DPOC Endorsement Meeting Tonight; Someone Should Apologize to Sharon Wallin for 2014

The Democratic Party of Orange County has their city council election endorsement meetings tonight; my phone has been buzzing all weekend about who’s going to pull who’s name from the consent calendar and general complaining that the interview process for candidates was restricted to a small group of party insiders with a number of Central Committee members who would have loved to participate in the process shut out.

To my pleasant surprise, IUSD trustee Sharon Wallin has submitted an application for the DPOC endorsement for school board in Irvine.  Sharon is quite possibly one of the most effective elected Democrats in Orange County and you don’t hear much from her because she just doesn’t engage in politics.  She does her job and does it well.  The party should endorse her by acclamation.

And after she’s endorsed, someone from the party ought to publicly apologize to her for the way she was treated in the 2014 endorsement process where she was bullied by the party’s now vice chair over an endorsement she would not give because Wallin barely knew the candidate she was asked to endorse (we all know who the candidate is and who did the bullying; I hope both of them have to stones to do the right thing tonight).  A private apology is nice just just won’t do.

Since our party’s Central Committee has political consultants, campaign treasurers and lawyers who represent various candidates in various capacities, I’ll urge party leadership to ask these members to recuse themselves from voting on a race where they have a client represented or from pulling the name of an opponent where it benefits a client.  It’s not ethical and as Democrats, we ought to be ethical.

I’ll live blog if any fistfights break out tonight.