Thoughts On Possibilities "To Cantor" Various OC Reps

As the news continues to sink in on the political earthquake that happened in Virginia's 7th District last night, I was thinking about the possibilities locally here in OC of someone pulling off a similar feat in the next election cycle. My first thought is that it probably wouldn't happen here, but after last night, anything can happen when and if the stars line up. What do I mean by that? You had many circumstances come together and created the perfect storm against Eric Cantor. Some of the first things that come to my mind are...

Cantor broke the first rule in politics. He pretty much ignored his district. When you don't meet your constituents on a regular basis, you start letting pressure build up that's needs to get ventilated. The closest thing locally that I can compare this to is lame duck Congressman John Campbell. He never had townhalls and rarely met with voters. Heck he wouldn't even agree to come to local Republican Clubs. Eric Cantor had no excuse for ignoring his district. It's very close to DC. It's not like he had to fly cross country to get home every weekend. He had an hour drive south from DC to Richmond. No excuses here. This why local Congressmen like Ed Royce, Dana Rohrabacher, and Loretta Sanchez will be Congressmen/women for probably as long as they want. They all come home most weekends from DC and work the district like crazy. I hope Mimi Walters does the same thing when she gets elected. Time will tell.

There has to be a credible alternative candidate on the ballot. If you wanna drill down deeper on what constitutes a credible alternative candidate, just go read Dave Brat's background of how he pulled this victory off. There will be a book written about probably in the near future. He seemed to do everything right from my reading and analysis of the reports of what happened. He wasn't a kooky or divisive candidate. He's been involved in local politics since around 2004 volunteering for local candidates. He's been through vigorous campaign training at Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute. He had over two hundred eager precinct walkers/volunteers doing the door knocking and other voter contact stuff. He was able to leverage powerful talk radio voices like Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, and Glenn Beck to name a few to help him get his message out. He had local and national issues on his side i.e his anti amnesty position, reigning in the NSA privacy abuses, against indefinite detention(NDAA), etc. It also didn't hurt Dave Brat that Eric Cantor was a big target because of his leadership position he held in the House. In short, this really was not an accident what happened yesterday. My oh my....What is America coming to when we can't buy elections anymore. LOL

Howard Ahmanson Blasts Keith Curry

Just got the last batch of mail before the election and this one piece really stuck out to me. It's a negative mail piece against Keith Curry that is done through an IE called "Local Liberty PAC" with major funding by "Fieldstead & Company". Fieldstead is the political vehicle Howard Ahmanson donates through. The mailer itself hits Curry on bloated Newport Beach Lifeguard pensions, the cost of Newport Beach City Hall, mocks the "Bunny Henge" concrete rabbits in front of city hall, and lastly hits him hard for trying to ban fire rings. It's an outstanding piece. I just wish it had gone out earlier if they were gonna do it. Enjoy.