After lunchtime, the delegation heard a rousing speech from California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring, after which John Pesching, the Regional Political Director for the McCain campaign, and who served as the ground-guy for McCain in California for the primary, came forward to recognize those who lead the effort for the Arizona Senator in California:
Cassandra Vandenberg, Finance Director for California
Andrea Jones Rivera, California Campaign Manager
Regional Chairs: Bob Laurie
Anito Beck, Don Nelson: Bay Area
Brian Forrest: Central Valley
Rob Bren: Central Coast
Steve Kuykendall: Los Angeles County, Luis Averado
Robbie Hightower: Inland Empire
Chris Truax – San Diego County
Kevin Muldoon – Orange County
Volunteer Coordinators
Fred Hildbrant
Alexia Delgianni
Communications Team
Jill Buck
Chris Rubin
Coalitions Chairman
Gayle Pacheco
(Gayle read off a lot of names of volunteer leaders who are heading up various coalition groups — but, go figure, I couldn’t keep up!)
John concluded by giving a shout out to Helen Seliverstov, who worked very hard on the McCain primary victory in California and also a nod to the youngest delegate, Jackie Mahan of Orange County, and the "most senior" member of the delegation, former CRP Chairman Dr. Tirso Del Junco.
Bill Jones took the podium back to introduce the delegation staff (see my last blog post for those names), and with much hoopla presented Don Willet with a new McCain cap to replace his signature Orange "W" cap that he has been wearing 24/7 for eight years now.
Delegation Executive Director Kathy Tavoularis addressed the delegation next, thanking a great many people who are doing a lot of great things for the delegation. Again, in too quite of a fashion to scribe them — although I did catch that CRP Attorney Chuck Bell is handling legal issues for the convention delegation.
Kathy walked us all through the schedule of events, logistics and such. I think we are going to be partying-down one night IN the Mall of America (yeah, this is NOT New York).
(Disclaimer – I am sure I am misspelling some names — but I am only hearing the names, not seeing them in print.. Also, the photo of me blogging from the meeting on this post was taken by my table-mate, San Diego County Party Chairman Tony Kvaric.)
June 8th, 2008 at 12:00 am
A democrat official freshly elected to the assembly, runs for a sudden open seat in Congress, participating in a Latino vs Black political war…cheats on her home loan. A fresh face instantly ruined.
As John and Ken mentioned today, she will be in Congress for the next 25 years.
Always a hypocrite.
Making rules and regs for others to follow.
Always seeking privileges that working people never get. Always using and abusing the system.
Nice work dems.
June 9th, 2008 at 12:00 am
not to mention her stiffing an auto repair shop for repairs to her BMW.
And not to mention her putting over 30,000 miles on a city-owned Prius that she was legally entitled to use for official business as a PART-TIME city council member.
what a piece of work.