It’s become increasingly apparent that Orange Juice blogger Greg Diamond’s “advocacy” on political matters is hurting the Democratic Party in Orange County and our candidates more than helping it. His combative style, bullying tactics with those he disagrees with, and demands for attention in OC’s news media are a distraction at worst and a detriment at best when it comes to appealing to independent and DTS voters our party needs to get candidates elected. And with each passing week and month, it just gets worse for Diamond rather than better. But’s it’s time to give Diamond some of the attention he craves.
Diamond was ousted from a leadership position as the DPOC’s North Vice Chair; two thirds of the vote were required and the party dumped him with a 70-30 split. Now .300 is good if your a hitter in baseball at any level, but its abysmal in every other respect. And with each new blog post, each appearance at DPOC meetings, and in interactions with various members of the Central Committee and DPOC regulars that grow increasingly negative, Diamond’s stature declines further and his poor reputation starts to drag down those associated with him.
Where to begin:
Diamond all but endorsed Conservative Republican Tom Tait for re-election to the Anaheim mayoral race at Monday’s DPOC endorsement meeting claiming Democrat and former Council member Lorri Galloway wasn’t a “viable candidate” and that her presence in the race would prompt a Lucille Kring victory. Given the last two campaigns that Diamond himself has run as a candidate, he’d be an expert in what constitutes “viable candidacies.”
Diamond has written before that his poorly-run candidacy for state senate in 2012, well documented by OC Weekly’s R. Scott Moxley, was designed to keep Bob Huff away from Sharon Quirk-Silva’s assembly race in 2012. The reality is SQS ran a smart campaign focused on November and not June and had a great GOTV effort. Huff’s considerable financial resources were more than available to help Chris Norby, but Huff really didn’t, making Diamond’s claims factual only in his mind but not in reality.
Diamond routinely brings up his thousands of hours of volunteering time with Occupy, a leaderless organization where Diamond assigned himself a position that would allow him to chat with the press. While Occupy did a nice job nationally to call attention to the plight of the 99%, it failed to elect any candidates to OC office who strongly identified with the Occupy movement.
Diamond is proud of his race against District Attorney Tony Rackauckas even thought T-Rack’s margin of victory was one of the biggest out there in the June primary. There are a certain number of voters who will always vote for whatever candidate has a particular party affiliation or against any incumbent, not necessarily for Greg Diamond. Diamond had one public fundraiser, campaigned primarily via blog posts on the Orange Juice, and had missing information on a poorly designed website. His race for the water district seat will surely be as inept as his race for DA.
Diamond has already predicted his victory in the water district election over incumbent Brett Barbre; but in Diamond’s mind, a victory usually means he got 30% of the vote and provided voters with a choice. That’s not a victory, it’s delusional thinking.
Diamond’s latest pitch is for the DPOC, an organization in much better financial shape these days, to fork over $5,000 a year to political operatives in Ferguson, MO to help African-American candidates run for and win city council seats; many Democrats in OC would prefer to keep the cash right here to benefit Democratic candidates in this county. It’s not the DPOC’s charter to help Democrats anywhere but in OC.
Generally speaking, one gets the impression Diamond wants to run the party here in OC and is much like Tom Tait…a “my way or the highway” kind of person. In a party that is supposed to have a big tent that embraces many ideas, Diamond routinely denigrates and attempts to harm the reputation of anyone who has a different position from himself.
Diamond is unaware of how many people just reject his brand of politics; every anonymous commenter is either me or Matt Cunningham. I don’t have a single IP anonymizer on my systems and they know my IP address at OJ. But conspiracy theorists need an enemy.
Under the page of “you can’t pick your in-laws,” Diamond is the brother-in-law of long time party activist Jeff Letourneau and Jeff was seen working Central Committee members over to sway enough no votes to save Diamond’s North Vice Chair position. It didn’t work because when the vote came down, there were several members who were considered Diamond “friends” who voted for explusion. The lobbying has hurt Letourneau as well with some Central Committee members telling me his association with Diamond is hurting him. Jeff needs to know you can’t pick your in-laws. Jeff actually gave his time to speak at the last meeting for Lorri Galloway to address the Party at Monday’s meeting in defiance of his brother-in-law’s recommendation that she not be endorsed.
Oddly enough, Republicans who want Lucille Kring to win in Anaheim, use Tait’s affiliation with Diamond and support of Dr. Jose Moreno to paint Tait as a faux conservative. Tait and Kring are likely to split the Republican vote in Anaheim. Tait wants to peel off Democratic and Latino votes that represent Galloway’s base. Galloway’s strong track record of working with Republicans on the council to get positive progressive change done in Anaheim is well documented. The more Diamond promotes Tait, the more it hurts Tait with Republicans.
About the only elected Democrats that ever seem to get nothing but praise from Diamond are State Rep. Sharon Quirk-Silva and Garden Grove mayoral candidate Bao Nguyen. Loretta Sanchez, Tom Daly, Lou Correa, Larry Agran, Beth Krom, Jordan Brandman — all with several election wins under their belts — have earned Diamond’s scorn on more than one occasion. If only Diamond were so critical of Republicans.
Diamond’s recent post on Orange Juice, about supporting efforts to elect more African-American candidates in Ferguson, MO, has merit but he wants to spend other people’s money to do this — namely the DPOC. I’d rather see DPOC money staying here to pay the organization’s bills, support candidates who need more fundraising help, fund GOTV initiatives and voter registration drives and bank some for a rainy day. Frankly, it galls me that someone who routinely berates business Democrats would call on them to fund an effort in another state. From Diamond’s post, it sure sounds like he wants to go to Missouri himself to help these people get elected. On December 31, 2014, there’s a one-way fare from OC to St. Louis for $206. Just how long do you think it would take for me to raise $206 to pay for Diamond’s airfare if he promised to relocate to Ferguson and move out of his humble abode in Brea? I’m guessing 10-15 minutes after this post goes up.
Diamond’s political reputation isn’t beyond saving. He can rebuild it, if he chooses too, but will require one on one communication with those he’s angered, being humble, listening more than speaking and perhaps working on being a better soldier than a someone who believes he’s a general. And its not an overnight conversion. Many of the party influencers I speak with tell me Greg talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk. There’s a lot of chatter about what the party should do but he’s never around to actually do it. Diamond’s choices are pushing people he needs away and its really hard to accomplish anything in the Party on your own. But hey, he can always go DTS.