Carlos Harrison got a call two weeks ago from his accountant and fellow Hispanic 100 member Manny Ramirez: Would he like to open up his Santa Ana print shop to Republican presidential candidate John McCain? “Next thing I know, we had all these people here!” Political junkies, campaign staff, television trucks, reporters, neighbors,throw in C & H;’s workforce of about 100 and close to 200 people converged. Cameras rolled as McCain delivered a key address on the housing crisis and conferred with Harrison and other Hispanic businesspeople. Harrison’s wife Suzanne and daughter Kimberly, who work at C & H;, watched in person; son Carlos and a brother were back in his native El Salvador viewing it on CNN. Harrison said he exchanged pleasantries with McCain, who already had his vote: “I think he’s a sincere, honest person, pro business. I’m very much for that” …
From industrial Santa Ana, McCain went to the plush Island Hotel in Newport Center where some protesters gathered outside and Donald Bren and 500 other luminaries and supporters greeted him inside. The luncheon raised $800,000 for McCain; his total take on the three-day California swing, overseen by Irvine political consultant Gary Hunt (California Strategies), was $4 million …
Accompanying McCain and Hunt was the campaign’s new co-chair and former Mitt Romney backer Meg Whitman. She steps down this week after a celebrated 10-year run as CEO of eBay …
This week the city of Irvine launches the “i shuttle” in the John Wayne Airport area,30-seat buses running every 10 to 15 minutes during business hours …
Oceana, an environmental lobbying group favored by the Hollywood crowd, will honor Harrison Ford, Sam Waterston and Ted Danson at a celebrity-studded fundraiser July 18 at the Cahill estate in Laguna Beach. Julie Hill, event co-chair with Valarie Whiting and Nancy Christiano, says OC Republicans are being wooed, too: “We’ve tapped into the wives of the power brokers” …
Last December, Irvine-based Freedom Com-munications, holding company of the OC Register, scrapped a ballpark $500 million buyout of its 45% private equity investors Blackstone Group and Providence Equity Partners and set a new target of summer 2008 to complete a deal enabling the Hoiles family-run company to remain independent. Freedom officials blamed tightening credit markets for the delay. It hasn’t gotten any better since. CEO Scott Flanders says Freedom has now pushed back its refi target date until next year. Blackstone and Providence have the option of cashing out in May 2009; Flanders says Freedom will be able to complete a deal despite the toll of a prolonged daily-newspaper-industry downturn …
After a dinner with Sir Eldon and lunch with Romanian Prince Radu, what does OC’s World Affairs Council do for an encore? Dinner with weapons inspector Hans Blix on April 3; dinner with Naval Air Forces Commander Tom Kilcline Jr. on April 15; and a May 2 gala at the Balboa Bay Club featuring U.N. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.
