An Entire Afternoon With Duncan Hunter

Yesterday Lynn and I were invited to attend a house reception down in Coto de Caza for Presidential candidate Duncan Hunter(no I didn't see any of the so called "Real Housewives of OC" if you were wondering). I want to say a special thanks to Karla Drew and the Olson & McAlister family(Downey Savings founders), whom I've known for many years, for hosting the reception. Lynn and I got to ask many questions and hear many great stories from the Congressman. He also brought with him his wife Lynne. She is very charming & down to earth. They're two great people.

I would say Congressman Hunter is in the second tier group of GOP candidates right now. He has done well in both debates so far and there is another one coming up in NH in a few days. Besides Tom Tancredo and Ron Paul, he is probably the strongest candidate on border security. He knows it well. He sponsored and had built the border fence down in San Diego. He's pushing Homeland Security to build the 800 mile border fence that was signed last year by the President. According to him, HS has over a billion in cash sitting in an account designated for the fence. They're dragging their feet on it hoping for the mileage to get reduced by the current proposed amnesty bill. I told him the story of how Lynn and I first met compliments of the Dornan family back on election night in 1996 hanging out at the Westin SCP watching election returns. He returned the favor by telling one of his favorite Bob Dornan stories of how he originally got on the Armed Services Committee after he got elected to Congress in 1980. He said a bunch of California GOP Congressmen were vying for one seat on the committee, including Bob Dornan. He said that during Bob's speech in front of the Steering Committee, Bob ended up throwing his support to Duncan and he ended up winning the seat by one vote. Cool story. He told me that he put together the bill to pardon border agents Ramos & Compean(excellent).

I also had a chance to meet 71st Assembly District candidate Neil Blais who was there rubbing elbows. He told me that he's running for the seat full time. He's also in the process of getting a CRA unit up and going for the Santa Margarita area(good idea). I asked how much he thought it was going to take to win the seat. He thinks it will take in between 500 to 800k. He has hired Johnson Clark to do his consulting for the race. I told him that my take was that the race was probably between he and Jeff Miller. I just hope the seat stays in the hands of an OC'r. I told him not to underestimate Steven Choi. Steven is a fierce campaigner. He came out of nowhere to win a seat on the Irvine City Council.