Tuesday, November 21, 2006

SD 34: So Correa Officially Won... Now Who Will Be Filling His Supe Seat?

OK, now! Both The OC Register AND The LA Times are reporting that Lynn Daucher plans to officially concede to Lou Correa this week. Though State Senate GOP Leader Dick Ackerman (R-Irvine) is still planning to "investigate the Otto Bade wrongdoing", his "investigation" won't change the inevitable... Lou is now going (back) to Sacramento, and all of us left behind must now pick someone to fill his seat on the OC Board of Supervisors! ; )

Already, Garden Grove Councilmembers Mark Rosen (D) and Janet Nguyen (R) have announced their intention to run. Also, Garden Grove School Board Member Trung Nguyen has just announced his intention to run. Of course, Trung Nguyen is a Van Tran protege who ran as part of the "Team Tran" Vietnamese Republican ticket this year (along with failed Congressional Candidate Tan Nguyen). Already, some Janet supporters are accusing Van Tran of using Trung as a decoy candidate (ala Otto Bade) to destroy Janet's chances of winning this seat. Oh yes, the Garden Grove drama has begun!

Yes, and I didn't even get to the Santa Ana candidates yet... Now, I am! Right now, it looks like Santa Ana Councilmember Carlos Bustamante (R? D? C4L?) is just dying to get into the fray... He's been salivating over this seat since Lou Correa first announced his run for State Senate! But could another Councilmember deny him this once-in-a-lifetime chance for a BoS seat? Already, the rumor mill has it that fellow Santa Ana Councilmember Claudia Alvarez (is she really D?) may jump into this race just for the heck of it... I don't see it happening, but if she does, expect the fireworks to really go off!

Still, the one candidate who could really excite the Democratic base in the 1st Supe District would be soon-to-be Ex-Assemblymember Tom Umberg. Of course, Umberg originally ran for SD 34 in the Democratic primary, and lost in a 60-40 landslide to Lou over allegations of an extramarital affair and fudging his record of military service... However now that those allegations are history, perhaps Mr. Umberg would like to jump back into Orange County politics by running for this open Supe seat. Especially if Umberg is able to hold onto most of the Democratic base here, he might have a large enough bloc to win the Special Election ... Apparently for the Special, no one needs a 50% +1 majority to win, and turnout probably won't be all that hot... So perhaps, this might be the formula for a Tom Umberg comeback! (Or not, if people still remember all the crap from the June primary.)

So, anyways, it's off to the races once again in Central Orange County! One race (SD 34) is ending, and another (1st Supe Special) is just beginning. As always, stay tuned here for more fun and excitement (and loads of melodrama)! ; )

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