumbed to his injuries and so of course she had a rat funeral in the backyard.
We did finally talk a bit about politics. Kring is working hard, walking every day, primarily in Garden Grove. She has quite a following in Anaheim, where she has been a Councilwoman for years. Her signs went up recently all over Santa Ana as well. Her big signs are uniquely diamond shaped.
Does Kring have chance? Well, she pointed out that Anaheim Council Members have an 80% approval rating. Our State Legislators have about a ten percent approval rating. Ouch.
If you click on “Issues” on Kring’s website you will see that she is wisely avoiding the issue of immigration. She does however list a few endorsers who are not good on that issue at all, including Mexican-basher Dana Rohrabacher. Interestingly she does not include Van Tran on her list, but she did say that he is helping her in Garden Grove.
I also had a chance last night to catch up with Holguin and his very capable campaign staff. He has a ton of endorsements, and just launched his new TV commercials. He doesn’t have Curt Pringle’s support, but that might be a good thing now that Pringle has been tainted by his support for the high speed rail boondoggle.
Thanks to Hoagie for the invitation to dinner! I look forward to having Kring and Holguin on my online radio show in the coming weeks.
Hi Art:
> I look forward to having Kring and Holguin on my online radio show in the coming weeks.
Since Lucille Kring has accepted your invitation to appear on Orange Juice Radio, a question you might want to ask her is why she suddenly decided against running for Mayor of Anaheim?
For weeks, Kring was telling people she was running for Mayor of Anaheim. Then suddenly, her name appeared on the list of candidates running for the 34th State Senatorial District.
It is alleged that the “good ol’ boys” in the Orange County Republican Party bullied her out of the race so their favored candidate, Tom Tait, an ex-councilman, would have a clean shot.
As I hinted in a previous posting on an unrelated matter, Tait’s engineering consulting firm in Orange employs former OC GOP Chair Tom Fuentes as a Senior Vice-President.
If Tait becomes Mayor, I wonder how many times he will have to recuse himself from council decisions because his firm has relationships with companies that do business in Anaheim?
When Tait was serving on that body, I couldn’t help but laugh how many times the city attorney had to advise him to leave council chambers because of state conflict of interest laws.
By the way, in a mailer that I received from Tait’s campaign the other day, he has Lorri Galloway, a councilwoman and a Democrat, listed as one of his key endorsers.
In respect to Kring’s views on immigration, when she first ran for council more than a decade ago, I vaguely recall her sending out mailers with pictures of “illegals” crossing the border.
Back then, she was a very strong supporter of stationing immigration agents in the Anaheim City jail and used that as one of her top issues when she was campaigning.
Over the years, Kring has seen the demographics and no longer talks about immigration. Given the fact Anaheim is less than 33% white, she realizes that’s a losing issue.
In her own way, she has attempted to reach out to the Mexican/Central American community. She even hired an ex-police officer of Mexican ancestry to be her council assistant.
I seriously doubt Kring will be able to oust State Senator Lou Correa from his seat, although she still does have a pretty strong base of support in Western Anaheim.
One reason I believe that Kring probably will not be able to oust Correa is because is that–besides Anaheim–she is not well-known in other parts of the 34th District.
It is possible this could be a close race especially since my suspicion is many Democrats might not go to the polls due to how unpopular Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez is.
On the other hand, there are other issues that might boost turnout, such as Proposition 19, the initiative that would liberalize marijuana laws in California.
If Thomas Holguin appears on the program, you might want to ask about his relationship with Harald Martin, the ex-AUHSD Trustee who scapegoated Mexicans for classroom overcrowding.
Holguin was appointed to the AUHSD Board thanks to Martin and his allies and then returned the favor by helping him get back on that body when there was another vacancy.
That action outraged so many people that they collected the several thousand signatures they needed to nullify the appointment and have Martin removed from AUHSD Board.
By saying this, I’m not implying that Holguin necessarily agreed with everything that Martin did, but these are important questions to be asked….
Duane,
Great questions! Thanks!
Poor Lucille got buffaloed by Pringle and his clique who talked her into an impossible race against Correa. Pringle immediately cut her off. Notice that the OC Business Council, run by Pringle’s half-sister Lucy Dunn backed the Democrat – my old pal Lou Correa. Ouch.
Anybody who trusts Pringle had better watch his wallet – 24/7.
P.S. Pringle doesn’t “support” HSR. He is HSR. Without it he has a diminishing future.
Hi Art,
When is the show this week? Looking forward to doing it.
Lucille,
The show is from 7 to 9 PM on Wednesday evening. The studio is located at 2750 S. Harbor Blvd. Ste I, Santa Ana.
We’d love to have you join us in studio if that is possible. We were thinking around 7:15 or 7:30.
You can call me at (714) 858-1145 or Art at (714) 606-7622 to discuss further.
Thanks!