Moments before President Bush made nice with Nancy Pelosi at the State of the Union, he had a warm greeting for another Democratic congresswoman,OC’s Loretta Sanchez. Sanchez, angling for the TV cameras in a bright blue dress and perched along the railing, got a smile and handshake from the commander in chief as he made his way into the House chamber. The moment was captured on television,but what words passed between them? the Insider asked Sanchez. “He said, ‘Hola, chica.’ I said, ‘Hello, George.’ That’s the kind of relationship we have …
Usually we hug and kiss. He knows the Latino thing” …
Love obviously was in the political air last Tuesday. While Republican Bush reached out to Dems, the two parties also were getting along a continent away at the OC Biz Council annual dinner in the Hyatt Regency Irvine. Supe candidates Tom Umberg and Carlos Bustamante greeted each other warmly, county party chiefs Scott Baugh and Frank Barbaro shared a table, and D.C.’s strange bedfellows, Mary Matalin and James Carville, entertained …
Carville told the 700 attendees not to be surprised if there is a viable third party and even fourth party presidential candidate in 2008. On the topic of immigration, Carville quoted a Swiss economist: “We asked for a labor force, but human beings showed up” …
Commercial real estate is hot and you only turn 60 once, so why not throw a two-night party at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas for 400 family members, associates and friends? And if your featured entertainer, Godfather of Soul James Brown, happens to die, well, you still have the Blues Brothers (Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi), Jerry Lee Lewis, the Coasters and comedian Louie Anderson. So it was “party on” this past weekend for fun-loving Tony Thompson,founder and chairman of Triple Net Properties, the big tenant-in-common real estate investor/manager in Santa Ana,and two buddies also hitting six-oh: former Econo Lube exec Tim O’Brien of Newport Beach and UCLA Associate AD Ken McGuire. The price tag? Thompson only would say, ” I told my three daughters and two son-in-laws to enjoy themselves because they were seeing their inheritance dissipate” …
This might be Roger Tefft’s biggest challenge since the VP of legal affairs for Tustin-based Mimi’s Cafe was a cub reporter for EE RR: Wife Lesley Young, a deputy OC prosecutor, gave birth to triplets at Saddleback Memorial. Spencer Ross, Jennifer Lauren and Melissa Ann join five-year-old Connor …
A belated announcement of another OCBJ arrival: Jaden Michael Michota to Jennifer Michota and Chota Media’s Michael Michota …
Los Miserables: Supe John Moorlach’s idea of merging the small but independent-minded north-coastal communities of Seal Beach, Los Alamitos, Sunset Beach and Rossmoor elicited this e-mail from Los Al’s Jody Shloss: “A lofty goal. After you pull that off you could next govern Iraq.”
