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NOTE: First Congressional District 46 Debate, sponsored by LULAC and the NAACP, will take place tomorrow from 11 to 1 in Garden Grove, 11277 Garden Grove Blvd. Suite 101-A. See the bottom of this post, in orange, for more details.
The title of yesterday’s email from Lou Correa’s online email sender Dave Jacobson screamed out: “CORREA CONTINUES CORRALLING SUPPORT AMONG LOCAL O.C. LEADERS FOR CONGRESSIONAL RUN” (I really like the verb “corralling” there; it sounds like an unexpected burble of truth from the campaign. I hope that they use it often!) In anyone cares, in order of “reliable Democraticness,” those new endorsing leaders were: Huntington Beach Unified School District Board Member Bonnie Castrey, City of Garden Grove City Council Member Kris Beard, and retired Anaheim Police Chief John Welter. They join a flock of other officials, with more no doubt “in the bank,” who have endorsed Correa. And this raises the question: what does it mean to endorse Correa? I don’t mean that in some metaphorical or metaphysical sense, such as “does it stain one’s soul forever or can it be forgiven?” I mean, literally, “what position are such endorsers committing to when the agree that he can list their names?” For example, at a very basic level: are they saying that they want him to win?
Before I came back to Orange County from parts of the U.S. with less shameless Democratic politicians, what an endorsement meant was pretty clear to me: it meant that you recommended that people should vote for the endorsed candidate. Here, though, an endorsement seems to mean something else, and something less: along the lines of recommending that people should vote for the endorsed candidate if they want to. It’s more of like a “seal of approval” — non-exclusive, not necessarily even comparative at all.
In the infamous 2012 primary in AD-69, for example, departing incumbent Assemblyman Jose Solorio (who hated Julio Perez) endorsed both Tom Daly and Michele Martinez. In the same race, Democratic labor booster John Hanna endorsed both Daly and Perez, but not Martinez.
This is a fun way to endorse, and an easy way to get endorsements, because it’s mostly gain and barely any pain. In the 2014 Anaheim City Council election, from which the above campaign mailer came, Correa endorsed both Republicans Kris Murray and Gail Eastman. So did Brandman. But notice a big difference between their statements.
Correa says nice things about Murray and Eastman — allowing his name, identification, and photo to be used in a mailer that touted the Republicans as “the Choice of Democratic Leaders — but he doesn’t say to vote for them! Brandman, who by this point had already violated his pledge to support the DPOC-endorsed Dr. Jose Moreno but had been expected to remain publicly neutral, put all of his eggs into the Republican basket and said “fellow Democrats … vote to re-elect them!”
Brandman could do this because he strongly prefers Murray and Eastman to Dr. Moreno — whose presence in Anaheim politics makes him look like less of a real Democrat. (Accurately has that effect, I should add.) But Correa didn’t want to go that far. Why that was became clear (if it wasn’t before) at a recent Los Amigos meeting I happened to attend, where it turned out that Correa was a speaker. I asked a question from the audience — the first time in the almost eight years that I have been active in Orange County Democratic politics (since returning here) that either of us have ever spoken directly to the other, by the way. I expressed how deeply disappointed I was when the above flyer came out — and came out just before Election Day, when it would have the most impact on Democratic voters who vote at the polling booth rather than by mail — at a time when Anaheim was struggling with ways to increase the power of Latinos on the City Council, a fight at which Dr. Moreno had been at the forefront.
Correa’s response was that it was a non-partisan office (which doesn’t matter, according to party rules, but he could get away with it), that he had a long established track record of working across the aisle — and that he had also endorsed Dr. Jose Moreno. I didn’t get to ask my follow-up questions: (1) whether he was aware of the mailer and its timing; (2) whether he was aware that while Murray and Eastman had enormous independent expenditures behind them that would make such a flyer inevitable, Dr. Moreno clearly had neither the resources nor the wealthy supporters with resources to publish one, and (3) whether he was aware that conveying to Anaheim’s Democratic voters the message that he supported Murray and Eastman while there would be scant or no notice to them that he also supported Dr. Moreno was the equivalent of endorsing only Murray and Eastman. (The answers to all three of those questions is, surely, “yes.”)
It would have been tempting, before 2014 to refer to this sort of endorsement as a “Solorio endorsement,” but after that it seems appropriate to call it a “Correa endorsement.” I’ll use that term.
It’s really pretty early to endorse in a highly competitive race like this. But Correa has pulled in a great haul of endorsements, including many from the kinds of liberals and progressives who would generally be expected to side with former State Senator Joe Dunn or with Garden Grove Mayor Bao Nguyen. Here, let’s give Lou his due — here’s his list of elected endorsers:
- Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair and Congresswoman Linda Sánchez
- Congresswoman & former State Assembly Speaker Karen Bass
- Congressman Juan Vargas
- Congressman Alan Lowenthal
- Congressman Pete Aguilar
- Congressman Ted Lieu
- California’s State Treasurer John Chiang
- California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson
- California State Senate President Pro-Tem Kevin de León
- California Board of Equalization Chair Jerome Horton
- California Latino Legislative Caucus Chair and State Assemblyman Luis Alejo
- California State Senator and former Air Force General Richard Roth
- California State Senator & LGBT trailblazer Mark Leno
- Santa Ana City Council Member Michele Martinez
- Santa Ana Unified School District Board President John Palacio
- Santa Ana Unified School District Clerk Valerie Amezcua
- Santa Ana Unified School District Board Member José Alfredo Hernández, J.D.
- Anaheim Union High School District Board President Annemarie Randle-Trejo
- Anaheim Union High School District Board Member Al Jabbar
- Anaheim City School District Board of Education President Bob Gardner
- Anaheim City School District Board of Education Member Ryan Ruelas
- Los Angeles City Councilman, past State Senator Gil Cedillo
Quite a list! But the question is: are these traditional “vote for him over the others” endorsements or are they merely “seal of approval” type “Correa endorsements”?
I think that they’re mere “Correa endorsements” — and that there’s no reason to expect that other candidates will be able to get their share of them. (Seriously, Al Jabbar and Ryan Ruelas and Mark Leno wouldn’t give a “seal of approval” to Bao Nguyen if he asked? I’d have to see it not happen to believe it!) So when Correa talks about his great collection of enforsement at Saturday night’s debate, let’s be clear: they’re not “endorsements” in the sense that one usually uses the term unless he gets them to say “vote for Lou over Dunn, Brandman, and Nguyen.” If the liberal ones in the list above ever do say it, I’ll bet that they eventually un-say it once they start getting pressure on them, including “WTFs?” from bloggers.
What’s really going on here, I think, is that Correa is trying to suck up the prominent party endorsements before Jordan Brandman can get to them. (The two of them are the ones who will be competing for conservative Democrats and for Republicans.) Brandman’s top endorsements at this point are Sharon Quirk-Silva (who I expect will “Correa endorse” the hell out of this race) and Frank Barbaro, who now appears to experience all politics vicariously through the eyes of his protege Brandman. Santa Ana School Board member Valerie Amezcua is the only name common to both lists — making her a “Correa endorser” in both senses. If you truly need to find Brandman’s endorsers, you can click here. (It’s interesting in that it lists City Commissioners — largely appointments of his and of his Republican allies on City Council — as if they were officeholders. Maybe they thought that no one would notice.)
Bao Nguyen does not yet have a endorsement list up on his issues-heavy campaign website. Joe Dunn doesn’t even have a website up — which, at this point over half a year before early voting in the primary begins, is not that unusual — so I can’t check his endorsers. [Correction: Joe Dunn’s website.]
Sheesh — sounds pretty lame, right? Is Dunn even running?
Apparently so. He sent out this email today:
Joe Dunn Raises A Quarter Million Dollars for Congressional Race in One Month
Santa Ana, CA – In a quick demonstration of fundraising strength for the California Congressional District 46 race, Joe Dunn raised more than a quarter million dollars in one month.
Dunn raised a quarter million dollars starting in mid-September through October 15, and took the lead among all candidates for most contributions received during the fundraising period for the quarter. Dunn raised $131,249 as of the September 30 reporting deadline and another $120,000 through October 15 despite not having to fundraise for a campaign in nearly 10 years.
“I’m humbled by the overwhelming response of supporters embracing our campaign fighting for economic fairness for Orange County’s middle class,” said Dunn. “We will be well-positioned to communicate with voters throughout this campaign.”
Joe Dunn has more than three decades of experience holding big corporations and government bureaucracies accountable to Orange County’s middle-class families. Joe made his mark as a lawyer protecting consumers. His dogged pursuit of justice resulted in prohibiting tobacco companies from marketing to children, taking defective medical devices and pharmaceuticals off the market, and stopping cancer-causing chemical releases from a manufacturing plant.
As a State Senator, Joe continued to stand up to the powerful special interests and led the three year investigation into Enron’s manipulation of California’s energy crisis. He is often credited as being “The Man Who Cracked Enron.” Joe also helped lead the effort to pass a local measure ensuring that millions of dollars in state tobacco settlement dollars would be spent on health care in Orange County.
OK. Let’s tote those up.
Dunn takes in a quarter-million in a month; that’s pretty good. He hasn’t spent much, either. (No website, after all! Ha-ha.) One senses that he may not have too much trouble getting some endorsements.
Correa, by contrast, brought in about $103,000 in the second quarter and another $76,000 in June (spending about 1/3 of the latter.) So, his cash-in-hand is about $100,000 less than Dunn’s at this point.
Bao — who hired my daughter as his campaign treasurer, but we don’t discuss the race with any privileged information, and I got this through the FEC site — has earned a respectable $54,000 so far.
Brandman has raised $91,000 (plus a $25,000 loan from himself) and has spent lot less than Correa.
Maybe endorsements can be deceiving!
The LULAC/NAACP Debate will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. tomorrow, October 17, at 11277 Garden Grove Blvd. Suite 101-A. Refreshments will be served. Questions will come from both sponsoring organizations and in writing from the audience — allowing the latter to be screened, so you won’t likely be able to ask Jordan about that $25,000 for a bogus report from Wikipedia. But you can ask about endorsements!
We’ll be fair for Jordan! Here’s his rejoinder, from Campaign Manager/Strategist (whatever) Melahat Rafiei (hi, Melahat, thanks for reading!):
Again: Brandman started fundraising quite a while ago. Dunn started, according to his campaign, in mid-September — so that’s two weeks’ worth of fundraising from him in the report. And since then, he’s raised about $120,000 more. (This won’t be verified until January 15, of course.) Brandman’s total also includes a (refundable) $25,000 loan from himself, which, in political terms, “doesn’t really count” because it can be paid back when he exits the race and endorses Correa.
As for “”he has found funding to hire new police officers and firefighters, build new recreation facilities, and expand library hours” — at least a good chunk of that money was improperly rolled into the Convention Center Expansion. Thanks to him, the public was not allowed to be voted on the massive borrowing public funds for 30 years for non-capital expenditures. This allows him, Kris Murray, Gail Eastman, and Lucille Kring, to brag about “finding” funds that they in fact simply borrowed — in violation of the City Charter — to be paid back by Anaheim taxpayers over the next several decades, once they have made a clean getaway.
We can go over this territory as much and as often as the Brandman campaign likes. (Hey, Lou Correa, don’t say that I never did you any favors!)
A correction from “Melahat as Jordan”, admitting that actually Jordan is merely “neck-and-neck”:
Well, it’s a start! Baby steps. Can an acknowledgment that loaning oneself $25,000 — about the amount of the “Wikipedia study,” deliciously enough — isn’t really “raising money” be far behind? (Yes, it is probably very far behind.)