A Stronger Democratic Party Emerges from the State Convention

Any gathering of the Democratic Party always resembles a family reunion.  There’s a lot of joy at seeing your friends and there’s always some little incident that takes place that distracts from the bigger picture, but thanks to our photographer Lou Delgado, you can enjoy these pictures of this weekend’s festivities. The photos accompanying the post are mine.

Some thoughts:

• We’ll be supporting a Democrat for US Senate in November 2016.
• Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez was everywhere; she worked the room from speaking to the LGBT caucus to the Rural caucus to the Women’s caucus; Loretta was everywhere.  Kamala Harris wasn’t.  We couldn’t find Harris or any of her staffers during our time on the convention floor. Volunteers yes, but no one who could answer a single policy question. Sanchez talks to everyone.  She was everywhere.  I’m surprised she didn’t show up to say hi to the fellas in the men’s room.  Everytime I turned around, she was there.  You get a real sense, Sanchez’s going to be the candidate that engages voters and listens to them, not Harris.
• OC Democrats who love Senator Elizabeth Warren but also love Loretta Sanchez had to be uncomfortable as Warren waxed poetic on the Harris candidacy.
• Sanchez’s apology for a bad joke American-Indian/Indian-American confusion was sincere.  It was a mistake and it was acknowledged and she apologized.  As far as comments like this go, you find more racism disguised as humor in the average “Ask a Mexican” column in OC Weekly.  Senator Ted Cruz gets away with far worse.
• The Women’s caucus was one of the strongest and best attended; it showed tremendous strength for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
• Former Irvine mayor and SD-29 candidate Sukhee Kang has done an amazing job of lining up endorsements, support and funding.  Enough that should dissuade any other Democrat from entering this race.
• Former State Rep Sharon Quirk-Silva appears poised to regain her seat if the Women’s caucus has anything to say about it.  November 2016 will have a huge turnout of women voters, Democratic voters and Latinos coming to the polls.  We believe Kang and Quirk-Silva can help each other’s candidacies on a number of fronts.
• The rumor mill says Santa Ana Mayor Pro Tem Vince Sarmiento was being walked around by consultants as a candidate for First District Supervisor; he’ll have to resolve the repeated claims he really resides outside of the city and the district first.
• Former State Senator Lou Correa was notably absent, but had surrogates on site.  Correa was attending to personal family obligations for his kid’s prom and other events, which frankly, we applaud.
• The DPOC and its representatives were excellent ambassadors and hosts for this convention.  It was great to see so many friendly faces.