It took just shy of 15 hours between the time lurid recordings of now former Assemblyman Mike Duvall were played on network television and his abrupt resignation from office. Now the voters of the 72nd Assembly District will be facing an imminent special election to fill the vacancy in this seat, and as with most special elections, this race promises to be quote a donnybrook.
Let’s first “set the table” by making sure that FlashReport readers around California understand that the 72nd District may be one of the most conservative districts in the state. It’s heavily Republican and despite a decent showing by Barack Obama last year (where didn’t he have a good showing in California?), the voters of this inland, North Orange County seat are overwhelmingly conservative. A great many of the Democrats in this district are “Reagan Democrats” – so look for most of the action in this race to be on the GOP side of the isle. This despite the fact that in a special election like this, all of the candidates appear on the special primary ballot (probably to take place in November), with the top vote getters of each party going on to a special general election if no single candidate gets 50%+1 of the votes cast.
As of now there are two announced candidates on the Republican side of the isle (a number of others have been talked about, but have not committed to a run) – Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby who actually announced his candidacy just hours after Duvall resigned his office, and Republican National Committeewoman Linda Ackerman, who announced her candidacy late last week.
Today we had intended on presenting columns and information from each of those candidates for your review. Unfortunately the Ackerman campaign was unable to get us their submission for publication today, so that will appear in tomorrow’s FR. However, the Norby campaign did get us their submission which we’ll link to at the bottom of this analysis.
This is one of those tough situations where perhaps I am advantaged by being an elected officer of the California Republican Party, and therefore precluded from supporting Chris or Linda in this race — because this is certainly a situation where I have known both candidates for seventeen years! There will be a lot of folks out there giving their take on this primary as it develops, but here is a brief outline from my perspective.
Chris Norby goes into this race as the front-runner in my mind. Norby is currently in his second term on the Board of Supervisors, and his Supervisorial District overlaps a significant majority of this Assembly Seat. This is important because voters have already cast ballots for Norby in the past – and perhaps this is even more of an advantage given the short time frame in which the candidates have to campaign.
Norby has been a fixture in North Orange County for decades, and is known for being an “Energizer Bunny” when it comes to attending community events out and around his district. I can speak from personal experience that it is not uncommon to see (and hear) Norby, bullhorn in hand, at local sporting events.
Norby’s tenure on the Board of Supervisors has given him a platform from which to promote his conservative, libertarian principles (you can read more about those in his column). His position on the Board of Supervisors also gives him a great spot from which to raise money in this race – important because I believe that he will be significantly outspent by his opponent, and his detractors.
If Norby has two weaknesses, one would be his “sharp elbows” and the other would be some of the negative press he has received over allegations of sexual harassment (which were never proven – the matter was settled), and a bizarre incident of being found by law enforcement sleeping outside of a county building in Santa Ana. To speak to the former issue, Norby – to be blunt as only a friend can be – doesn’t “play well” with others. A principled ideologue, often times you get the feeling that it’s Chris’ way or no way at all. While this likely isn’t an issue of import to the voters (in fact to them you could spin it as a positive) – it does present obstacles for him in the political community (we’ll see how this impacts the “endorsements” game). There are many out there who would like to see Norby’s political career end when he is term-limited out of his Supervisorial seat next year. One question would be whether these folks match their distaste for Norby with contributions to his opponent, or into an independent expenditure against him.
Enter Linda Ackerman. The Ackerman name has been a fixture in North Orange County for a long time. Linda’s husband, Dick, spent many years on the Fullerton City Council before his elected to the State Assembly in the early ‘90’s (ironically, in that election, Ackerman defeated Chris Norby). Dick of course went on to serve in the State Senate where he retired last year due to term limits. He served for several years as Senate Republican Leader.
Linda, from whom we will hear tomorrow, has had years of activism in her community. But in the last year she has increased her profile as she is now serving in two important positions. Every four years the members of the California Republican Party Central Committee elect our state’s representatives to the Republican National Committee. It is a testament to Linda’s hard work for the party that she was elected, without opposition, to the position of National Committeewoman – which is a very prestigious post in the party. In addition to that, earlier this year Linda was appointed to a vacancy on the Metropolitan Water District Board of Directors.
A big plus for Ackerman will be that she shares with Norby a lot of community contacts throughout the 72nd District, but brings to play a lot of very well established Sacramento contacts. Look for Linda, who has spent a long time interfacing with the “third house” community in the Capitol to raise a lot of money from these folks – I suspect we’ll see a lot more involvement that you would normally see from these interests in a special election for a “safe” Republican seat.
As I mentioned, Linda has been very engaged in Republican politics for a long time, so look for her to be calling in a lot of chits in this race.
Of course, Linda’s candidacy is not without a challenge of its own –years ago, she and Dick moved out of North County to a home in Irvine (which was still in the sprawling 33rd State Senate District, but not in the 72nd Assembly District). In fact, a few years ago, Linda and I were both elected to the Orange County Republican Central Committee representing the 70th District (it still chafes me that Linda got more votes than I did!) – a position which she will have by now resigned as she has now moved back to her home-town of many years, Fullerton, to qualify as a candidate in this special election.
Someone will really have to pull hairs to make this campaign about differing views on issues of public policy facing California – I believe that Chris and Linda will have nearly identical positions. The most striking contrast between these two is in their personalities and way of approaching politics. It’s just hard to tell how that will get communicated to the people that matter – the voters. It will be interesting to watch the race unfold.
It’s certainly possible that other Republicans will jump into this race. Unless any of them come to the table with considerable resources, it’s hard to imagine that they will significantly impact the one-on-one nature of this contest.
I will close by saying that it is always interesting to watch a race that takes place after a major scandal (we saw this play out in San Diego in the special election to fill disgraced ex-Congressman Duke Cunningham’s seat). What will the candidates, who both supported Duvall in his campaigns, say about him? How will they try to assure voters that they represent a “clean break” from him? I am not privy to polling data, but I have to imagine that if either candidate can be closely tied to the ex-Assemblyman, that will not be helpful. Look for repudiations of his actions often in this election.
Later on we’ll profile the consultants working with these candidates (John Lewis and Matt Holder for Norby, and Matt Rexroad for Ackerman) – both are extremely aggressive so it should make for a good time for those of us who are spectators!
Today we had planned to offer you columns and information from both candidates – but we only have information from Chris Norby today – which is linked below. Tomorrow we will be running a column from Ackerman (as well as reprising the piece from Norby for anyone who misses it today). Included for each candidate will be a column, endorsements, a biography, and a link to their website.
LINK TO COLUMN FROM SUPERVISOR CHRIS NORBY
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