Since Friday, we’ve finally heard from Matt Harper of First District Supervisor Janet Nguyen’s office for her take on the Santa Ana City Council candidacy of Orange Juice blogger Art Pedroza. Ms. Nguyen was out of town for a family affair. Harper says the Supervisor is waiting to hear on the certification of each candidate’s signatures before evaluating possible endorsements by her office.
Janet faces a real “Sophie’s Choice” here in this race. The June election pretty much solidified her support (however reluctant) from the County’s Republican Party and just about all the party’s power structure (with the exception of Van Tran). Carlos Bustamante, the incumbent Republican for the Ward 3 council race, will likely still garner support from the County’s Republican leadership and rank and file despite his poor sense of humor and comments during the selection of Sheriff Sandra Hutchens. I always say Democrats fall in love with candidates while Republicans fall in line behind them.
More after the jump…
So who will Janet endorse for this race?Â
To maintain and build upon her party support, she almost has to endorse Bustamante. After all, he endorsed her for re-election and Harper was unaware of any quid pro quo of a reverse endorsement of Bustamante by Nguyen. When asked, Harper could not recall a situation where Nguyen endorsed any candidate from a party other than Republican.
On the other end of the spectrum, Art Pedroza, is Janet’s biggest fan. And a registered DTS. There is no sin, no matter how personal or how similar to others that draw Art’s ire that Janet Nguyen can do without Art approving of it, dismissing it outright or letting slide immediately.Â
For example, Janet Nguyen accepted campaign contributions from a Pro-Prop 8 activist, Howard Amhanson, as did State Senator Lou Correra. And Art blasted Lou while giving Janet lip service. Art also boycotted the OC Fair to protest free meals and concert tickers received by Red County editor Matt Cunningham. But when Cunningham pointed how he ate fdinner with the Nguyen’s at the Fair, Art admonoshed Matt “not to bring the Nguyen’s into this.”
So, does Janet break with her party and endorse someone other than the incumbent city council member, or will she play it safe and back Busty?
Art has always said when Janet makes a wrong decision, he will be first in line to criticize her. Should Janet play loyal party leader, she would have to reject Art’s candidacy and his small idea platform of more massage parlors, hookah bars, and magnetized shopping carts. For Art, would that be reason enough to toss Janet under the bus? Â
WWJD. What Will Janet Do?
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theres no way art will ever remove his snout from her rectum ever! too bad. art would have so much more cred if he didnt gush over her all the time. i just dont get it.
I would appreciate Art treating Janet the same way he does other politicos; he went after Lou for accepting funds from Howard Ahmanson, but he let Janet off easy. If Art should win, and its a big “if”, I wonder if he’d ever have a motion seconded.
personally i think anything is possible in these races and i will vote for him because he would make a better councilman that bustamante but my biggest concern is will he go to the dark side like martinez and tinajero if he gets in there. who knows if anybody would second any of his motions i remember when ted moreno was in there that was a huge problem for him besides being ted moreno. the thing is we have a horrible council here in santa ana and at this point anybody would be better even art.
Ironically, My anti-spam word was Toast. How aprapo for janet Nguyen and Art’s l;ove affair. Janet will endorse carlos due to GOP rules. And Art will be thrown under the bus. How will Art react to the end of the love affair with Janet? He will go balistic all over janet.
Jose S.
Untrue that Michele Martinez has gone over to “the dark side.” Since when did Vader campaign against the Emporer? Full disclosure: I’m on Martinez’s mayoral campaign committee.
The OCGOP central com endorsed DTS candidate for Judge John Nho Trong Nguyen, as did Dem Chair Barbaro and Rep Chair Baugh as well as Pol’s from both sides of the table.
The SACC race is non partisan as well.
No politican should feel obligated to endorse Carlos Bustamante.
Carlos Bustamante has zero party loyalty, has raised taxes on residents and business in this city at every opportunity, has failed to support Republican Party endorsed candidates in past elections, even going so far as to support, endorse and chair campaigns of candidates running against Republicans.
Carlos is under investigation by OC CEO Tom Mauk and as such any endorsement by anyone of Carlos Bustamante could end up being a weight around the neck of that person.
So how would an endorsement of Steve Rocco look? If Janet endorses Art, it can be argued its a quid pro quo for the biased and fawning coverage Art gives her regularly. Janet returns the favor and endorses Busty anyway. She needs the party more than she needs Busty.
Dan,
I am not seeking Supervisor Nguyen’s endorsement. I understand that she is a Republican and I no longer am. I am running for a non-partisan office, but let’s be honest – both the local parties get quite involved in our local non-partisan offices.
Now as Thomas pointed out, Bustamante is not much of a Republican, so he should not assume his party’s endorsement. What if the County of Orange fires him? That will really take the wind out of his sails.
I am trying to bring change to the City of Santa Ana. I am not going to get bogged down in who is endorsing whom. I have a race to run and I am fully committed to winning. I am proud to say that I am getting support from the left, right and center. It turns out a lot of folks want to see Bustamante replaced on our City Council.
“I have a race to run and I am fully committed to winning.”
That’s not what you were telling people at Drinking Liberally last week. Maybe you can get Joe Dunn’s endorsement?
Just how effective of a council member do you believe you will be after all the name-calling and mean-spirited comments you’ve made of these people in the past? I doubt anyone would second any motion you hve to make. You can’t pass it off as “nothing personal.” You get more bees with honey than vinegar.
But thanks for running Art, because you’ve left a treasure of opposition research available to those of us on the left and right. Be sure to let us know how much you collect from massage parlor interests
Dan,
I tried to find someone else to run – I even challenged your party to find a candidate to take out Carlos. No one stepped up. Bustamante clearly needs to go – so I decided to run when no one else wanted to do so.
One would think that you would want to see the last Republican on the SA City Council go, but instead you are spending all your time attacking me. Nice.
Fortunately very few people in my town read your blog, so knock yourself out Dan. We had a great fundraiser tonight with folks from the left, right and center united against Bustamante.
We’ll do the best we can and who knows, we just might win. No matter what I will have done more than you and your entire party as you could not even field a candidate against a truly awful incumbent Republican in the most Democratic city in Orange County. That speaks for itself doesn’t it?
Art,
The LiberalOC does quite well for a blog that has been around a significantly less amount of time than yours.
Rip all you want on the Democratic Party Art. As far as I can figure, the only reason you’re running is to increase your blog traffic.
Which at this point amounts to little more than people dropping in to look at the train wreck.
The worst Bustamante is better than the best Pedroza.
Excuse me Art, but who the hell are you to challenge my party to do anything? You are not a Democrat. You are in no position to demand my party do anything.
According to Compete.com, our blog pulls in 1,000 more unique IP addresses a month more than yours. The bigger question to need to ask is how many voters in Santa Ana actually read your blog. You get lots of hits and page views, but its from a smaller group of people. And even if there were a ton of readers, your track record on supporting Ballot measures in Santa Ana vs, what the voters actually do is pretty bad.
Attack you? Don’t take it personally; but even if elected, I don’t think you’d be able to push any of your ideas forward.
Let’s knock off all the old grudges and blog-peeing-matches you guys. Bustamante needs to go, you all know it, and Pedroza’s the best chance to do that. If Chris and Dan can’t bring themselves to support him because of all of the tough words flying around in the past, you should at least stop attacking him until the election, you’re only helping sleazy Busty.
With Michele as Mayor, along with Pedroza and Lisann on a “Clean Money for Santa Ana” slate (which I’m working on), and then whoever would get appointed to replace Michele, you’d suddenly have a progressive Council in the largest city in the county – a challenge for sure, but something all us Democrats should want. (And I think it would be a good influence on Tinajero and Benavides too.)
(PS. In my first sentence, “You guys” referred to Art too of course.)
Vern,
I agree the flaming of TheLiberalOC over at OJ is getting a bit ut of hand. For the most part, I ignore the B.S. because it is coming from teo main sources, Art and Sara. However, when Art chooses to bring his B.S. over here, I sometimes feel compelled to respond.
You know of my distaste for Mr. Bustamante. You also know that it is TheLiberalOC that did the in depth investigation of his remarks about Sheriff Hutchens appointment, and the fact of his position with the county. I can say with great confidence that we in no way support the reelection of Carlos Bustamante. That does not however translate into a need or requirement that we support Art Pedroza’s candidacy. And we will not keep our fingers off our keyboards until after the election. I am not certain replacing Biustamante, a man who obviously should only speak with a censor present, with a blogger who also has no mute or off button installed is such a great idea.
I have not spoken to all of the cadidates, but if we really want to elect one moron to replace another, then I’m leaning towards Rocco.
I am however very interested in learning more about Art’s plans to increase city revenues through massage parlors, tattoo parlors, and Hooka bars.
OK, you know what it sounds like when you guys keep bringing up the massage parlors, tattoo parlors and Hookah bars, which was near the bottom of a long long list of things Art was criticizing Pulido for (banning?) It sounds like John McCain pretending that Obama’s energy plan consisted of keeping your tires full – the one thing he could pick out that sounded kind of silly.
Hey Chris did you get my e-mail? Let’s do that tomorrow!
Vern –
Thanks for coming over here and telling us how to behave on peeing matches. Perhaps you should do the same at OJ.
As for the massage parlor/hookah bars reference, you’d have a point if Art only brought it up once. But he keeps going back to it so I’m sure he’s captured the rub and tug vote.
And please let’s not compare Art to Barack Obama. Obama has run a positive campaign that highlights differences with opponents and not petty, personal attacks Pedroza style. Art reminds me more of McCain than Obama
I will be the first to admit that Art has been a bit over the top on many an occasion. I have had my differences with him publicly in the blogosphere and privately as well. At times it has taken all my strength from simply strangling him.
With that being said, I am glad that Art has stood up and taken on the challenge of running against Bustamante. Carlos is an embarassment to the city of Santa Ana and he must go. As long as Art runs a serious, issues based campaign he will have my full support and that includes financially as well.
If Art goes into a parody of a campaign I will withdraw any support whatsoever. He has assured me he is serious and this has nothing to do with increasing blog traffic. I have no reason to doubt him.
I realize that Chris has inflated sense of self-importance and yet other than a failed run many years ago at GG City Council I have not seen him do much more than be a hack for whatever Nick or the DPOC tells him to be.
He can attack Art all he wants but at least Art put his money where his mouth is and doesn’t just run around thinking he is a big time player and a mover and shaker in the game.
Chris does not even live in Santa Ana so as a resident I could care less what he thinks about our city council races. Just as he did in his roll as a “Janny” during the supes race, Chris is sticking his nose into things that aren’t of his concern.
Chris backed a Republican, Janet Nguyen, for the board of supes, so it does not surprise me that he would aid another Republican, Carlos Bustamante, by attacking his only serious opponent.
Sean —
Thanks for stopping by, but it’s my post and my criticism. Residency aside, Art has no problem attacking the progressive majority in Irvine, so I don’t have a problem pointing out his electability is only slightly better than Rocco’s. Perhaps Art can offer Rocco a blog position for more elaborations on the Partnership.
For the voters, it may be one of those elections where there are no good choices.
Dan,
I realize that you wrote the post, but as usual Chris has shared his infinite wisdom with everyone. I realize that Chris feels the community is waiting with baited breath for his pontifications on the election I can assure you that we are not.
I don’t care what some gopher/hack from Long Beach has to say about the council races in Santa Ana. I doubt the candidates are lining up to get an endorsement from him.
I respect your opinions Dan, though I may disagree from time to time. But I see you as an honest and straight forward individual who has integrity.
I have proudly contributed to Art’s campaign and plan to do so again. However it would be a cold day in hell before I gave Prevatt a nickel to send him to Denver. That’s because Art, while over the top and crazy at times, is honest with me.
Now I better shut up before Prevatt gets someone to accuse me of trying to run them off the road.
I miss you too Sean. I have maxed out to the 4 progressive candidates in Irvine, given money to Gary Pritchard’s campaign and kicked in some dough for Chris’s trip to Denver. Its important for us to back up those we believe in political with financial resources.
“I have not spoken to all of the cadidates”
Well I am sure that they are eagerly awaiting your invitation to come in the mail Chris. You’ve probably just been busy offering up legal advice to all your buddies from the smear campaign.
I am sure “Chris Prevatt’s Seal of Approval” is all any candidate needs to assure victory. Art’s chances of victory are even slimmer now that you have spoken out against him. He must be devatated.
Dan,
I agree it is important to support those in whom we believe with whatever financial help we can give. That’s why I wouldn’t think of giving Prevatt one red cent.