It didn’t take long for Dana Rohrabacher’s latest rhetorical shot to ricochet back to his Huntington Beach-based 48th District, where recent polling looked into the prospects of a challenge from within the GOP. The 13-termer with libertarian leanings went on the radio in mid-June to say that House Speaker John Boehner should be stripped of his post if he gets an immigration bill through without a majority of Republicans on board. The poll of 302 likely primary voters came a few weeks later, finding Rohrabacher with a 49% favorable rate. It pushed from there, asking respondents about other potential GOP candidates, who combined to beat Rohrabacher 46% to 27% on favorables, according to limited results obtained by the Insider. The edge narrowed to 46% to 37% among Republican respondents, and there’s no word yet on who was put up as hypothetical challengers. The poll pushed a little more, giving respondents “negative information about the various candidates.” Rohrabacher fell further against the hypothetical field, which topped him on favorables by 52% to 19% after the dirt was dished … No word, either, on who paid for the poll, but a familiar source says it came from a “cross-section of the business community,” adding that it’s not for any particular candidate “but to see if there’s an opportunity for change for a district that’s become far more sophisticated over the last 30 years” …
Was there some pre-emptive PR in the big spread in the Register’s own business section last week featuring Publisher Aaron Kushner and partner Eric Spitz talking about their first year in charge of the daily? Deep into the generally upbeat report was word that the paper missed expectations in the second quarter, along with a typical Kushner duck on a question about profitability and an acknowledgment of recent rumors that 401(k) matches for employees were canceled this year. That’s a departure from the mostly cheery coverage of the Register’s moves to bulk up its newsroom and coverage over the past year—USA Today and the Guardian in London joined the cheering section with nice pieces last week …
The Boston Herald got less attention for a recent report on a claim by former Time Inc. CEO Jack Griffin, who says he’s owed $10 million for his work as an adviser to Kushner and his 2100 Trust LLC before the Register acquisition. The case is in New York Civil Supreme Court …
Next week we’ll bring you our annual Special Issue on OC’s Wealthiest—and we can already tell you they had a pretty good year, by and large. Then there are the ones who don’t make the list because they aren’t exactly local, even if they have interesting ties to OC. Count Guo Guangchang as the latest in that category. Guangchang’s fortune is estimated at $2.7 billion by Forbes, and his Shanghai-based Fosun International just took a stake in St. John Knits, as our Kari Hamanaka reports on page 1 …
From billionaires to “Millionaire”: Look for Wing Lam of Wahoo’s Fish Taco to make a difference down in Mobile, Ala., during the Sept. 1 airing of The Secret Millionaire on ABC.
