The “Stop Special Interest Money Now” initiative has qualified for the November 2012 ballot, with more than a little help from friends at the two big OC-based GOP support groups, the New Majority and Lincoln Club. They raised about half of the $1 million spent gathering signatures for the measure, which targets the close relationship between public employee unions and Democratic politicians. New Majority L.A. members William Bloomfield, Frank Baxter and former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan donated a combined $350,000, while the Lincoln Club and its members contributed about $200,000. The initiative would, among other things, prohibit unions and corporations from directly contributing to state and local candidates. The campaign is sure to be heated and expensive …
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney leads in the race for billionaire contributors. He has 42 of them, followed by 30 for President Obama, 20 for Rick Perry and 12 for Jon Huntsman, reports The Washington Post, which matched donor rolls to the Forbes rich list. The Insider’s check of the OCBJ rich list finds three of OC’s 12 billionaires in the game—Donald Bren and George Argyros for Romney, heiress Anne Catherine Getty Earhart for Obama. Among part-time-resident OC billionaires, Angels owner Arte Moreno backs Romney, Las Vegas gaming exec Frank Fertitta is for Huntsman and Warren Buffett, of course, supports Obama …
Laguna Beach political consultant Fred Karger’s quixotic presidential run has drawn the attention of the Boston Globe: “The first openly gay presidential candidate has spent 74 days in the Granite State (New Hampshire), more than any other Republican candidate for president.” It’s now up to 90 days, a Karger spokesperson said last week …
Don Koll’s death last week (see page 1) was a double blow to wife Kathi, who lost her brother just days earlier …
JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano is going Hollywood (Kari Hamanaka’s column, page 32) …
Oilman T. Boone Pickens, largest shareholder of Seal Beach-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp., keynotes a First Foundation luncheon Wednesday at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach …
The World Affairs Council’s Thursday holiday gala at the Disneyland Hotel includes a Middle East briefing from former Coalition Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt and a tribute to GOP guru Tom Fuentes …
The honors are piling up for Fuentes, who has terminal cancer. Over the weekend he was receiving the national Catholic-Scouting St. George Award …
It was vintage Jim Doti at Chapman U’s annual economic conference when he mentioned the losing bid for Crystal Cathedral. “Maybe we can buy this place,” he kidded, surveying the nearly filled 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall. But no, he continued with the gag, Chapman is “tapped out” because it’s buying USC …
In line with most other economists, Doti and Essie Adibi see a slow recovery …
Doti and Adibi say they don’t believe their own forecast that shows the Republicans winning the White House next year, even though their economic model would have correctly predicted 15 of the last 16 races (only missing Kennedy-Nixon in 1960.)
