Election Night!

Downtown Santa Ana came alive last night as many of the political campaigns and insiders chose the Artists Village of Santa Ana to host their election night parties. The night was filled with some suprises, good(Steven Choi and Bill Hunt going down) and bad(Shawn Nelson winning). The first stop of the night was at the Martinez Book store where Assemblyman Jose Solorio was hosting a party. A whole host of Democrats were there, including Senator Lou Correa, Santa Ana Councilmembers Michele Martinez, Vincent Sarmiento and David Benavides and Fullerton Councilmembers Sharon Quirk-Silva and Pam Keller. Also present was the newly re-elected Clerk-Recorder Tom Daly who won it in a real nail biter. OK he won by 51 percentage points.

After getting some delicious food provided by El Indio Tortilleria, I made my way over to the Voice of OC/KOCE party across the street. There was a whole consortium of politicos there, from Mayor Miguel Pulido, RSCCD Board member and Democratic sage John Hanna, another Democratic sage George Urch, Tustin City Councilmember Deborah Gavello, Democratic Party Chair Frank Barbaro, Supervisor Janet Nguyen and Red County blogger Matt Cunningham. Some of the other electeds from SOlorio’s party also made their way over.

Overall this was a good event as a mix of politicos were in attendance. Some big suprises were Sandra Hutchens winning outright yesterday. That was a pleasant suprise. Another was Larry Aceves winning the top spot in the Superintendent of Public Instruction race. He now heads into a runoff with Assembly Tom Torlakson. Although it was a lower profile race, the fact that a dark horse candidate like Aceves who had little money for a statewide campaign bested two state legislators who had supporters with deep pockets is a testament to the voter anger at career politicians in general. This voter anger is not a tea bagger thing, like the GOP would have you believe because even their own are going down to defeat(ask anyone how well Alexia DelGianni did).

Later on I will have a post on my thought on the 4th as well as who Shawn Nelson should hire as his staff. Stay tuned.