Assemblyman Van Tran getting the TEA Party Express endorsement this past week got me thinking about his appearance at the April TEA Party rally in Santa Ana this year. While his comments made it in the online publication OCLNN, the reporter got his name wrong. I had a little fun with the story: Van Tran-Nobody, Including Reporters, Knows His Name. 

Every once in a while a reporter sets something wrong. So wrong that it is a bit embarrassing. I didn’t really want to write about this most recent mix-up, but I couldn’t get the theme song from the old TV comedy series Cheers out of my head.

Here we have a sitcom about a local bar named Cheers in Boston, yes that is where the original TEA Party occurred. The sitcom revolves around the relationships between the staff and their regular customers. This is a bar where locals hang out, and everyone knows your name.

So we have these Tax Day/TEA Party protessts in Santa Ana yesterday. We have GOP speakers from all across the county lining up to speak at these protests. Then we add to the mix a reporter for a relatively new online publication OCLNN.com covering the event. In his story, posted on Thursday afternoon he wrote the following about Tran:

The health-care overhaul bill signed into law last month was perhaps the most popular target of scorn. State Sen. Lou Correa (R-Santa Ana) dismissed Democrats’ claims that the bill represents progress because it will provide more people with health insurance.

“Call it what you want,” he said at the Santa Ana rally. “It’s socialism and it’s communism.”

Of course, it wasn’t Senator Correa who made the remarks, it was Assemblyman Van Tran.

So in addition to being mistaken for a balding Latino elected official by a local reporter, he lost the opportunity for his ”Sound Bite Fame” by not having his comments attributed to him.

Fortunately I guess for Tran, the mix up didn’t cost him the recognition of the TEA Party Express people and he now has proudly received their endorsement.

So to Assemblyman Van Tran, we simply raise our cup of morning tea and say…

Cheers!