Lorri Galloway
She’s been telling people for months, and we’ve been posting about it here for months (and before anyone else). Now she’s making it official via a Frank Mickadeit column: former Councilwoman Lorri Galloway is running for Mayor of Anaheim against incumbent Tom Tait.
Frank writes:
Galloway’s [candidacy] is a shock, however, given their political relationship. Even though she is a Democrat and he is a Republican, they found a lot of common ground.
He may be shocked, but a lot of other people aren’t – for the reasons outlined in his column and this post over at TheLiberalOC.com.
Councilwoman Lucille Kring is likely to enter the mayoral race soon, setting up the three-way contest (four-way, if you count Rudy Gaona) Galloway is banking on as her pathway to becoming mayor.
Militant union UNITE-HERE and its symbiote OCCORD will almost certainly desert Tait and return their natural home with Galloway, who has worked closely with them for years on shared left-wing policy goals. The Left has gotten its use out of the mayor, Given a choice between a conservative who is pushing a far-reaching (and praiseworthy) government employee pension reform measure and a leftist who supports policies like a retention ordinance, the “living wage,” inclusionary housing, The lefties who have allied
The Orange County Employees Association’s magic money machine will have replenished from the more than $500,000 plunked down in a vain 2012 effort to elect John Leos to the Anaheim City Council. At that time, OCEA had made a strange alliance on behalf of one-half of the “Tait Ticket.” However, OCEA traditionally follows Lord Palmerston’s dictum: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” There will be two open council if Anaheim voters approve a June election charter amendment expanding the council to 6 members, and that will present an almost irresistable opportunity for OCEA to elect a pro-union majority to the council by backing a slate a Galloway-and-to-be-named-running-mates.
The Republicans-split-the-vote/Democrat-up-the-middle strategy sounds good on paper, but I don’t think the odds favor a Galloway win:
- Galloway’s records and stances are squarely to the left of most Anaheim voters. Her base is among low-propensity voters.
- At a time when a top priority for Anaheim voters is strengthening the police and cracking down on gangs, her ESCRI activism leaves her vulnerable “soft on crime” attacks.
- Anaheim voters love the Angels and don’t want them to leave; her calling the Angels “liars” isnt going to be a plus.
- Rudy Gaono and any other Latino candidate who enters will siphon off Latino votes (I’ll leave it to CVRA godfather Robert Rubin to debate Lorri Galloway’s ethnic purity).
- For all the money it has spent, OCEA has a poor win record in Anaheim. The Anaheim Police Association is much more effective, and they won’t support her in a million years.]
Plus, a number of local Democrats haven’t forgotten her emphatic endorsement of GOP Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher over then-Supervisor Lou Correa in 2006. Any predictions at this point are premature. Tait, Kring and Galloway all have plausible paths to victory.
He is isolated on the council dais, but Tait has the advantage of being the mayor, and most Anaheim residents (in my opinion) aren’t that tuned in to the insider fractiousness. Plus, he’s put together a campaign narrative that will resonate in the age of the Tea Party, is still liked by the average voter and has a solid base in Anaheim Hills. He’s alienated most of the coalition that drove his 2010 campaign, but he’ll keep at least a portion of OC GOP Central Committee-type activists, and he’s working harder at politics than he probably ever has.
Lucille Kring has her own strong base in the flatlands that she has cultivated over many years, and will receive the support of former Tait allies. She has solid support on the OC GOP Central Committee, making it highly unlikely the county Republican Party will endorse between two conservative Republicans in this race. She works very hard, is a tough candidate and an effective grass-roots campaigner.
There a lot of moving parts here, and it will only be more so as the months progress, Finally, filing doesn’t close until the summer, so it is entirely possible for more candidates to enter the mayoral fray.
This sure makes things a lot more interesting. It’s going to be a real sight to see how the gadflies start distancing themselves from Tait until they are finally parroting what has been warned of for months on this blog.
I haven’t been so excited since men stopped wearing spats.
Lorri Galloway may be an excellent candidate for Mayor. As council member during the wholesome years of Mayor Curt Pringle she gave ongoing recognitions to people who showed acts of kindness and partnered with Chief Welter to bring Anaheim the Family Justice Center. She made an error in judgement when she tried to ban elephants from Ringling Bros. and she must reject that and distance her campaign from the terrorist group PETA or she will have an uphill battle.