Right on! Thank you Ray for speaking the truth. And yes, we all know who you are talking about.

Who cares about Haynes anyway? It not like he has much of a political future in republican party anyway.

We who care should remember him as not helping to defeat evil Janet lady.

If Mimi was in anyway a liberal, you know Assemblyman Haynes would call her out for it. Thank you for bringing some rational perspective to our OC food fight.

"political future in republican party anyway"

And Van and Dina have a future? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I look forward to Van's attempt at Loretta. She will destroy him. and the GOP won't lift a finger.

I think you ended the italicized part too soon. Both paragraphs come from Haynes' article.

"The Bermuda Quadrangle." That's pretty good.

Two months ago I would have agreed with Haynes. Today, after getting to know Sidhu, I can honestly say he is as solid a conservative as I have seen. At this point Sidhu's only fault in this race is being less known. I still would have supported Mimi if it hadn't been for the nature of her campaign, which has been disgusting.

Sidhu has been just as bad. The only thing is he's an amateur with his attacks. I have no doubt that if he were a more seasoned politician, with a better grasp of campaign dynamics and technology, he would have taken "cleaner" shots at Walters.

It's like being able to shoot a gun. The Walters campaign is like an expert marksman. The Sidhu campaign is like a gun-regulating liberal testing out a firearm for the first time. Both are firing off the same number of shots, but only one is hitting the target.

And you're blaming her campaign for aiming better?

RP:

Fixed!

Two Months:

You have to be kidding. Sidhu runs a cable ad in a giant wad of cash is Photoshopped into Mimi's hand, accompanied by the sound of a cash register. Sidhu's campaign sends out mail with a svelte woman in a cocktail dress holding a martini, and says Mimi is too busy partying to represent her constituents?

If tough campaigns offend you, you might consider abstaining, because the Sidhu campaign hasn't exactly been taking the comparative high road.

Umm, yes I think Dina and Van have future in republican party. Janet will rue the day she picked fight with those of us who are wanting to get good, ethical elected.

Dina will win the race, and Van will be congressman soon. Then OC can say by-by to both Janet and Loretta.

And the Mighty Thor will come down from Valhalla and help rule with his hammer of justice!

Having received a few of these campaign pieces, I was throughly disgusted by the tactics the Sidhu Campaign employs. Pleeeassee, the shot with cash in hand was so pathetic and misleading. If one takes the road of obfuscation and misleading mantra then it is obvious Sidhu Campaign doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Mimi is clearly a conservative, fiscally, socially and those of us who know her do not doubt she will continue to adhere to her conservative credentials when she gets to the Senate.

The campagin for the Senate should proceed by addressing specific issues, making a true case for your stand and be true to yourself and the voters of the 33rd.

And the Mighty Thor will come down from Valhalla and help rule with his hammer of justice!

"And the Mighty Thor will come down from Valhalla and help rule with his hammer of justice!"

If Mighty Thor would like to help getting in Dina, elected, then that's fine. He can bring all his Valhalla buddies to.

Jubal-

Come on now man, are you really trying to make the case that Sidhu's attacks are, in nature, worse than Mimi's?

I agree with you that if tough campaigns offend someone, that person should get out of the kitchen, but I have to strongly disagree with you as far as the attacks are concerned.

Woman in a cocktail dress vs. Shot of Harry surrounded by Hindu graphics. Sounds pretty even to me in its "toughness"...

Oh and Mimi was the first one to fire a shot by the way..and that shot missed the mark by a mile(accusing Harry of supporting Prop 93).

I never said Sidhu wasn't running both positive and negative ads, and I agree both sides are running very intense campaigns. If Mimi wants to put out a negative mail piece with Harry holding tickets like he did with her holding money, well, it is certainly extreme (on both sides), but at least it still plays on issues, positions, and history. The mail piece with the Hindu background, that is not tough campaigning, that is just racist (and as a republican I don't throw around the word 'racist' to just end conversations like liberals do).

Thor's mighty hammer (bizarre)? You know, some associate Thor's hammer with the swastika (Google it).

With the racist overtones of Walters recent (disgusting) mailshot, perhaps she should include a swastika next time. (Though, to be fair, the swastika is a holy symbol to Hindus - better not give Walters any more big ideas.)

A survey conducted the final Sunday and Monday before the 2006 Nov. 7th election in a dozen swing congressional districts in various states held by Republicans found that likely voters agreed, 70% to 24%, with this statement:

"The Republican Party used to stand for keeping government spending under control, but not anymore."

Those same Republicans in swing districts also agreed with this statement by an even larger margin, 73% to 22%, that,

"When the Republican Party took over Congress 12 years ago, they promised to reform government and clean up corruption in Washington but they have failed to live up to that promise."

We didn't loose the House and Senate because of the Iraq War or Hurricane Katrina. We lost Congress because Republicans stopped acting like Republicans when it came to fighting corruption and over-spending – And that is why I have to seriously question the judgment of an elected official who claims to be a conservative leader and yet endorses our current incumbent in Orange County’s 1st Supervisorial Election.

Our current GOP Incumbent, Janet Nguyen, has made her short time in office a broken record of spending and legal missteps that will only further feed into the Democrats message that our party has a culture of corruption and that we only talk about spending restraint but never deliver.

While we all respect Ray Haynes and his principled position on so many important issues; he just does not know who Janet really is and how bad she is for our party. Mimi Walters may just be naïve about Janet, but more likely than not she is just listening to one of those consultants who Haynes correctly identifies as people who, “will pick up the cause of whoever writes the check.”

Here are just a few instances when Janet showed total disregard for the law, giving Democrats the substance they need when trying to associate Republicans with a culture of corruption.

* accepted several contributions over the limit and setup an illegal "legal defense fund."

* refused to address illegal donations for 52 days, and not until an outcry by the public and the media (OC Register, LA Times, OC Blog, Total Buzz, etc.)

* used HCA funds to fund an extra political staffer, while HCA went through budget cuts.

* fined a hefty $5,000 by the FPPC, in a letter in which the FPPC officially concluded that "Respondents Janet Nguyen and Friends of Janet Nguyen 2007 violated the Political Reform Act".

*took an illegal donation from a Parking company that received a $15,000 county contract. And Janet did not abstain from the vote for her campaign contributor, in a blatant example of conflict of interest.

As far as pork spending is concerned, I don't know how any Republican can spend:

*$100,000 of taxpayer dollars on an anteater for the local zoo.

Is that what Janet thinks the role of government is?

*Hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ dollars in pork: $100,000 for an Anteater Exhibit in the Santa Ana Zoo.

*$100,000 for Garden Grove decorative arches (Scott Weimer is a Janet donor and a Main St. business owner, imagine that.)

*$105,000 a year for a satellite Janet Nguyen for Supervisor campaign office in Little Saigon (her team can dispute this all they want but that's the truth).

*$150,000 in Office Renovations: she accepted this renovation nine days after being sworn in and let the record show that Democrat Lou Correa had declined the same renovations earlier.

*$2.5 Million Of Wasted Transportation Money: I can only come to that conclusion when I look at her proposal to spend $2.5 million of Prop. 1B money in a Little Saigon Overpass. This proposal was so wrong on so many levels:

- There were NO feasibility studies done to back up the claim made by the Supervisor's office that this project will relieve traffic

- She asked for NO feedback from the local city officials about how they felt about the proposal

- I thought Proposition 1B money was supposed to be allocated to BUILD MORE LANES, not superfluous projects like this one. Janet's traffic relief proposals sound like they came right out of a Democrat's office!

Here are a few other Janet votes and actions that concern conservatives:

*Garden Grove Eminent Domain Vote: this is one of the issues that I asked the anonymous blogger to email me about. I guess I must have missed Jubal's post last year, where he highlights Janet's vote for eminent domain during her stay at the Garden Grove City Council. The transcript shows that she tried to explain her vote, but still voted for it anyway. Isn't the OCGOP supposed to be strongly in favor of private property rights?

*Healthcare for Illegal Immigrants: Janet, with a competitive campaign less than six months away, voted for a 20% increase in traffic fines in order to fund healthcare for the "uninsured". We all know who is part of that group. Yep, you guessed it: illegal immigrants.

*Recount Snafu: This is not even disputable anymore. It's one thing for one person to claim irregularities, but it is something completely different for a dozen people to come to the same conclusion. Many friends of mine were witnesses to what happened at the Orange County Registrar of Voters last year. Nod, nod, wink, wink, and everyone knew the Union team (led by Fred Woocher) and Janet's team (led by Phil Greer) were cooperating throughout the whole process to find inventive ways of disqualifying as many Vietnamese votes as they could put their hands on. Can we ask ourselves why it's okay for Janet to continue cooperating with Democrats for the detriment of Republicans? In this case she was doing all she could to throw out Republican Vietnamese ballots.

*I noticed too that she kept some of Lou Correa's staffers on her county staff. You know what Reagan said, "Personnel is policy."

No one has done more in Orange County over the last 5 years to expand our Republican Party than Assemblyman Van Tran.

I think first and foremost we should keep in mind that we are talking about the Vietnamese-American community. We should be very happy that we have, on our side, the highest Viet-American elected official in the United States, in Assemblyman Van Tran. In a state like California, where Republicans struggle to attract minorities, we were able to groom and cultivate the most prominent leader of a politically ambitious immigrant community. We should embrace that opportunity, not ignore it.

My premise is that when the most prominent and most respected Republican Vietnamese-American elected official makes a SCATHING non-endorsement of a candidate he has known and supported for years, it should mean something.

Ray Haynes is giving no credit for the work that Van Tran and his organization has done; whether it is by training and fielding local candidates, by running the most successful ethnic voter registration drive this county has ever seen, or by helping Lynn Daucher come within inches of beating Lou Correa.

The fact that Van bowed out of that primary fight, endorsed Lynn, and threw his whole machine behind her tells me ALL I need to know on who the real TEAMPLAYER is here.

Ask any Daucher campaign staffer how much Janet helped during that campaign. I heard first hand from one of them that she hung up the phone on them when they called for help. Twice! Why would she, after all? If Lynn won, Janet wouldn't have had the opportunity to run for Lou Correa's seat right?

She may have been more moderate, but she was still a Republican and Assemblyman Tran and Dina Nguyen and the whole Team Tran effort threw themselves behind her effort even though it was probably contrary to Van’s long term prospect of running for Congress. When Lynn was up by a small margin election night, she made some comment about taking on “Loretta.”

So Mimi Walters is going to ignore the person with the best track record in our party in Central Orange County, endorse against the recommendation of nearly all of the Vietnamese GOP officials.

I don’t suggest that Assemblyman Tran is a kingmaker, but I do believe we should listen to the person who knows the area best.

The registration gap in Central Orange County is narrower than it has been in a decade. We need trustworthy, team-players on the front lines of this battle for hearts and minds as we fight to retake the State and Federal seats we have lost here in “America’s most Republican county.” As you can see by the information above, our current Supervisor is not a team player and puts her own personal ambition in front of what is good for our Republican Party.

All Orange County Republicans can be proud of Assemblyman Van Tran’s efforts to elect Republican Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher to State Senate last year, helping bring Daucher from nearly zero name identification to within a few thousand Election Day votes.

Despite the fact that they were initially primary opponents and the fact that Assemblyman Van Tran might be a good step to the right from Lynn, they organized hundreds of volunteer hours worth of phone calls and Vietnamese language media – and an absentee ballot program second to none. We need active, dedicated conservatives like Assemblyman Van Tran willing to work for our Republican candidates.

Finally, I would remind Republicans that the newest generations of Vietnamese voters are more open to the Democrats agenda than their parents who lived through life with the communists. Assemblyman Van Tran’s efforts in Little Saigon have kept the region Republican and his successful registration program has closed the registration gap so close that three of the top four candidates in the 2006 Supervisor’s race were Republican. Future Republican candidates will benefit from this active and united Vietnamese Republican coalition.

Remember, it was this coalition that almost made Lynn Daucher the next State Senator and this coalition is the only chance we have of taking out a Democrat member of Congress in 2010.

Do not forget that our current Supervisor from the 1st District did not carry the Vietnamese vote. GOP leaders, like Mimi, insist on endorsing against a popular Republican Councilwoman, like Dina, it will adversely effect and divide Vietnamese community’s Republican members.

In addition, everyone knows the unusual circumstances of the last election for the 1st Supervisorial District. This is certainly not the solid conservative Republican incumbency that the party’s local elected officials must rally behind.

Frankly, party leaders that insist on endorsing Janet Nguyen in what will be a contested Republican primary threatens to shatter our Republican coalition and will created resentment and bitterness in the Vietnamese-American community for years to come.

Viorel:

Making Mimi out to be a party-hopping, martini-swilling dilettante and visually implying she's taking pay-offs -- I'd say that's more than on a par with a hit piece that I think most voters wouldn't recognize as Hindu artwork. I didn't see it that way when it came to my house, and I'm not unsophisticated about world culture "stuff." My wife and I both thought it was a casino-playing card design motif.

Jubal-

Fair enough, but we'll have to agree to a gentlemen's disagreement on this one.

I never claimed that you were unsophisticated or uncultured, but I do believe the Hindu piece was intended to play to the worst subconscious discriminatory (I'm careful of using the R word) nature of some of our beloved Republican voters.

In comparison I see Sidhu's attack on Mimi being a party-hopping legislator to be distasteful at worst, while Walter's attack on Harry's culture as offensive at best.

Thanks Ray for your comments on making sure we elect conservatives. I'm sure Christy Christich appreciates them.

Fair enough.

And I didn't think you were suggesting I was unsophisticated. My point was the Hindu backdrop (if that is what is is, to give the Walters campaign the benefit of the doubt) was not obvious to me, and I usually pick up on those things pretty readily.

The Party endorsed Mimi Walters. Let us quit eating our own young. And yes, Mr. Haynes, we all know who you are talking about and no matter the size of his organized constituency, truth should always prevail, and justice should always prevail.

Despite the Sidhu and Walters campaigns, this sort of outrage has been happening in many other places within his grasp. But evil prevails when good men and women do nothing. Thank you for your comments.

I was reinvigorated when there was a resounding endorsement of Janet Nguyen at the Central Committee meeting last month. While that sent a message, apparently it did not make a big enough impression on the offender, that this (dirty politics) is not how politics are supposed to be "done", the message should have been clear. Janet was endorsed, that was good. But apparently the threats of endorsing the candidates running against those voting for her endorsement are now being followed through on. That, it seems to me, is "thug politics".

What will it take?

I believe both parties should run a clean campaign.

No more low class or racist mailers.. having said that, it was clearly WRONG for Ray Haynes to comeout and mis treat our respected Assemblyman Van Tran for his endorsement for Harry Sidhu.

...then why did they make Sidhu's face black and white. Why not black and blue?

Why not make some implied, blanket assertion about Sidhu's race/culture?

What's more, Sidhu is Seikh, not Hindu.

The point is: there were so many ways to highlight and insult Sidhu's race/culture that haven't and won't be used. We all know them because they've been exploited in popular culture (like The Simpsons).

I, like Jubal, didn't see "Hindu" in the background of the piece we're all referring to. I saw "jackpot" (like the lotto tickets you can buy at the grocery store), as in Harry Sidhu had hit the jackpot of Anaheim government pork with the 1,252 tickets he's dispersed to generate goodwill for himself.

The accusations of "racism" are totally hallucinogenic.

I've received so many mail pieces from both camps & frankly, they've both sent out mailers that I thought were questionable at best. I have to agree with Viorel on this one though - that last Sidhu hit piece about the tickets was at the very least inappropriate. And speaking of inappropriate ... oh, we're not supposed to go there.

Two Months Is Not Enough said:

1. "if he (Sidhu) were a more seasoned politician, with a better grasp of campaign dynamics and technology, he would have taken "cleaner" shots at Walters."

You gotta be kidding here. You mean Mimi Walters photoshopping Sidhu's photos to make him look darker is clean shot? On one of the recent hit pieces she even placed a Hindu style background behind his photo. You call this a clean shot at him?

Mimi Walters' message is that she is a better candidate for Senate because her opponent has darker skin and from another country. The only word that comes to my mind here is 'racism'. How many of us would want a person in our Senate who is motivated by such standards?

Such tactics make not only Mimi but also her supporters (including Ray Haynes) look bad.

2. "Both are firing off the same number of shots, but only one is hitting the target. And you're blaming her campaign for aiming better?"

LOL. I enjoy shooting guns, but I would hate to stand next to you at the shooting range. Mimi is firing off all over the place continuously failing to hit the target. Several of her shots are even backfired at her, like educating voters of Sidhu's practices of giving away to charities the tickets that are reserved to him and the ones that would be wasted if not used.

I watched Sidhu for a while and I learned that he is a conservative republican with big heart, very intelligent, generous, courageous. To me Harry Sidhu looks like a much better candidate than Mimi Walters.

If Hindu were........, I did not see that Mimi's hit piece as a jack pot card, rather racist picture against Indian candidate.

I said "hit piece" ..........meaning this particular mailer was intended to hurt her opponent Harry Sidhu... however, the problem was that intentionally/unintentionally many voters haved viewed it as racially degrading for Asian American population in our 33rd. district.

I am sure Mimi is not a racist but this mailer has kind of ...back fired/tainted on her past clean image.

"The accusations of "racism" are totally hallucinogenic."

Hmmm, not only do I question your use of the word "hallucinogenic" (how does this accusation produce hallucinations?), but I challenge your assertion that only a blatantly obvious discriminatory mailer would have the effect that Gilliard intended.

A mailer that is less obvious and plays into the sub-conscious of voters (like this one) is much more effective, and with much less blowback.

By the way, I don't blame Gilliard for making the mailer, but I do sense a hint of hipocrisy when Mimi's campaign sends out a mailer repudiating Harry's attacks as unethical, while on the other hand, on a subsequent mailer (same day??) they pull off a stunt like this.

"hipocrisy"? You mean "hypocrisy"?

Right...since I mispelled a word I shouldn't have an opinion.

Keep up that kind of mentality and you're sure to alienate everyone who hasn't already been turned off by your methods. Keep it up.

Someone on here has been throwing out the "racist" slur quite liberally, even devising conspiracy theories and associations to white power groups. Thankfully, Jubal has swept that message aside. Yes, there were some pretty far fetched statements being made, perhaps indicative of the Sidhu base of support.

But the accusations of "racism" were also hallucinational, as well. Thank you for the suggestion.

I think the word you're looking for is "hallucinative".

You're welcome.

And we need to abandon this nerdy duel of lexica before someone really gets hurt.

Ray Haynes - OC Blog- Mimi Walters-37 Comments
and not one single mention of Gina Zari. Ahhhh.... We long for the old days of Hank N Flack

Ray Haynes - OC Blog- Mimi Walters-37 Comments
and not one single mention of Gina Zari. Ahhhh.... We long for the old days of Hack N Flack

Looks like "The Real Story" isn't worth commenting about. Just the same old s--- posted over and over again.

It didn't work at the Orange County Republican Party and it won't work here.

Van Tran picked another stinker with Harry Sidhu.

Just because the guy took some money from the OCGOP, re-registered some Democrats and decline to states as Republicans so they could vote for him in the primary, it doesn't mean we should all bow down and kiss his ring.

He already gets his ring kissed enough by Andy Quach, Trung Nguyen, Andrew Nguyen, Dina Nguyen, Tri Ta and Truong Diep.

"Just because the guy took some money from the OCGOP, re-registered some Democrats and decline to states as Republicans so they could vote for him in the primary, it doesn't mean we should all bow down and kiss his ring."

Would you rather Van re-registered Republicans as Republicans? I don't get your methodology of expanding the party if you look down on a Voter Registration program that goes after Democrats and DTS. Who else should we go for? American Independent?

Van Tran's voter registration effort is questionable.

Let's not discount the fact that he was doing something that was clearly in his own self-interest. The voter registration program helps him to control more primary voters in his district, as well as SD35 and CD47.

However, Van Tran has never turned over the list of "new Republican voters" to the Orange County Republican Party, despite taking their money to fund the effort.

Hinky?

I think so.

The only people who find it questionable are Janet Nguyen and her team, whom ironically were the ones who benefit the most from it.

You don't have to "turnover" a list of new Republican voters. It is public information for everyone to see.

I wish Me-Me found it in her best interest to register some new Republicans.

Most of these comments miss the point of what I said. I don't care why any politician is involved in any other race, the debate over that race has nothing to do with the importance of conservative leaders to recognize their responsibility to the movement. When their personal agenda causes them to oppose candidates who have paid the price for the cause, they are wrong, no matter how right they may be in the other race. It really doesn't matter what Mimi is doing in any other race anywhere else in the state, I believe her election to the Senate is critical to the long term health of the conservative movement. Leaders advance the cause, not their personal desires, that is it, and that is how the movement should evaluate who conservative leaders ought to be.

With all due respect Senator, your words were clearly written in an attempt to discredit Assemblyman Van Tran's support for Harry Sidhu.

I find it hard to believe that you personally asked Van about his position before you wrote your op-ed, or else he would have told you his reasoning for supporting Sidhu. Instead, you took the opportunity to jump to conclusions (or maybe other people jumped to those conclusions FOR you) as to the reasons for Van's support for Harry. You have clearly identified Van's support for Harry as an issue of Van advancing his "personal agenda". I strongly challenge that assertion.

If your goal was to describe what makes a conservative leader , I believe you should have touched on the fact that leaders make their decisions based on their beliefs and values, not on which way the wind is blowing.

Now, you obviously believe that "her election to the Senate is critical to the long term health of the conservative movement". I would like to know how you are so sure that Van doesn't think the same thing about Harry's candidacy.

I hope you keep this in mind in the future, and I hope you get other people's side of the story in the future before you take a shot in the dark again.

I doubt that was a shot in the dark. There is a long history of Van doing what's in Van's best interest. There was also the night of the Central Committee meeting (where he was taking notes on who was voting to endorse Janet); and days before that when it is reported that he called Mimi and others running for office and told them if they voted for Janet's endorsement that he would endorse their opponents. And now he's doing it.

My opinion is that the wind is beginning to turn against Van Tran because there was such a circus made out of the 1st district election, and all the lawsuits that followed. There is hardly a day on this blog or in local papers that something isn't said to remind voters how powerful Van is or how much voting power the Viet block has; or how conservative they are or how many republicans they have registered. Yes, they have, and a great number of them too. Just look at the voting results by ethnic groups. But again who does that benefit most? Van and his Machine. But at what price to the Conservatives?

"I doubt that was a shot in the dark."

It's not a matter of opinion. If Haynes didn't ask Van his side of the story it was a shot in the dark. Pure and simple.

"But at what price to the Conservatives?"

I would LOVE to hear how you think Van's registration program is detrimental to the Conservative cause. Please explain that one to me. Enlighten me with your wisdom.