November 2006 Election Winners...

Orange County election outcomes are settled with the major exception of the 34th Senate District, so it's time to review the some of the biggest winners and loser from yesterday's election.

Winners

Jeff Flint
Jeff had a huge day yesterday as lead consultant in the two biggest initiative campaigns in Orange County:  Yes On Measure M and No On Measure X. Vaulting over the two-thirds threshold renew Measure M was a very tall mountain to climb, especially in tax-averse Orange County, and the Flint led Yes on M team did it with 68.5%.

Measure X was a dagger pointed at the heart of property rights and  representative government -- a virus that would have spread to other municipalities if it passed in Newport Beach. Kudos to Jeff for devising a successful campaign to drive a stake through its heart.

Both victories will no doubt make Jeff and SchubertFlint Public Affairs an even hotter commodity.

Team Daucher
Even if Lynn Daucher is unable to hold on to her razor-thin lead, Team Daucher must still be counted in the Winners column. The post-primary conventional wisdom -- to which I subscribed for time -- was that Lou Correa would run her over  over in the general. Team Daucher, led by Jim Nygren and on-site manager Bryan Lanza, did exactly what they said they were going to do, and which few people believed. They commenced an intense general election campaign even before the primary, and never let up. Lou Correa was caught napping and had to scramble to catch up.

Kudos to Lynn Daucher and her team for disregarding post-primary naysayers such as myself and powering forward.

John Lewis & Matt Holder
John and Matt had couple of big wins yesterday. They were an integral part of the Yes On Measure M team, steered Denis Bilodeau's campaign to victory in the teeth of the Rudat onslaught and tentatively seem to have scored a re-election victory for Anaheim Councilman Bob Hernandez.

Sen. Dick Ackerman
If Daucher's lead holds, this is a huge win for Dick. As Senate Republican Leader, his primary political task is electing more Senate Republicans. The 34th SD was his only opportunity to do so. Dick was on the receiving end of a lot of criticism for recruiting Assemblyman Lynn Daucher and muscling Assemblyman Van Tran out of the race. It was a risky strategy, but its pretty clear he knew what he was doing.

OCTA
It took three tries to convince a majority of OC voters to approve the original Measure M, which created the OCTA. 15 years after the half-cent sales tax monies started flowing, 68.5% OC voters have renewed OCTA's revenue lifeline for another 30 years.

OCTA has its problems, but they have done a terrific job implementing Measure M and improving OC's freeways and roads (the CenterLine boondoggle notwithstanding). Measure M projects were finished on-time and under-budget, and OC motorists recognize the difference it has made and don't want to quit just as we are on the verge of getting ahead. I think the 68.5% of voters chose to renew Measure M in large part because they felt OCTA has been an effective steward of M monies, and as such is a vindication of the agency.

Property Rights
The narrow June 2006 victory of anti-property rights Measure B in Yorba Linda was a blow to property rights advocates and a boots to NIMBYs everywhere. It passage made the defeat of Measure X in Newport Beach even more imperative, because passage of two anti-growth, anti-property rights measure on conservative Orange County would have encouraged NIMBYs in other locales to launch similar initiatives.

The resounding, 62.2% thumping of X is an shining example that NIMBYism can be met head-on at the polls, and defeated.

Pat Bates
It is a huge credit to Pat Bates that at after being on the receiving end of historically well-financed and astonishingly dishonest campaign by opponent Cassie DeYoung. she was the only one standing in the arena when the dust cleared. Pat is a class act, and she'll help move the OC Board of Supervisors further to the right and common sense.

Dave Gilliard
Dave was the lead consultant for Pat Bates' campaign. The opposing campaign possessed what was, for all practical purposes, an unlimited campaign budget and a willingness to spend it. I haven't seen anything quite like it since I worked on the Huffington for U.S. Senate campaign in 1994. I spoke to a number of observers earlier in the year who were beginning to believe Cassie would overwhelm Team Bates with sheer volume of campaign spending.

By running a campaign that decisively out-polled DeYoung in both the primary and general elections, Gilliard maintains his status as one of the top consultants for OC campaigns.

The Agran Machine
Once more Orange County Republicans charged into the breach, and once more they were repelled by the Dark Knights of Agran. Defeating the Agran Machine is like trying to kill Rasputin. As much as we despise it, credit must be given to the evil genius of Larry Agran.

Orange County Business Council
Until recently, the Orange County Business Council had withered away to the vanishing point. It had ceased to be relevant and its staff had mostly departed, and just drifted along like a ghost ship.

That changed when Lucy Dunn left the Schwarzenegger Administration to take the reins of OCBC, and she quickly breathed new life into it. Measure M's renewal become OCBC's top priority, and under Dunn's leadership OCBC played a critical role in crafting a version acceptable to OC voters and then drumming up the fund raising necessary to conduct an expensive county-wide campaign for renewal. A big win on renewing M marks OCBC re-emergence as a political player in Orange County.

BIA/OC
The Building Industry Association of OC was in a similar situation as OCBC, facing what could be charitably be characterized as internal problems. KB Homes executive Kristine Thalman was tapped to take over, and she's similarly revitalized BIA/OC as an unapologetic advocate of development and property rights. BIA/OC almost killed Yorba Linda's Measure B in a whirlwind campaign in the June primary, and then crushed the pernicious Measure X yesterday. NIMBYs beware.

BIA/OC also played a critical role in the passage of Measure M, convincing their homebuilder members to raise a large portion of the funds necessary for a costly county-wide campaign.

Next up, the big losers in yesterday's election.

Comments

[One Who Knows]

Jeff Flint rocks!

Not only did he win Measure M, defeat Measure X and re-elect Curt Pringle, he and his partner helped kill Propositions 86 and 89...two of the most pernicious measures on the statewide ballot.

Better buy some of his stock right now as the price is sure to soar.

[anon]

I'm surprised the Auto Club didn't make your list Jubal. AAA gave more money to Measure M than any of the others, not to mention the staff they devoted to the campaign as well. The Club's Lenzi, Beal and Bahadori all did a phenomenal job and should be applauded for their work on M's renewal (and for their work on 1A and 1B, too). Now that 1A, 1B and M passed, I think the Auto Club's stock just went up a few more points...as did the stock of the folks who worked to pass the measure.

[DanC]

The Dark Knights of Larry Agran? Surely you jest. Could it be as simple as Beth Krom being a better candidate and running a better race? You can't blame this on a stleath GOP candidate this time. Evil Genuis has only one definition -- Karl Rove.

[Art Pedroza]

We did OK in Santa Ana too - we took out two out of three Pulido puppets, even though the police and fire unions, and other special interests, spent over $100K on the lot of them. Si se puede!

[Si Se Puede?]

Art did you join the SEIU or something? Why the heck would you utter a union cheer?

[Todd Priest]

I agree. Jeff Flint did an incredible job on the Measure M campaign! It was terrific working with him and entire campaign staff.

[tylerh]

Jubal,

The real winner in Irvine was Status Quo. All three of the polic endorsed Candidates, Krom, She, and Kang, won. Both school incumbents won as well. Interestingly, three of those five proudly accepted the Planned Parenthood endorsement. Anti-choice politics are not clear winner in education-oriented Irvine.

Moreover, you way over-rate Agran and his faction. The key to his success is that he keeps facing candidates that seem to think that they're running in Anaheim or Newport Beach - perhaps because so much of their money comes from out-of-town.

In the next post I'll give a more detailed post-mortem of the main losers in Irvine: The Team Irvine slate of Duong, Shea, and Mavity.

[tylerh]

Jubal,

Larry Agran didn't need to be an Rovian genius to spank the half-hearted opponents he faced this year.

My post-mortem Team Irvine's efforts and Krom's success:

1. When your Irvine incumbent opponent charges you with being an out of town carpet bagger, perhaps responding with a massive robocall featuring a droning testimonial from the mayor of Westminster isn't the best response.

2. John Duong really stepped in it by not properly cloaking his key hit mailer, the one suggesting Beth Krom is a Communist that Jubal liked so much. Within days Beth Krom had proven Duoung had paid for the mailer and sent out an equally devastating counter-hit mailer showing Duoung not only paid for the distasteful mailer, but, in doing so, reminded anyone who cared that Duong's family was based in Westminster and did business with the Communists in Viet Nam.

3. There are still local politicos that need to learn that "Asian" is about as useful of a political cover-all "Hispanic." Yes, Irvine is about 40% "Asian" and growing, but only about 8% Vietnamese. Given that the fraternal love the Chinese and Viet Namese cultures have shared at such places Bạch Đằng River in 939 or, more recently Lào Cai (1979), Duoung didn't have an obvious resonsance with Irvine's "Asian" voting block. Sukhee Kang, being Korean, had a direct link to the second largest Asian community in Irvine - and raised a ton of money from them. There are plenty of conservative Republican Chinese in Irvine -- the Lincoln Club should run one next time around.

4. The TeamIrvine slate did include one serious pro, Christine Shea, but she ran an uncharacteristically limp campaign. Is it just me, or does she seem tired all the time nowadays? I am glad she remains on the council, but she was a listless campaigner compared to, say, her first Mayoral campaign. For example, TeamIrvine seemed to get far fewer door hangers out this year than past years while sending out at least dozen mailers, suggesting they had more money than volunteers.

5. Mavity was complete loss. No charisma, no money, no wider connections (he had served honorably but without distinction on the Woodbridge Village board) Team Irvine would have been better off running the Uni High Valedictorian -- that at least would have brought in the Chinese vote.

6. The TeamIrvine slate had a messaging problem: running on a no-growth platform ("70,000 more cars are coming" "Stop It" "Vote Duoung/Shea/Mavity") is an odd way to keep your OC conservative base on board. The GreatParkTeam are unabashed Social Progressives -- Krom and Gaido both attended Planned Parenthood's Party Political fundraiser, for example - so surely Team Irvine could have used a social issue as a frame to communicate to their base. As it was, a pro-growth conservative who didn't follow local politics could easily have assumed that s/he should vote against Team Irvine and their high profile NIMBYism .

7. Lastly, Beth Krom is a formidable candidate for Irvine in her own right. She's *everywhere*, and not just during election season. Most people I know who have met her have liked her. She has that essential political skill of acting like she's listening intently even when she's probably not. Election day she walked along the Irvine street most heavily used by locals (Culver) carrying a homemade sign that said "I am Beth Krom." Nice touch, and it reinforced her message that she was a local, while Duong had close ties Westminster and got most of his money from out of town.

I await Allan's report on how the campaign campaign looked from his side. ( I precinct walked for Krom)