Posts Tagged ‘2010’
In OC at least, incumbents fared well
Nationally, 2010 definitely was a star-crossed political year, as most incumbents did all they could to cross off that little * that noted their incumbency. And, it turned out, they had good reason to, as the roll call in both the House and the Senate and the names on the door of many Governors’ offices will change dramatically, come January.
Not so in Orange County.
In our city council races, 63 incumbents were on the ballot, and 48 will be staying on their respective councils – roughly three-quarters of them. Just 15 lost their re-election bids, including several LP&A friends – Joel Bishop in Dana Point, Toni Iseman in Laguna Beach (once a great Coastal Commission member), Craig Scott in Laguna Niguel, Richard Dixon in Lake Forest and Neil Blaise in Rancho Santa Margarita.
It was much the same with OC’s water and special district races, as 78 percent of the incumbents held their seats, including all the incumbents at the water districts on the LP&A client list – Irvine Ranch, Moulton Niguel and Mesa Consolidated (with the possible exception of Jim Fisler for the short-term seat at Mesa, which currently remains too close to call). We have some friends among the incumbents who will be leaving: Richard Dietmeier at South Coast and John Summerfield and Bill Mills at Yorba Linda, but were most surprised to see Arlene Schafer voted off the Mesa Sanitary Board. Arlene is a star who has given tirelessly of herself to promote and protect the interests of Special Districts.
All members of the OC Congressional delegation survived their challenges, most by margins of 30 points or more, although Loretta Sanchez didn’t know until late in the evening that she had defeated her Republican challenger, Van Tran. The same incumbent-friendly aura covered our Sacramento delegation, except perhaps Democrat incumbent Tony Mendoza in the 56th, who leads his GOP challenger Henry Bestwick by just 96 votes out of 12,247 ballots counted thus far.
Our congrats go to all the winners, and to those who lost, our thanks for their public service and our best wishes to them in their next endeavors.
What Really Matters
The Field Poll recently asked a scientifically valid number of Californians (who, we’re sure, feel just great about having been scientifically validated) a pretty important question as primary season rolls around:
Thinking of the November election for Governor, how important will the candidates’ position on each of the following issues be to you in deciding whom you would support?
The issues were asked in random order; here they are alphabetically: crime/prisons, education, environmental protection, gasoline prices/energy, global warming, health care, illegal immigration, jobs/economy, state budget deficit, taxes and water.
Only those living in a time warp would be surprised that economic issues rocked the vote … and rocked it hard. Jobs and the economy was ranked most important by almost 60 percent, followed closely by the state’s budget, a few decimal points behind. At the other end of a scale, in near-lockstep for the last two positions were environmental protection and global warming. A scant 23 percent of those polled ranked the imminent destruction of the planet by greenhouse gases as the top priority in their decision-making.
We wonder why, given these results, politicians throughout the state, from Sacramento to local city councils, remain so deferential to environmental interests when these greater environmental protections (as if the laws on the books don’t go far enough already!) come at the cost of jobs.
