It's official. President Barack Obama will hold a town hall meeting Wednesday at 4 p.m. March 18th. at the Orange County Fairgrounds.
We're all abuzz here in Orange County. CA, also known as The OC, although more accurately depicted in the Bluth family saga. Republicans used to boast that this was THE Red County, the county that gave a bigger Republican plurality than any other county in the nation.
With three million people, the OC used to deliver 300,000 vote pluralities to Republicans in big elections. In 1988 Bush I came out of the OC with 67.8% of the vote, and a 317,000 vote plurality. As recently as 2006, Governator Schwarzenegger trounced Phil Angelides by 507,413 votes to 185,388.
Suburban Warriors does a great job of describing how Orange County was a "prototype:the first functional form of a new conservative milieu that appeared less distinctly elsewhere."
If there was one home to the new movement conservatism that started with Goldwater, was sold by Reagan, and bastardized by GWB, it's in this incubator.
Even today, our county supervisor are considering giving education funds to an abstinence only education program after taking money away from community health clinic programs because they were run by Planned Parenthood. We have one Congressman who wants us to Go Galt and another who came up with an earmark for a fundamentalist college with accreditation problems.
In 2008, shell-shocked local Republicans were amazed to see that McCain had carried the county by fewer than 30,000 votes. In some of the "safest" Republican districts in the country, Dana Rohrabacher could only get 52% of the vote, Ken Calvert won narrowly, and Obama carried the district of John "Going Galt" Campbell.
Obama's going to be in Orange County Wednesday for a town hall meeting that's open to the public, and for California Democrats this is big news. Obama's not going to Los Angeles or San Francisco.
The President is headed into the belly of the beast.
The significance can't be underestimated. Obama is sending a clear and uncompromising signal that he is going to play everywhere in 2010, and play offense instead of defense.
Don't be surprised if his words remain post-partisan. The message is clear and unmistakable, and it's in the choice of venues.
There's a powerful message here too about the media. Orange County is the largest urban market without a local TV station, and a market where the only major newspaper is owned by a wacky glibertarian outfit that slants the news in myriad ways. Obama's short-circuiting the national cable folks and coming into local homes without the skewing of the national media.
For those of us "Behind the Orange Curtain", it's as exciting as it is brilliant.