Who do we love this Valentine’s Day?

People all across the country are celebrating St. Valentine’s Day today.  That makes it a perfect time to share with you the list of people that TheLiberalOC.com has grown to love over the past year.

Ferial Govashiri  Ferial is the Chair of the Orange County Young Democrats, and will be helping to roll out the new ethnic outreach programs that are long overdue in OC and that we’ll be hearing about more and more in the near future.  Keep an eye on Ferial and the Orange County Young Dems in the coming months, because I predict that we’ll see a lot of bustle generated from this group.

Martin Wisckol and Peggy Lowe  You can criticize the Orange County Register’s editorial team all you want, but don’t say anything nasty about Martin Wisckol or Peggy Lowe.  They’ve done a great job covering the local politics beat for us in the Register, and blogs wouldn’t be what they are without the wonderful reporting that we link to.

Rosie Espinoza   Rose is a lifelong resident of La Habra and she founded the program Rosie’s Garage, which is an after school tutoring program that started in her garage…you may have seen it on Oprah.  She was elected to the La Habra City Council in 2000 and re-elected in 2004.  Most recently she’s started an organization that’s helping female politicians enter the male-dominated arena of politics.

Joe Dunn    As the Montery County Weekly said, Joe Dunn is a “badass.”  He spearheaded an inquiry in the State Senate into Enron and its ilk.  As an elected official Joe stood up for true Democratic principals, and he’s one of those politicians you miss after they get termed out.

Michelle Martinez  This 27-year-old newly elected Santa Ana City Council Member has rocked the boat of Santa Ana city politics, where, for years, too much has happened behind closed doors, and the elected officials seemed to have forgotten that they are representatives of the people.  This is another one to keep your eye on.

John Hanna  Susan Freeze said it best in this post, so I’m just going to quote her verbatim: “John Hanna is an encyclopedia of political savvy and someone who has a strong sense of history with the DPOC… John has served as a Chair for the State Party’s Resolutions Committee and is conscientious and fair. As a Trustee for the Rancho Santiago CCD, his primary goal is to do what is best for the students enrolled RSCCD.”

Johnny Sampson  Johnny is a bartender at Memphis Santora in Santa Ana, and I’d argue that he is one of the best bartenders in Orange County.   Not only is he an excellent mixologist, but how many bartenders do you know that would turn down the music and un-mute the television to allow the bar to listen to Bill O’Riley on The Colbert Report?  If you don’t believe that Johnny excels at pouring, stop by Drinking Liberally on a Thursday night and order a Sweet Harmony.

That’s the small list that I came up with.  Feel free to leave any additional names of folks in Orange County politics that are loved by local progressives in the comments of this post.