The Republicans continue to gather their teams and the facts of the stories sometimes tell more than than the words are meant to convey. The following two news items came from the OC Register yesterday in their entirely and are reproduced under the Fair Use Doctrine:
From the Column The Buzz:
Not the ends of the Earth, but close enoughIt’s rare that a single vote does indeed make a difference in an election, but some races come close. Like Newport Beach resident Marilyn Brewer’s 1994 primary upset, in which she beat Thomas Reinecke by 172 votes out of 45,000 cast and went on to serve three terms in the Assembly.
This year’s special election to replace Rep. Christopher Cox, who was sworn in as Securities and Exchange Commission chief last week, features Brewer again running from behind, this time against state Sen. John Campbell. One of the votes she’ll be counting on is that of Harvey Englander, the consultant who engineered her 1994 win and is onboard again this time. Englander’s primary residence is in Beverly Hills, but he also has a house in Dana Point and told the Buzz he’s changing his registration so he can vote for Brewer.
First we’ve heard of a consultant actually changing his residence to help a client. “Like I told her the first time, `You didn’t pay to win by a landslide,’.” Englander said.
**************[The New Majority is a more moderate Republican organization of milllionaires dedicated to moving the Party away from social issues and to the middle of the political spectrum in OC. ]
From The Buzz:
New Majority picks a new chairmanPaul Folino, CEO of high-tech manufacturer Emulex, has been named chairman of the New Majority, a group of 150 wealthy Orange County Republicans who pay $10,000-a-year dues and direct huge amounts of campaign contributions. The group’s political action committee has raised about $8 million for Arnold Schwarzenegger and his causes.
Folino succeeds Lawrence Higby, president of the Apria Health Care Group.
[All italics and emphasis herein is mine:The Big Dog, Stuart O’Neill]
Here are the important points to be made of these two items. Harvey Englander made a nice funny headline for his client by saying he was moving back into the District. He was also signaling that he thinks it’s going to be that close for the Republican nomination. Englander is the exact opposite of a dummy and he’s making plans and planting the ideas that the race is going to close. If Brewer hadn’t gotten Senator McCain’s endorsement last week I think he’d be blowing smoke, but that endorsement should open major fundraising doors for her.
Hopefully she and State Senator John Campbell will rip each others guts out in the Special Primary Season for the 48th.
The New Majority is a force to acknowledge. They can raise millions will a series of phone calls. Who will they back: Campbell or Brewer? Many here in the County are saying they think it’s highly likely they will back Brewer. If so, it will literally level the playing field between her and John Campbell. The expensive Direct Mail and other ‘nice expensive’ goodies, etc will be used by The Republican side or ours.
The closest comparsion in organizations with the New Majority, by the way, is The Democratic Foundation of OC which costs $1000 a year to join. Not exactly the same thing. Unlike public preception, especially nationwide and on the Blogsphere, there are over 400,000 registered Democrats in OC and we have 97 Democrats in a few partisan positions and many, many more in non-partisan positions on School Boards, Water Districts etc. Our influence grows.
I will be meeting our viable Candidate for lunch today will report more tomorrow. The effort continues to narrow the field to just one. And that will happen…or that’s my belief system after many, many years in this game.
You can always check at The Political Dogfight for the latest news. And we will cross-posts as soon as possible on DKos, MyDD, DemSPeak, BooMan and others.
If you want set The Political Dogfight up on your RSS feed use:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/ThePoliticalDogfight
