There's a match-up guaranteed to generate headlines -- and from what I'm told it's likely to happen.

According to a source close to the incipient campaign, the Minutemen founder is going to run in the June primary for the GOP nomination in the 47th Congressional District in central Orange County, which has been held by Democrat Loretta Sanchez since 1996. Gilchrist has a nationally-known polling firm and some additional Beltway talent on board in addition to local campaign strategists, and preliminary opposition research is being conducted.

CD47 is 42.5% Democratic and 36% Republican.

This would be Gilchrist's second run for Congress. Readers will remember he ran as an independent in the 2005 special election for the 48th CD (precipitated by Chris Cox's appointment to run the Securities & Exchange Commission) in which he garnered 25% of the vote in the final round.

As George Bailey says in "It's A Wonderful Life," this is a very interesting situation!

The operating assumption among OC GOP politicos has been Assemblyman Van Tran will run for the 47th CD when he is termed out of the Assembly in 2010. A corollary assumption is Rep. Loretta Sanchez herself will seek statewide office in 2010 (she currently has opened a committee for that purpose) -- probably for governor.

The view that this is "Van's seat" has kept the 2008 GOP primary in CD47 in a sort of stasis: no serious GOP candidate wants to get in unless they're going to receive serious support, and it's hard to obtain serious donor support when the expectation is Assemblyman Tran will run for what may well be an open seat it to years -- so why spend hundreds of thousands, or possibly millions, of dollars now against an incumbent?

So how does a Gilchrist dynamic impact these calculations? Does the GOP establishment embrace the controversial Gilchrist?

Turning Back The Clock?
I'm one of those Republicans who still worries about increasing our share of the Latino vote and I would be considered as left-of-center (in the context of the GOP) on immigration. My initial reaction is a Gilchrist candidacy in CD47 is a gift to Loretta Sanchez and the Democrats. It'll gin them up and enable Loretta to talk about her ethnicity rather than defend her voting record, and in the end make the already difficult task of reversing the GOP slide among Latinos that much harder.

More about that in a later post.

And What About Van Tran?
As for Van Tran, he'll be focused on employing his formidable central OC political operation to help Trung Nguyen's challenge to Supervisor Janet Nguyen's re-election, which is on the same June primary ballot in the overlapping 1st Supervisor District.

I doubt Van Tran would accelerate his plans and jump in to the race head off the nomination of a hard-line anti-illegal immigration activist in the central OC district -- the most Latino and Democratic one in Orange County. For one, Van would have to give up his Assembly seat two-years early, and secondly, Gilchrist is a long-shot to beat Loretta.

The question for Van is how much or how little to help Gilchrist? Van has eyed that seat for years, so a Gilchrist upset isn't on his list of favorite things. Given his background, it would be impossible for Gilchrist to talk about anything other than immigration even if he wants to, and that energizes Latinos for Loretta. Does Van want that to splatter on him?

On the other hand, if Van is too stand-offish and Gilchrist comes closer than expected to winning, will Van open himself to accusations that he undercut Gilchrist.

Either way, a Gilchrist for Congress campaign upsets settled calculations in central OC.

I'll keep you posted.